A related question were there public figures at the time who were apologists that tried to justify for the actions of the Japanese military at Pearl Harbor?

I'm not aware of any conspiracy theories that Pearl Harbor was a US government attack.

However, there are some conspiracy theories that the US government knew the Japanese planned to attack and did nothing about it. Gore Vidal was one who espoused this theory. See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/may/17/pearl-harbor-an-exchange/ for example.

Note that there is a difference between the US government attempting constrain Japanese ambitions (which could be seen as provocation), and them knowing about the Pearl Harbor operation.