With Stark, Kimmel, and Short off the agenda, newspapers could afford to relax their coverage of a story which they believed had lost the public attention. But the congressional committee could not truncate an important investigation out of boredom. It still had to examine a number of key witnesses. Each contributed something to an understanding of what had happened in relation to Pearl Harbor.
Justice Roberts testified on the afternoon of January 28. This feisty witness appeared “in a belligerent mood.” An old hand at the inquiry game, he answered legitimate questions fully but pulled up short anyone who went over the line. Convinced of the absolute fairness of his Commission and proud of its members, he explained its procedures in detail and defended it vigorously.1
Controversy flared with Captain Ellis M. Zacharias, whose testimony had been interrupted to accommodate Roberts. Zacharias was a longtime expert on Japan who had served many years in Intelligence. His pride in his chosen field rang through every word he spoke. He asserted that failure to appreciate the importance of intelligence had been “one of the greatest contributing factors” to the tragedy at Pearl Harbor.2
He claimed that he had called upon Kimmel in his headquarters sometime between March 26 and 30, 1941, at which time he told the admiral, if Japan decided to go to war with the United States, “that it would begin with an air attack on our fleet on a week-end and probably a Sunday morning; that the attack would be for the purpose of disabling four battleships.” In reply to a question from Kimmel, Zacharias emphasized
that the most probable method of attack would be by aircraft carriers supported by appropriate ships; that such an attack would come in undoubtedly from the northern sic because this was the prevailing winds in the Hawaiian Islands; they would come in and launch their attack downwind . . . the ships and the force which brought the planes to launch them would retreat as quickly as possible directly upwind to escape any damage which they felt might come.
Kimmel asked how such an attack could be prevented. Zacharias said “that the only possible way of doing it would be to have a daily patrol out to cover the approach of the Japanese, and that this patrol must go out at least 500 miles.” Kimmel answered, “Well, we have neither the personnel nor the matérial with which to carry out such a patrol.” The captain replied confidently, “Well, Admiral, you better get them because that is what is coming.” Zacharias told the committee that Poco Smith had been present and would probably remember the details of this conversation.3
Kimmel’s testimony in this regard is ambivalent, and Smith flatly contradicted Zacharias. He called the story “the testimony of clairvoyance operating in reverse.” And he added, “I am absolutely positive that at this meeting there was never mentioned the question of an air attack on Pearl Harbor. . . .”4
So here we have two honorable, intelligent, and experienced officers telling contrary stories. This situation is by no means unique in the Pearl Harbor problem, but this particular incident is one of the most nagging. And there it rests to this day.
The committee had planned to continue questioning Smith but moved him aside to permit first the appearance of Captain McCollum, then Admiral Bellinger, both of whom were “under very imperative orders.” The former’s testimony took up all of January 30. The only member to quiz McCollum at any length was Ferguson, who questioned him closely about the “winds” matter and took him almost line by line over his testimony before Admiral Hewitt.5 The record of McCollum’s interrogation leaves one with a pleasing impression that a firm, knowledgeable hand had been on the tiller on ONI’s Far Eastern Section in 1941.
Bellinger’s testimony, which filled the entire session of January 31, may have taken some wind out of the pro-Kimmel sails. Bellinger had been in charge of the Pacific Fleet’s air reconnaissance in 1941. Yet Kimmel not only did not consult him about the “war warnings” but also did not speak with him from around November 26, 1941, until the attack. And Bellinger had no authority to activate distant air patrols under the Martin-Bellinger plan without orders from the CinCPAC.6
When Poco Smith returned to the witness chair on the morning of February 1, Murphy gave him a hard time about the failure to consult either Bellinger or Davis, the Fleet aviation officer. Smith protested that Halsey was “the No. 1 airman in the whole area. He had more planes than all of them.”7 No one could question Halsey’s professional expertise, and he was a close friend of Kimmel’s. But he was a task force commander, neither the Fleet aviation officer nor the patrol wing commander. In those capacities Davis and Bellinger should have been consulted in evaluating what to do in those critical days following receipt of the “war warning.”
The Zacharias-Smith controversy and Bellinger’s testimony had focused attention, by no means all of it favorable, upon Hawaii and in particular upon Kimmel. If anyone could reverse this trend, it would be the next witness, Captain Safford, an ardent champion of Kimmel, a firm believer in the villainy of the Navy Department, and high guru of the “winds execute” school of thought. With the grim determination of a spawning salmon, he had swum up the stream of evidence against receipt of such a message. As he was quite as brainy as Smith and as dogmatic as Zacharias, committee watchers could count upon a display of inquisitorial pyrotechnics.
