Chapter 29: 29. Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack November 15, 1945–May 31, 1946: Part 3

The Joint Congressional Committee still had many potential witnesses on its list whose testimony was expected to prove important. Among these were Admiral R.E. Ingersoll, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, as well as several men who had been closely concerned with MAGIC—Captain L.F. Safford, who had been in charge of the security section of Naval Communications; Captain A.D. Kramer, Navy translator and courier; and Colonel Rufus S. Bratton, Army courier. The JCC members did not find it easy to learn how much was known in Washington before the attack about the imminence of war, when it was known, and how much information was relayed to the Pearl Harbor commanders.

Top Washington Officials Confer Daily on Impending Crisis

When testifying before the Hart and Navy Court Inquiries, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations Ingersoll had admitted having seen the “Winds Execute” before December 7, 1941.^[1] However, in his JCC testimony he belittled its importance as a war warning:

[T]he wording in that winds message did not say that we are going to be in a state of war or that hostilities now exist. It referred to a rupture of diplomatic negotiations or that the situation between the countries was becoming critical. . . . If you rupture diplomatic negotiations you do not necessarily have to burn your codes. The diplomats go home and they can pack up their codes . . . and take them home.

Ingersoll considered the destruction of the code dispatches much more important.

[T]hey not only told their diplomats in Washington and London to burn their codes but they told their consuls in Manila, in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Batavia to burn their codes. And that did not mean a rupture of diplomatic negotiations, it meant war, and that information was sent out to the fleets as soon as we got it.^[2]

[W]hen we received the original message which set up the winds code that became important then because that would be the first indication that we would get of when the Japanese thought they would rupture negotiations or be at war if a broader interpretation were placed on it. . . . [B]ut once we had learned that they were destroying their codes then the winds message lost its importance. . . . [T]he fact that the consulates were included cinched it in my opinion that it was war and not a rupture of diplomatic negotiations or diplomatic relations.^[3]

Ingersoll did not recall having seen any of the several “ships-in-harbor” intercepts, not even the one that divided Pearl Harbor into five areas “to report each shifting and visit of ships from one area to another.” If he had, he “would have wanted to know why they were interested in the actual location of a ship within a harbor as distinguished from whether or not the ship just happened to be in port.” If he had seen that dispatch, his suspicion would have been aroused. He thought “Admiral Kimmel should have been informed.”^[4]

Ingersoll had known of the November 29 deadline set by the Japanese, after which things were automatically going to happen. It was well known that Japanese troops could reach several potential targets in southeast Asia in a very short time: China, Indochina, Formosa. The situation was reviewed almost daily, he said, at conferences in the office of Navy Secretary Knox. Yet day after day went by after the November 29 deadline without a Japanese strike.

Ingersoll: There was a conference in Mr. Knox’ office every morning in which the Director of Naval Intelligence presented the whole situation . . . and the possibilities were discussed . . . by the Director of War Plans, Admiral Turner. . . . The situation was reviewed every morning.

Gearhart: Were there in those meetings after the 29th discussions of why that had occurred, after we had read the Jap intercept that after the 29th things were going to happen automatically? . . . Did anybody in those meetings raise the question that possibly the Japanese were sailing to a distant point of attack?

Ingersoll: No: none that I recall. . . . The question of an attack on Pearl Harbor, of course, was always considered as a possibility. . . . [T]he places in the Far East were the only places of which we had definite information towards which the Japanese were moving.^[5]. . . I did not think that the Japanese would risk an air attack on Pearl Harbor. . . . [O]ur estimate was that the Japanese would not do that, that they were fully occupied with what they were doing at that time, and that the risks were too great.^[6]

In view of our knowledge of Japanese military movements and our close political ties with the British and Dutch, Representative Gearhart and Senator Ferguson tried to determine what the United States would have done had the Japanese struck British and/or Dutch positions and not U.S. territory.

Ferguson: Did you know what our policy was prior to Pearl Harbor . . . if there was an attack on the Malay Peninsula, what the position would be of the United States of America, as far as the Navy or the Army were concerned?

Ingersoll: As far as the Navy and Army were concerned, what we would do was contained in our war plans. . . . I do not think there was anybody in the Navy Department who knew what would happen if Japan went into the Malay Peninsula, or into Siam, or Thailand. . . . The position of the Navy would have been the position taken by the United States Government, and what the president would have recommended to the Congress about declaring war. The Navy’s position would have been exactly the position of the United States.^[7]

