story, the Japanese would change their codes. If they did, the extraordinary work that had gone into breaking the codes would be lost. And worse, the American window into their enemy’s planning would close. To them, it was literally a case of “loose lips” endangering not only ships, but the entire war effort. As Elliot Carlson—a journalist himself—tells it, Johnston was a chummy but low-level reporter whose good nature and heroic actions contributed to Navy officer friends letting him know far more than he should have and far too little about how sensitive that information was. He did not intend to hand the Japanese an intelligence coup—he was no spy, after all. His story was, as this book’s title says, a “blunder,” made worse by editors who skirted—or misunderstood—military censorship to buy themselves a scoop. It was one of many missteps, oversights, and episodes of sloppy security and bad judgments that led to what could have been the greatest intelligence screw-up of the war. Carlson’s meticulous research and supple writing leads us through the steps of how Stanley Johnston acquired his great scoop and how—against both regulations and common sense—that scoop ended up on the front pages of an American newspaper. Carlson makes it easy to understand how, in the crush of deadline pressure and journalistic competition, newspaper editors rushed to print a story that opened a window into secrets they had no idea existed. But the biggest “what were they thinking?” blunder in the story is not the one committed by the hapless Johnston; it is in the political decision in Washington to use the newspaper’s mistake to punish the Chicago Tribune. The publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Robert R. McCormick, was an ardent foe of Franklin Roosevelt. He had fought the Isolationist fight until it was no longer tenable. Afterwards, in the eyes of FDR’s administration, McCormick’s news coverage and editorials came as close to aiding and comforting the enemy as it was possible to get. Seizing on the Johnston blunder, Washington made a political decision to attack McCormick and his paper in the courts. Having fought for years to gain access to the records that tell the story of the ultimately fruitless attempt to prosecute,
Carlson lays out the inside story of how this information ended up in print and how, at the last minute, the Navy’s intelligence officials took the great professional risk of stonewalling the government’s own prosecutors to protect one of the secrets that won the war. Stanley Johnston’s Blunder is a wellwritten insight into some of the very real characters whose actions—sometimes gallant and sometimes foolish—shape the events of their times in ways they could never imagine. In Stanley Johnston’s case, it is a blessing that he did not affect the war’s outcome in any big way—the Japanese apparently did not subscribe to the Chicago Tribune. And so, the Americans kept reading their mail. Richard O’Regan Toronto, Ontario Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic by William J. Fowler Jr. (Bloomsbury, New York, 2017, 368pp, illus, biblio, notes, index, isbn 978-1-6204-0908-4; $30hc) In the twentieth century, a battle raged on the high seas for the supremacy of the North Atlantic, pitting German submarines against the navies of the Allies. In the midnineteenth century, a battle for the Atlantic was also underway—not military warfare, but economic—between two companies poised on different sides of the ocean. From Liverpool, England, steamed the ships of the British North American Royal Mail Steamship Packet Company; from New York City, the liners of the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company. These companies, better known by their owners, Samuel Cunard and Edward Knight Collins, fought for control of the lucrative North Atlantic passenger trade. This story is not new, but in Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce in the North Atlantic, noted maritime historian William Fowler Jr. draws upon his decades of maritime and literary experience to weave together a narrative of technology, finance, government, and secret deals to bring to light the true scale of this endeavor. William Fowler is known by many for his monumental tome, America and the Sea: A Maritime History and Jack Tars and
Commodores: The American Navy, 1783– 1815. A distinguished professor emeritus from Northeastern University, his interests have never ventured far from the sea. His account of this transAtlantic competition delves into the Space Race of the day, trying to deliver passengers across the North Atlantic on a regular scheduled liner service. Previous attempts with sailing vessels, such as the Black Ball Line, were moderately successful, but dependence on the wind always impacted schedules. It was the introduction of steam propulsion, after the successful crossings by ships like Savannah, Sirius, and Great Western, that stimulated Edward Collins to venture beyond his successful Dramatic Line, a sailing packet line out of New York, to build the greatest steam liners of the day. Nearly at the same time, Samuel Cunard of Halifax sought to establish a regular steamship service to Nova Scotia. Both men shared a similar vision for their nations and embarked on the means to achieve their goals. Their ambitions set them on similar courses. Collins worked with the US Congress to net a mail subsidy to offset the cost for his vessels, while Cunard adopted a similar arrangement with the British Admiralty. The results were two competing steam packet services. In Steam Titans, Fowler does not merely recount these tales, but discusses the different philosophies of the two shipping magnates and the challenges that they faced. The book brings to light what it was like to sail into the port of Liverpool, why it developed as a counterpoint to New York, and the difficulties that ships faced with the massive tides of the Mersey. He discusses what it was like to book passage on one of the Cunard or Collins liners and the massive difference in the passenger trade of the mid-nineteenth century to the large-scale movement of people toward the beginning of the next. Perhaps the best element in Fowler’s book is his discussion of the relationship and secret agreement worked out by the two rivals. Today, only Cunard remains afloat with three ships—Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary 2, and Queen Victoria—identified with the line and bearing the image of Samuel Cunard on board. The name Cunard represents the pinnacle and height of luxury in terms of oceanic sailing. Collins, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.
SEA HISTORY 163, SUMMER 2018 59