Safford was obviously ill at ease. He bit his lips and doodled nervously as he read a prepared statement to what had become for him virtually an article of faith: “There was a Winds Message. It meant War—and we knew it meant War.”8 Both counsel and committee members delved ad infinitum into whether or not such a message had been received prior to December 7. Safford remained firmly convinced that it had.
Safford’s undoubted genius in his own field and his total sincerity shine forth from his testimony. His personality and reputation were such as to compel respect and attention for any position he might take. Nevertheless, his demeanor before the committee was not likely to inspire total credence in his “winds execute” story except in those disposed to believe it. “Cross-examined for three days, Safford and his startling statement rapidly wilted. He flushed, hedged, and his voice quavered into long silences.”9 Of course, the captain’s patent discomfort did not necessarily betoken a guilty conscience or discredit his testimony. To subject such a hard-shelled introvert as Safford to the ordeal of appearing before a congressional committee in a high noon of publicity verged upon “cruel and inhuman punishment.” Moreover, for all his fluster he did not budge from his main premise.
On another score Safford was a maddening witness. It was very difficult to pry a straight “yes” or “no” out of him. He also had a bad habit of getting off the direct evidence and presenting his personal opinions as facts. Richardson cautioned him in this regard several times.10 In spite, or perhaps because, of Richardson’s determined efforts to keep Safford on the rails, the captain admired Richardson, whom he considered “far superior to Mitchell in every way.”11
Safford had a recess on the afternoon of February 5, while the committee heard Rear Admiral Frank C. Beatty and Major John H. Dillon, USMC, both of whom had been aides to Knox in 1941. The committee questioned these officers briefly, principally in regard to the suggestion that the Navy Department had prepared a warning message to Hawaii on December 6, 1941. As we have seen, this line led nowhere.12*
The next morning Safford returned for further interrogations, which were in the nature of mopping-up operations. As he thankfully made his escape from the caucus room, “a beautiful lady” stopped him. “I am Mrs. Richardson,” she said. “Do you understand me? I am Mrs. Seth Richardson. Captain, you were simply wonderful! You did not let them bully you into changing your story.” To the battered Safford she seemed “an angel from Heaven.”13
If Barkley and his associates hoped for a breather after Safford, they were doomed to disappointment. Captain Kramer was nearly as difficult a witness as his predecessor on the stand, but for the opposite reason. In his almost painful eagerness to tell the precise truth and in his concern for detail, some of his statements were as obscure as Safford’s had been through generalization.
Intent upon clearing up one particular legend, Murphy asked, “Now, were you ever beset or beleaguered by anybody in regard to this case? And, if so, I think the committee are entitled to every detail.” Kramer replied, “At no time have I been what is termed beset and beleaguered, sir.”14
Some of Safford’s testimony had astonished Kramer, and he wanted to set the record straight. He agreed that there had been a “winds execute” message, but not for the United States. He had seen the item in question “not over 10 or 15 seconds,” and he recalled it dealt only with England.15 He had had “at least half a dozen conversations during the past year with Captain Safford going over a number of points connected with Pearl Harbor.”
