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b'Could one American diplomat have prevented the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? The answer might be yes. America\\u2019s ambassador to Japan in 1941, Joseph Grew, certainly thought so. He saw the writing on the wall\\u2014economic sanctions were crippling Japan, rice was rationed, consumer goods were limited, and oil was scarce as America\\u2019s noose tightened around Japan\\u2019s neck. Japan and the U.S. were locked in a battle of wills, yet Japan refused to yield to American demands.

In this episode, I speak with Lew Paper, author of "In the Cauldron: Terror, Tension, and the American Ambassador\\u2019s Struggle to Avoid Pearl Harbor." He describes how the United States and Japan were locked in a cauldron of boiling tensions and of one man\\u2019s desperate effort to prevent the Pearl Harbor attacks before they happened.

Through "In the Cauldron," Paper reveals new information\\u2014mined from Grew\\u2019s diaries, letters, official papers, the diplomatic archives, and interviews with Grew\\u2019s family and the families of his staff\\u2014to present a compelling narrative of how the militaristic policies of Imperial Japan collided with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\\u2019s determination to punish Japanese aggression in the Far East.

We look at Pearl Harbor attack inside the ambassador\\u2019s perspective through Paper\\u2019s revelation of:
\\u2022 Grew\\u2019s personal diaries detailing the events leading up to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor
\\u2022 Personal interviews with Grew\\u2019s family and staff, giving the inside look into Grew\\u2019s struggle to prevent the attacks
\\u2022 Detailed accounts of the correspondence between Grew and other State Department officials about the warning signs leading up to the Pearl Harbor attacks
\\u2022 An in-depth look into the fast-depreciating lives of the Japanese people and how their struggles and cultural ideology contributed to the fatal attacks'