Ingersoll did not believe the United States would go to war in the Pacific “without any recommendation to the Congress,” as they had in the Atlantic. That was “not a legal war. . . . [T]he Germans were still here in Washington and they had not declared war on us for all that we had been doing to them in the Atlantic.”^[8] The next day Ingersoll half-apologized for this remark. He had

almost humorously called the war in the Atlantic as illegal. It was more in the nature of irregular. . . . In the Atlantic we were doing some things which only a belligerent does. There had been no declaration of war. We had done a great many things that under international law, as it was understood before the last war, were unneutral. . . . It was apparently to her [Germany’s] advantage to have us as a nonbelligerent rather than as a full belligerent.^[9]

President Orders “Defensive Information Patrol” in South China Sea

The U.S. government was receiving information on Japanese ship movements in the southwest Pacific and China Sea from our daily overflights as well as from reports from the British. Yet at about 7 p.m. on December 1, the “president direct[ed]” Admiral Thomas Hart, commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet in Manila, to charter “3 small vessels to form a ‘defensive information patrol’.”^[10] The three small ships were to be manned by a U.S. naval officer and equipped with one small gun and a machine gun, the “[m]inimum requirements to establish identity as U.S. men-of-war.” They were to be stationed in the paths of known Japanese ship movements: (1) between Hainan Island (China) and Hue on the east coast of Indochina, now Vietnam; (2) east of the Indochina coast between Camranh Bay and Cape St. Jacques; and (3) off Pointe de Camau on the southern tip of Indochina. All three vessels were “to observe and report by radio Japanese movements in west China Sea and Gulf of Siam.”

Ferguson wanted to know why Stark had ordered three small vessels to watch for Japanese movements on British possessions. Ingersoll replied simply the dispatch had said,

“president directs.” . . . That was our reason for doing it. Admiral Stark was told by the president to do it. . . . Admiral Hart was already conducting reconnaissance off that coast by planes from Manila. . . . I am sure Admiral Stark would not have done this unless he had been told. . . . We did not initiate this movement, sir, and we were getting . . . sufficient information from Admiral Hart by the searches which his planes were making.^[11]

Had the president “personally” given him, Stark, the order to send the dispatch concerning these vessels? Stark said he had discussed with the president

where this [Japanese] expedition going south was likely to hit. His [the president’s] thought was the Kra Peninsula. . . . The Philippines was a possibility and . . . the East Indies, and just where it would go we did not know and these three small vessels were to assist in that determination. . . . [Y]ou will see where the president put them they were well placed to get information either positive or negative and it was for that reason and for the reasons as stated in the dispatch, to get information, that he directed that be done. . . . He says “to form a defensive information patrol; to accomplish a purpose which is to observe and report by radio Japanese movements in the West China Sea and Gulf of Siam,” and then he himself designated where those vessels were to be placed and they were well placed for the purposes for which he wanted them. . . . I simply think that he thought that was additional precautions. He was intensely interested in every move at that time, as we all were.^[12]

Of course, one cannot know what FDR had in mind in issuing this directive; it may have been out of concern for his commitments to the British and Dutch; he may have been trying to do what Stimson had suggested at FDR’s “War Cabinet” meeting, November 25, to “maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”^[13] Few would be killed or wounded by a shot fired on such a minimally-equipped “U.S. man-of-war.” Yet it might be incident enough to call for U.S. military intervention against the Japanese.

Maintaining the Secrecy of the Japanese Intercepts and MAGIC

It was apparent throughout the several investigations that special effort had been made to keep information about the “Purple” machines and the MAGIC intercepts secret. Quite understandably, extreme caution was necessary before the war to prevent any security leak. And during the war, when the intercepts were still yielding intelligence valuable in the struggle against the Japanese, it was necessary to continue to maintain tight security. However, the determination to maintain silence persisted—even after August 1945, when Japan surrendered, and even after President Truman, who had taken office on the death of FDR, had revealed the existence of MAGIC by releasing to the public the SECRET 1944 reports of the Navy Court of Inquiry and the Army Pearl Harbor Board.^[14] When finally, in December 1945, the restrictions against revealing MAGIC were further relaxed to permit witnesses before the JCC “to testify and give information regarding cryptanalytic activities which had to do with the investigation of the Pearl Harbor incident,”^[15] many witnesses revised their stories.

Safford, Bratton, and Kramer had been intimately involved in handling the Japanese intercepts and each had been questioned at length during previous investigations while the war continued. Each had then faced the same dilemma—how to respond to pressures placed on them by wartime patriotism and loyalty to their superior officers, and how to testify under oath to the truth as they saw it without revealing military secrets. Then when questioned during the JCC hearings after the war and after restrictions had been relaxed, they had to decide whether to modify or to defend their previous testimony. As we shall see, each responded differently.