These intrigued Lucas. “Did you ever agree with him in these discussions that this particular message in controversy was a genuine implementing winds message?” he asked. Kramer answered, “No, sir; I did not. I tried to disillusion him of that idea since it was so diametrically contrary to the conception of it that I had.”16
Dropping in for one of his periodic visits to the investigation, journalist Frederick C. Othman wrote appreciatively: “I hadn’t been in the room more than five minutes before the white hair of Sen. Homer Ferguson . . . began to look like an unmade bed. He was shouting at . . . Kramer, who shouted back at him.”17 While sparring with Ferguson, Kramer demolished another Pearl Harbor myth. On November 9, 1945, the Chicago Tribune had contended that Kramer warned Knox at the State Department on the morning of December 7 that the “one o’clock” message meant an attack on Pearl Harbor. Kramer explained that he had mentioned “something about the time of day at Pearl Harbor . . . purely in passing. . . .” The idea that Pearl Harbor might be attacked never entered his mind.18
Lucas pursued the point tenaciously: “From all the information you received through magic, including the much-discussed purported winds execute message, was there ever received one single word, line, phrase, or sentence that would lead you to believe that Pearl Harbor was going to be struck by the Japs on December 7, 1941?” Kramer answered, “There never was, sir.”19
After the complex examinations of Safford and Kramer, the committee had a treat in store. Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll was a dream witness, genial, crisp, and to the point. Armed with that most uncommon quality, common sense, the former assistant CNO dealt with a number of subjects, among them relations with Japan, the Atlantic orientation, shortages, the safety of the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, the fourteen-part message, and the alleged agreement with the British.20
Following Ingersoll’s testimony, Colonel Clausen vigorously defended his own good faith and that of Stimson in carrying on his investigation. He denied any efforts to make witnesses change their previous stories and took up the cudgels in behalf of the truthfulness of those he had questioned.21
By logical progression Bratton, the intelligence officer who was one of the supposed victims of Clausen’s alleged browbeating, followed him on the stand on the afternoon and evening of February 14. With his burly body and forthright manner, Bratton looked like an unlikely candidate for bullying. He gave the committee a dramatic account of events in Marshall’s office late in the morning of December 7.22 He told of the efforts to intercept a “winds execute” and that “a number of false alarms” had come in. Like Ingersoll, Bratton believed that the real tip-off of Japan’s intention to fight the United States had been its code-burning order.* Bratton was “most positive” that he never saw a “winds execute” until after the attack, and he found it “hard to believe that any such execute message could get into the War Department” without crossing his desk.
“Nobody in ONI, nobody in G-2, knew that any major element of the fleet was in Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning the 7th of December,” he emphasized. “We all thought they had gone to sea.” Lucas asked, “Why did you think that?” Bratton replied, “Because that was part of the war plan, and they had been given a war warning.”23
On February 14 light dawned upon Lucas in a very important matter: “. . . I cannot see how this committee can conclude this hearing without calling a couple of witnesses from Hawaii. We have been investigating Washington all this time.” Inspiration came a little late. Deadline to finish the investigation was the next day. But even in so routine a matter as requesting an extension, politics reared its snaky head. The Democrats wanted another week of hearings “with an additional month or so to complete the report. . . .” The Republicans preferred “anywhere from two weeks to two months more hearings, and a still longer time to draft the report to Congress.” Somehow they worked out their problems. On February 15 Congress extended the inquiry until June 1, “with the understanding that public hearings, so far as the present schedule of witnesses was concerned, would end” on the night of February 20.24
The irrepressible newsman Othman reported: “The wretches with the black pencils scribbling accounts of the proceedings for their newspapers are rooting for the lawmakers to finish by Friday, but admit that is wishful thinking. They have organized the East Wind Rain Survivors’ Association. . . . They plan a binge on adjournment day.”25 More sedately Drew Pearson decided that “two major points” had arisen from the “confusing mass of data” thus far assembled: “Congress can pass no legislation which can keep Admirals and Generals on the alert” and nothing had developed “which changes the basic responsibility of the commanders who were on the spot.”26
Three witnesses followed Bratton on February 15. Colonel Sadtler, former chief of the Military Branch of the Signal Corps, testified mainly in the “winds” area.27 Commander Lester R. Schulz told the story, stirring in its simplicity, of delivering the thirteen-part message to Roosevelt on the evening of December 6, 1941.28 Captain Rochefort, who commanded the Navy’s Communications Intelligence Unit on Oahu in 1941, took the stand for the balance of February 15 and part of the next day. He described attacking the Japanese naval systems and what his unit could and could not do in the diplomatic code area. His people had monitored the voice circuits which Washington listed for the “winds execute,” but he had not attached much importance to that message.29
On February 15 Lynn Crost of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin dealt with that subject with a light touch:
. . . even committee members chuckled recently as a privately prepared cartoon passed from hand to hand around the committee room.
It showed a navy captain, flatly recumbent on his stomach, tongue hanging out limply and eyes glazed. A scrub woman standing over him was talking to her helpers:
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the captain. I just came in and told him there was a paper here that said ‘east wind rain.’”
