I read a really good NY Times article around 2012, about this guy - I think it was called "An Uncommon Enemy" or something like that, and had an illustration of a Japanese Zero alongside a moth of some sort. Supposedly, Yamamoto was an admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was in charge of the Pearl Harbor attack. But allegedly, he also was against Imperial Japan going to war with the US, and also attended much of his education in the US, before WWII. I recall him even admiring Abraham Lincoln. Is any of this true?
I believe I have found the article in question here.
It is also a terrible article.
To claim that Yamamoto was some sort of unique, prescient figure in Imperial Japan is rather disrespectful of the many other Japanese officers and officials who were just as aware of how war with the US was a bad idea. Many of these men, like Admiral Nagumo, had also been to the United States, and were perfectly aware of its massive industrial capacity. They even protested to Yamamoto that this was a bad idea. Yet, Yamamoto went through with it anyways.
Shortly before the war started, Japanese strategic planning had finally settled on seizing the areas to the South-the Dutch East Indies, referred to as the "Southern Resource Area." However, the problem was that this area belonged to the Dutch. And the British had a treaty with the Dutch that essentially made any attack on the Dutch an attack on Britain. In turn, the Japanese would need to conquer Malaya and Singapore.
The problem was that the logistics route from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies would have to go past the Philippines, which was a US protectorate. US bombers, ships, and submarines could potentially cut this route of supply, so while there were proponents to simply bypass the Philippines, the prevailing thought was that the conquest of the Dutch East Indies would also require the conquest of the Philippines, which would require war with the US.
Yamamoto took this thinking one step further. Japanese strategy presupposed the capture of island chains and the establishment of large air bases, essentially turning islands into unsinkable aircraft carriers. The Japanese navy, which would be far smaller than that which the US and the Allies could produce and deploy, would use its theoretical qualitative strength in conjunction with these island air fields to defend against the Allied push-which anticipated a large, massive battle fleet, heading to the Philippines, that would engage Japan's Combined Fleet in a "Decisive Battle."
Yamamoto felt that for this strategy to succeed, he would need more time. And to get more time, he proposed hitting the US battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor. More specifically, he insisted on it, threatening to resign if he didn't have his way. And this was hardly the first time he had issued such a threat, nor would it be the last.
The reason has to do with the culture of the Japanese military. There were several key factors at play here, such as:
The Japanese Army and Navy had a rivalry. The kind of rivalry where army officers would assassinate navy officers, and vice versa. As you can imagine, this already presupposes a level of stubbornness in the high command.
The Japanese military had a very, very hierarchical structure, where physical violence played an important role in military discipline, and not just at low levels either. Various admirals had either threatened or used violence in order to get their way, such as Tamon Yamaguchi putting an officer into a judo hold to get his carrier to participate at Pearl Harbor, and Admiral Nagumo threatening to stab another officer. Yamamoto was no real exception to this rule.
Yamamoto was made Admiral of the Fleet and not naval minister because there were fears in the navy that his hard-headedness would be such an affront to the Japanese army (which already was full of rather thick-skulled individuals) that he would likely be assassinated within six months.
As you can see, this fostered an individual who naturally refused to listen to criticism and insisted on having his way, combined with his more cosmopolitan experiences like touring the West, attending schooling, and admiring America in general. Many Japanese, military or otherwise, liked America, especially after acts like the US Navy's assistance to Japan in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake. A good portion of the Japanese navy, even for things like trainee shakedown cruises, would go to the US and tour cities, or study abroad, or serve there as a naval attache. More often than not, these people also did not want war with the US (although they were more supportive of the ongoing war against China: which, ironically, was why part of the reason why the US had thrown the blockade up in the first place).
So, to directly answer your question: yes, the things you read in the article were true. But they were also hardly unusual or exceptional in the Japanese military-in fact, as one example, General Honma, the so-called "Butcher of Bataan" who was later executed for war crimes, had spent ten years in Britain, was notoriously pro-Western, and was in fact relieved from duty for being too friendly with the Filipinos. So while Yamamoto was certainly talented, and is definitely better known in the West than many other Japanese military personnel, the man was not an omniscient saint-he was cut from the same cloth as the rest of them.