The Colonel and the Pacifist shows what can go wrong when a country is beset by war hysteria and the civilian heads of the military are swayed by a persuasive officer to set up a program that tramples the rights of a whole ethnic group. No charges of subversion or sabotage were ever filed against any of the 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from the West Coast and incarcerated “for the duration” in makeshift camps. (There were arrests for violating the exclusion order and later for refusing to be drafted from an internment camp, or for disruptive behavior within camps.)

Because Bendetsen’s hometown is also hers, she starts the story in Aberdeen, and contrasts Bendetsen’s actions with the different experience of Perry Saito, his neighbor and one of his innocent captives. The book probes a past that Bendetsen apparently wanted to revise and consistently denied. The Colonel and the Pacifist is the definitive  account of Bendetsen’s life, revealing the duplicity and dishonesty in his falsifying of his actions and beliefs.

Photo : In early 1942 then-Major Bendetsen discusses with an aide how to divide populations of Japanese-descended residents in preparation for writing evacuation orders.