Unfortunately the committee had not finished with that vexing problem, so voracious of time and energy. Rear Admiral Noyes, former head of Naval Communications, testified on February 16 that he had seen messages supposed to be the “execute,” but none had checked out as authentic. He did not think the one about which Safford testified was genuine. Among other reasons, it had not followed the pattern the Japanese had prescribed.30
Noyes’s testimony ended what promised to be the last full week of the inquiry. The committee still had a few loose ends to knot. On Monday, February 18, it heard from Admiral Hart, now a Republican senator from Connecticut, about his own record-taking investigation.31
The committee had a tiger by the tail when it turned from Hart to Captain Layton, who had been Kimmel’s Fleet intelligence officer. Layton spoke clearly and pulled no punches, so Keefe acknowledged: “. . . you are one witness that we have had here who talks plainly and frankly and you know what you are talking about. . . .”32 On at least one occasion Layton jarred whatever self-satisfaction the committee may have entertained. In reply to an inquiry from Lucas, Layton bluntly expressed his belief “that the investigation has hurt our national security to an incalculable degree by so much publicity being given to the decryption activities.”33 This was a sobering thought to carry with them as the committee members moved toward the close of the investigation.
The session of February 19 was something of an anticlimax. The first witness, Colonel Robert E. Schukraft, had been officer in charge of radio intercepts for the chief signal officer at the time of Pearl Harbor. He testified almost exclusively in the “winds” area. He had seen an alleged “execute” about December 4 or 5, 1941, but concluded that it was a false alarm.34
Colonel Phillips, Short’s former chief of staff, followed Schukraft and provided a change from the eternal “east wind rain.” He confirmed Short’s testimony that upon receipt of the message of November 27 the general consulted only with his chief of staff. One also sees in Phillips’s testimony the utter failure to understand the extent and nature of the Navy’s task force reconnaissance, a fact which demonstrated the lack of any real substance to the Army-Navy liaison of which Kimmel and Short were so proud. Like Short, Phillips stressed the Navy’s disbelief in an air raid on Oahu.35 So once more a representative of the Hawaiian Department put the finger on Soc McMorris, although not by name. Yet his famous dictum that the chance of a Japanese air strike was nil was not a revelation from Mount Sinai—it was the estimate of an intelligent, experienced, but by no means omniscient U.S. Navy officer. His ideas certainly did not preclude Short and/or Phillips from making an independent estimate.
Much to Phillips’s credit, he added to his exposition. “. . . I fully approved of General Short’s decision to order alert No. 1. I feel also that I share any responsibility that he bears for that decision. That decision turned out to be wrong, but it was as right as we could make it at the time on the information we had.”36
John F. Sonnett followed Phillips for the rest of that day and into the next morning. He testified concerning the Hewitt investigation and especially Safford’s allegations.37* Following Sonnett, the hearings temporarily turned away from the brass as former Sergeant George E. Elliott explained the nature of the radar operation and the historic Opana sighting.38 Only two witnesses remained, the first of whom, Captain John M. Creighton, dealt almost exclusively with matters in the Far East area.39
It seemed appropriate that the last man to testify should be Colonel George Bicknell, Short’s assistant G-2 in 1941. He told his story clearly, forcefully and without equivocation. He gave some information which added to the impression that Army-Navy cooperation had left something to be desired. Bicknell had evaluated and transmitted to the Navy in Hawaii all intelligence he received. But he knew that the Navy had not reciprocated completely.
Not that communication between Bicknell and his own superiors had been perfect. He had been present when Phillips read the Marshall message of November 27 to the staff. But neither Short nor Fielder discussed it with Bicknell. He knew that an antisabotage alert had been instituted only after the troop movement commenced to implement it. Perhaps one reason why his superiors did not consult Bicknell was that they knew quite well what his opinion would be. “My feelings on that question have been expressed to practically every commanding general whom I have come in contact with, and that was that we would never have any sabotage trouble with the local Japanese, and we did not.”40
Following Bicknell came the last-minute introduction of various documents. Barkley thanked everyone concerned for his efforts. Finally, he officially adjourned the sessions at 1715, subject to the call of the chair.41
Throughout March the committee held no public sessions, but Stark and Marshall returned to the stand for an open hearing on Tuesday, April 9. Among other things, they testified to their whereabouts on the evening of December 6, 1941. Marshall had little to add beyond his previous testimony. His memory remained a blank on how he had spent the evening of December 6, 1941, but his own records contained nothing to show that he had not been at home. In any case someone was available in his quarters at all times to accept calls.42
Since Stark first testified, Commander Schulz had indicated that the admiral had attended the National Theater that evening.43 Stark “very clearly” recalled having seen The Student Prince, which was playing at the National at the time, but he could not connect it with the night in question.44 Gearhart had taken the peculiar attitude that “the greatest mystery of all these Pearl Harbor investigations” was the whereabouts of Marshall and Stark on the night of December 6.45 He pitched into Stark on April 11 and seemed to think that the admiral had had nothing on his mind but Pearl Harbor in the weeks immediately following that event. “You were constantly interrogated in presenting evidence, were you not, and digging up evidence in connection with this affair, until you left for London?”
