NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

Yamamoto made no such boast — the quote was taken
out of context from a private letter in which he h
ad made precisely the opposite point. He could not
imagine an end to the war short of his dictating
terms in the White House, he wrote — and since Jap
an could not hope to conquer the United States, th
at outcome was inconceivable.
In fact, Yamamoto was one of the most colorful, ch
arismatic and broad-minded naval officers of his g
eneration. He had graduated from the Japanese Nava
l Academy in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War.
As a 21-year-old ensign, he fought in one of the m
ost famous sea battles in history — the Battle of
Tsushima, in 1905, a lopsided Japanese victory tha
t shocked the world and forced Czar Nicholas II to
sue for peace. Yamamoto was wounded in the action
and wore the scars to prove it — his lower midsec
tion was badly pockmarked by shrapnel, and he lost
two fingers on his left hand.
In the course of his naval career, he traveled wid
ely through the United States and Europe, learning
enough English — mostly during a two-year stint a
t Harvard soon after World War I — to read books a
nd newspapers and carry on halting conversations.
He read several biographies of Lincoln, whom he ad
mired as a man born into poverty who rose to becom
e a “champion” of “human freedom.”
From 1926 to 1928 he served as naval attache in Wa
shington; while in America, he journeyed alone acr
oss the country, paying his way with his own meage
r salary, stretching his budget by staying in chea
p hotels and skipping meals. His travels revealed
the growing power of the American industrial machi
ne. “Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Det
roit and the oil fields in Texas,” he would later
remark, “knows that Japan lacks the national power
for a naval race with America.”
Yamamoto didn’t drink; for vices, he preferred wom