Amazon Category:  Mainstream Publisher: Doubleday ISBN-10:  0385473532 ISBN-13: 9780385473538 An investigation into a weapons deal that altered the direction of the U.S.-Japan relationship.

Library Journal
Shear, the author of articles on many of the thematic components of this book-technology, aerospace, and international affairs-relates the story of how Japan got hold of the biggest secrets of the U.S. aerospace industry, the only industry in which they have not yet beaten us soundly in world markets. Regardless of the risk to the U.S. economy, the Japanese were given the technology that would make their FS-X (Fighter Support Experimental) plane a reality. The book opens with a description of Hirohito's funeral, at which then-President Bush was in attendance. This period of transition, Shear asserts, heralded the end of an era of Japanese traditionalism, with a young "salaryman emperor" taking over. What ensues is a story about deals made in hot tubs, Japanese playboys, incredibly stupid politicians, and good old American greed. It makes for entertaining reading for those interested in scandal on the global scale. Recommended for business collections.
Lisa K. Miller, Paradise Valley Community Coll. Lib., Phoenix

Publishers Weekly
The already rancorous U.S.-Japan trade relationship was exacerbated in the late '70s, when research entrepreneur Ryozo Tsutsui launched a campaign to revive his country's once-great aircraft industry through an experimental fighter called the FS-X. Shear's well-researched study reports on the advocacies of and oppositions to codevelopment of the plane both in Tokyo and Washington, punctuated by Tsutsui's blunt declaration that Japan could build a better fighter faster and more cheaply alone. American officials began to understand that the Japanese were threatening to surpass the U.S. in aircraft manufacture, one of the last areas of American high-tech dominance. Yet the U.S. handed over to Japan massive amounts of sophisticated aircraft technology. Freelance journalist Shear recounts in detail the complex, appalling story of why and how this was allowed to happen.

Kirkus Reviews
Freelance journalist Shear arrestingly reconstructs a notably bad bargain the US struck with Japan during a period when, despite an immense trade deficit, Washington was willing to pay almost any price to keep the island nation on its side in the Cold War. Drawing on interviews with key players, a wealth of government documents, and contemporary news reports, Shear offers a tellingly detailed, chronological account of how Japan, after almost a decade of effort dating back to the early 1980s, largely got its way on the co-development of the FS-X, an experimental support fighter plane, for the country's militia-like defense forces. The resultant program, the author argues, could give Japan the advanced technology and know-how it needs to become a world-class competitor in aerospace/avionics markets long dominated by American suppliers like Boeing, General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas. While his worst-case scenario--that Japan will snatch a sizeable chunk of this crucial export business--remains to be proved, Shear does a fine job of explaining how the steely resolve of career bureaucrats and intra-agency conflicts can influence, even shape or deform, the policy judgments of elected legislators. He also contrasts the patient, end-in-view nationalism of Dai Nihon's single-minded mandarins with the tactical frenzies of US pols who, though not unmindful of economic consequences, tend to favor expedient solutions to epidemic problems. Covered as well are the commercial implications for American industry, whose decisive edge in state- of-the-art software may have been squandered in the cause of a patron/prot‚g‚ alliance whose rationale has long since been overtaken by events. A cautionary tale that goes a long way toward clarifying why ``East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.''