“No, I was not,” Stark answered firmly. “I was busy fighting a war up until the time I left for London. . . . I was not going into post mortems.”46
Rear Admiral Beardall, who had been Roosevelt’s naval aide, also testified that day, primarily concerning the events of December 6 and 7. The rest of the session was devoted to placing in the record various documents and information previously requested.47
The members met again on May 23 for what promised to be the last formal session. The previous week, on Keefe’s motion, they had voted to close the book that date. At last Richardson uttered the welcome words “That, I think, completes all of the records that we have.” At the curtain close, Barkley thanked the staff, the FBI, and the liaison officers for their cooperation. He paid special tribute to the press. Brewster proved he could be a graceful loser by associating himself, on behalf of the minority, with Barkley’s expression of appreciation. So with everyone in reasonable accord the committee adjourned at 1215 on May 23 subject to the call of the chair.48
No sooner had the package been neatly wrapped when it came untied. On the night of January 25 Captain and Mrs. H. D. Krick visited the Starks. Krick had been Stark’s flag lieutenant when he commanded Cruisers, Battle Force, and the two families had remained in close touch. Krick reminded Stark that on the evening of December 6, 1941, they all had dined together, gone to see The Student Prince, then returned to Stark’s home, where the CNO had returned a call from the White House. Stark still had no independent memory of these events, but deciding in his conscientious way to set the record straight, he “got up around 2 or 3 in the morning” and wrote a longhand draft of a letter which he gave to Barkley later that day.
Barkley hastily summoned the committee, not all of whom were available because of Memorial Day. Stark’s testimony was brief. The whole evening of December 6, 1941, had left no impression on his mind probably because the pattern was quite routine. The two couples attended “many, many functions together. . . .” And telephone calls to and from Roosevelt were no novelty.49
Some question arose on the propriety of admitting this evidence. Richardson sensibly proposed that they take Krick’s testimony, then decide whether or not to use it. That is what they did. Theoretically the action may be open to question because the inquiry had been officially closed, but in view of the fuss over Stark’s whereabouts the night before the attack, it would have been most unwise not to attempt to settle the issue.
Krick’s story was short but precise. When Lucas asked how he remembered the occasion so well, Krick’s reply was so human that it carries conviction: “Because I was a very small fish, and great things were transpiring, and you don’t forget that sort of thing.” Pearl Harbor’s happening the next day impressed the memory upon him.50
So there seems little doubt that half of Gearhart’s “greatest mystery” was solved. But one can understand why Lucas begged Stark, “Don’t find any more friends, please. When friends come in say nothing about Pearl Harbor.” Those present broke into sympathetic laughter.51
Up to this time the staff had been so involved in the nuts and bolts of the investigation that no one had given much thought to preparing a draft report that would stand up. Now Richardson and Kaufman wrote drafts, both of which Morgan considered inadequate. He had come to like Richardson very much but recognized that he was something of a broad-brush artist. The chief counsel was not the type to prepare a solid report, every sentence of which must be researched and backed up by citation from the mountains of evidence. Then, too, Morgan feared that neither Richardson nor Kaufman might be able to escape the pull of their political biases. Richardson was a hard-boiled Republican; Kaufman, a convinced Democrat.
In contrast, Morgan had no personal or ideological ax to grind. He neither hoped for nor expected any political advantages from his work with the committee. He was on loan from the FBI, and to that organization he would return. Morgan’s law degree, his experience as an accountant, investigator, and instructor had schooled him in deduction and attention to detail. In addition, he held an M. A. in English and genuinely enjoyed working with the language. With these thoughts in mind and with no one’s knowledge, Morgan began to put a draft together. He worked on a crash basis and became so wrapped up in the project that he would awaken in the middle of the night and write a chapter. He submitted his manuscript to every member of the committee.52
Morgan had entered the picture when the committee had finished approximately half its hearings, and he had had to catch up on the previous testimony while at the same time performing his duties as assistant counsel. Even under the best of conditions, Morgan’s draft would represent an admirable combination of research, logic, and writing. In the circumstances, it was truly a remarkable job. No wonder the majority decided to make it their point of departure. In fact, they accepted much of it without change. Morgan himself made a number of adjustments before the members signed the final document. Some of his original language was considerably more forceful than that which finally saw publication, and in a number of cases he deleted passages in order to keep the finished narrative free of judgments.53
All this drafting and discussion process took time, and at a closed session on July 2 the committee decided to ask Congress for another extension—the fifth—this time to July 16. Thereupon they recessed “amid indications of difficulties over fixing the blame for the success of the Japanese attack.” Nevertheless, Barkley was optimistic that they could meet the new deadline and expressed hope for a unanimous report. This was somewhat unrealistic since Ferguson had been lining up his views, which he might sign as a minority report if he continued to disagree with the main one.
