On the other hand the Yamamoto did a lot of sneaky things. They hid their approach to the islands and they tried to time the attacks so that they occurred simultaneously with the declaration of war. I'm thinking he knew he was being sneaky because it was his best strategy. The element of surprise protected his ships and men.

That's just good military (or naval) work. To be "sneaky" can be a high military virtue.

Now the political strategy expressed in the attacks being simultaneous with a declaration of war MAY be criticizable, if not culpable, but the admirals et al., having their orders to attack, had a duty to hide their approach, to attack at the hour in morning on a day when watchfulness might be expected to be low, thus "sneaky". Nothing wrong with that.

In any case, this has nothing to do with Truman, who was merely a lightly-regarded Senator at the time.

Dave Oesterreich