The full committee ended its discussions in two closed sessions on July 15—exactly eight months after its first meeting. It released on July 20 what Stimson called “a very fair report,”54 which, all things considered, is true.
To all intents and purposes, a single set of investigators had conducted two separate investigations in the same room at the same time—one of the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor, the other of the United States’ prewar foreign policy. Thanks to the persistence and stamina of the minority members, the committee had leaned heavily toward a probe of what had happened in Washington before and during December 7, 1941. As a result, the committee cut heavily into the proposed list of witnesses from the Oahu end, leaving some highly significant areas untouched. In particular one must question the decision not to call Bloch. Cogent reasons existed for placing him on the stand. In the first place, he had been commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District under both Richardson and Kimmel. As such he was Short’s opposite number. The committee had maintained a judicious balance of Army-Navy testimony, and it is incredible that they should have cut off this sound principle at the Hawaiian sea frontier. Secondly, Bloch had been base defense officer, responsible for the Navy’s share in protecting the ships in Pearl Harbor as well as the shore installations. This per se should have made him a key witness. His responsibility for helping defend his base was direct; Kimmel’s was indirect. Thirdly, Bloch had been an “interested party” before the Navy court. In justice, he deserved the same opportunity to present his case in public as the committee had given the other two “interested parties.” Fourthly, several times before the committee Kimmel had spoken of his expectation that Bloch would take the stand.55 Such comments should have alerted the committee that Bloch could give valuable insights. Fifthly, Short had commented upon what he termed “faulty staff work” on the part of the Fourteenth Naval District. This was a serious charge because the entire pattern of military action on Oahu had been, in Short’s phrase, “command by cooperation.” Yet evidently the idea of how to conduct such a system had been to leave Army-Navy liaison in the hands of a young reserve officer, Lieutenant Harold D. Burr. Bloch lived in Washington and attended many of the sessions, so he was readily available to the committee.
Then, too, one wonders why the committee did not insist upon hearing from Soc McMorris’s own lips what lay behind his assessment on November 27, 1941, that the prospects of a Japanese air attack on Oahu were “None, absolutely none.” Nor should one forget Captain Davis, Kimmel’s aviation officer, for Pearl Harbor was essentially an air problem. Another notable absentee was General Martin. Surely the testimony of the commanding general, Hawaiian Air Force, and cosigner of the Martin-Bellinger Report, was essential to a proper picture of what took place on Oahu.
Thus, it appears that the committee wearied of the investigative drudgery and quit before it finished the job. Of course, one could be cynical and reflect that further investigation into the military and naval picture on Oahu could neither enhance nor harm the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, hence neither increase nor decrease the prestige of the Democrats or Republicans. Still, the committee had to cut off somewhere or saddle the American people with the production costs of a run which might rival that of Agatha Christie’s marathon hit The Mousetrap.
As anticipated, the committee could not reach a unanimous verdict. The majority report, based upon Morgan’s draft, listed twelve conclusions. The first five of these affixed the Japanese strike in its political setting and placed “ultimate responsibility” upon Japan. The majority “found no evidence to support the charges” that Roosevelt, Hull, Stimson or Knox “tricked, provoked, incited, cajoled, or coerced Japan into attacking this Nation . . .” They divided the military responsibility into two parts—at Hawaii and in Washington. The Hawaiian commands had failed:
(a) To discharge their responsibilities in the light of the warnings received from Washington, other information possessed by them, and the principle of command by mutual cooperation.
(b) To integrate and coordinate their facilities for defense and to alert properly the Army and Navy establishments in Hawaii, particularly in the light of the warnings and intelligence available to them during the period November 27 to December 7, 1941.
(c) To effect liaison on a basis designed to acquaint each of them with the operations of the other, . . . and to exchange fully all significant intelligence.
(d) To maintain a more effective reconnaissance within the limits of their equipment.
(e) To effect a statement of readiness throughout the Army and Navy establishments designed to meet all possible attacks.
(f) To employ the facilities, matériel, and personnel at their command . . . in repelling the Japanese raiders.
(g) To appreciate the significance of intelligence and other information available to them.
One cannot fault the logic of these conclusions. The majority softened this devastating list of failures by deciding that they constituted “errors of judgment and not derelictions of duty.”
The report pointed an accusing finger at the Army’s War Plans Division for failing to advise Short “that he had not properly alerted the Hawaiian Department” when he replied to the warning of November 27. The report also hit War Plans and Intelligence of both the War and the Navy departments for not giving “careful and thoughtful consideration” to the “bomb plot” series and for not furnishing these messages to the Hawaiian commanders. The majority report likewise chided War Plans and Intelligence for failure to perceive the significance of the “one o’clock” message and sending the information to “all Pacific outpost commanders. . . .”56
All members except Ferguson and Brewster signed the report. Keefe qualified his signature with some “additional views.” He went along with most of the conclusions and recommendations; however, he thought the facts had been marshaled, “perhaps unintentionally, with the idea of conferring blame upon Hawaii and minimizing the blame that should properly be assessed at Washington.” He faulted the War and Navy departments for not keeping Kimmel and Short posted on diplomatic activities and for failing to send such vital intercepts as the “bomb plot” series, which he stated unequivocally “meant that the ships of the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor were marked for a Japanese attack.” So while Keefe concurred “in the findings of the committee with respect to responsibilities of our commanders in Hawaii,” he believed their mistakes to be “directly related to the failures of the high command in Washington to have their organizations fully alerted and on a war footing. . . .” He likewise concluded “that secret diplomacy was at the root of the tragedy.”57 This was diametrically opposed to the conclusions of the report which he signed, and it pointed up his fixation on Washington.
Ferguson and Brewster submitted a minority report which has so many points in common with Keefe’s comments that either one copied from the other or else worked from a common source. They may well have been the paper which, according to Percy L. Greaves, Jr., Keefe had used and which “Kimmel’s able counsel” had prepared.58
Ferguson and Brewster reached a total of twenty-one conclusions, some of which are worth consideration. “Judging by the military and naval history of Japan, high authorities in Washington and the Commanders in Hawaii had good grounds for expecting that in starting war the Japanese Government would make a surprise attack on the United States.” This was true enough and is an important part of the eternal enigma of Pearl Harbor.
In the opinion of the two senators, Roosevelt’s decision to wait for a Japanese attack rather than ask Congress to declare war “increased the responsibility of high authorities in Washington to use the utmost care in putting the commanders at Pearl Harbor on a full alert for defensive actions . . . in language not open to misinterpretation. . . .” No reasonable person can argue with that premise. But here one enters the area of language, which is an art, not a science, so that all too often what is crystalline to the sender is opaque to the recipient.
To nobody’s surprise, Brewster and Ferguson dealt harshly with Roosevelt. But they did not accuse him of baiting the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. In its final summation the minority report listed those specifically charged with “failure to perform the responsibilities indispensably essential to the defense of Pearl Harbor . . .”—Roosevelt, Stimson, Knox, Marshall, Stark, and Gerow. Yet for all their strictures upon Washington for lack of clarity in its instructions to Hawaii, Brewster and Ferguson did not name Turner, whose office had prepared the controversial “war warning” message and who was quite as guilty as Gerow of faults at War Plans Division level.
Ferguson and Brewster did not exculpate Kimmel and Short, citing them for “failure to perform the responsibilities in Hawaii. . . .”59
With all its faults of omission and commission, with all its irrelevancies and partisan bickering, the congressional committee conducted the most valuable of all the Pearl Harbor investigations. An old saying goes “Truth is the daughter of time.” Several years had elapsed since the attack, the war had ended, and Magic as well as some Japanese evidence had become available.
As so often seems to be the case with congressional inquiries, the report—the document with which the general public is most familiar—is of less historical value than the testimony and documentation upon which it is based. For such reports represent opinions, and those opinions, however honest, may be influenced by preconceptions, political expediencies, and the pressures of public opinion. The report is the coda to the investigative symphony, and for the symphony one must be grateful, even though it remains forever unfinished.