Captain L.F. Safford, Naval Communications Security, Discovers Kimmel Had Not Been Sent MAGIC

In 1941 Safford had been in charge of the security section of Naval Communications. He testified that after the attack, he, like millions of other Americans, blamed Kimmel for the terrible losses at Pearl Harbor. He assumed Kimmel had been sent information derived from MAGIC. Safford was bitter; he could not understand why Kimmel had not been ready for the attack. Safford said he thought that if Kimmel had received the “Winds Execute,” which Safford had seen on December 4, Kimmel surely would have recognized its significance and would have “been completely ready for the attack on Pearl Harbor, in fact with his fleet at sea, and Pearl Harbor just an empty nest.”^[16]

After Safford read the Roberts Commission report, he expected to be called “as a witness for the prosecution” against Kimmel. So he began to review the pre-attack record.^[17] To his dismay, Safford discovered that important information derived from the MAGIC intercepts decoded before the attack, had not gone to Kimmel. By mid-January 1944, Safford realized that the Navy Department had not sent out the war warning prepared by Captain McCollum, which Safford had read in Admiral Noyes’s office on the afternoon of December 4, 1941. His sense of justice was aroused; Kimmel had been unfairly accused. Safford then shifted from siding with the “prosecution” to siding with the “defense.”^[18] At that point, Safford set the wheels in motion that led in time to revealing “Purple” and MAGIC information.^[19]

On February 21, 1944, Safford called on retired Kimmel in New York.^[20] From notes and memory, Safford related to Kimmel information that had been available before the attack in Washington, information which would have been invaluable to the Pearl Harbor commanders. Safford’s revelations were Kimmel’s first intimation that, in spite of his requests to be kept fully informed, Washington had not sent him pre-attack U.S.-Japanese information relevant to his situation as U.S. Fleet commander-in-chief. When Safford returned to Washington and attempted to document his assertions to Kimmel, however, he found to his amazement that pre-attack MAGIC intercepts, which were supposed to have been permanently retained in locked Navy files, were missing.

When Safford came before the JCC (February 1–5, 1946), he had already appeared, while the war was still going on, before the Hart inquiry, the APHB, the NCI, and the Hewitt inquiry.^[21] Both the APHB and NCI had been authorized by Congress to conduct thorough investigations and to handle super-secret materials. Safford had told them the truth about MAGIC and “Purple” as best he could, and he continued to stick to his story when appearing at the JCC.

Safford described to the Congressional Committee in considerable detail the procedure which had been followed to prevent knowledge of MAGIC and especially the “Winds Code Execute” from becoming known. The personal or immediate custodian was Lieutenant Commander Harrison, U.S. Naval Reserve. Safford explained that the only people who had access to then Commander, now Captain, Kramer’s safe were those on duty under Captain Kramer. Everything was normally cleared through Commander Harrison. There were not more than ten people at the most— translators and the yeomen on duty in Kramer’s section, the head of the section, Safford, or the officer who relieved Safford; or the Director of Naval Intelligence might possibly have called for files at any time. Any higher authority would have been given the files without question if he had requested them.^[22] A copy of the winds execute message should have been in the files of Safford’s division, in the locked safe of Captain Kramer.

Safford: To the best of my knowledge the combination to the safe was held by Kramer and Harrison alone. There was a copy of the combination in a sealed envelope in my safe. There was another copy of the combination in a sealed envelope in the safe of the Aide to the Chief of Naval Operations. That was required for all safes in naval operations, so in case of casualty to the man who regularly opened the safe the safe could be opened when we had to. . . . I know of no occasion when we ever had to open those sealed envelopes, and enter the safe. I might add, whenever an officer was relieved, we changed the combination on his safe and substituted the new cards, and that was the only time we ever had to get into those envelopes.^[23]

Finally in 1944, Safford succeeded in locating a single set of most of the missing intercepts, had copies made, and placed in the files where they belonged.^[24] However, one message, Japan’s “Wind’s Execute” which Safford considered especially crucial, was not found.

Safford Claimed “Winds Execute” Was Received before December 7. If So, Was That Significant?

Washington officials were well aware of the impending crisis, Safford said. On December 3 the U.S. military attaché in the American embassy in Tokyo had been ordered to destroy his ciphers and codes.^[25] On December 4, Greenwich time (December 3, Washington time), the U.S. naval attaché in Tokyo was ordered to do the same.^[26] Also on December 4 the U.S. consular agents in the Far East had been told to destroy their codes.^[27]

When Safford knew he would be called to testify before the Congressional Committee, he prepared a written statement. It was primarily about the “Winds Code” setup. On November 26 and 28 Washington had learned from Tokyo Circulars 2353 and 2354 that Japan planned to broadcast in the course of a routine news program a false weather message with a hidden meaning.^[28] If the Japanese embassies and consulates worldwide had to destroy their codes and code machines and could no longer decipher encoded messages, this so-called “Winds Code” setup would enable Tokyo to communicate secretly with her overseas officials and to advise them when events leading to war would “automatically begin to happen.”^[29]

Safford’s prepared statement started: “There was a Winds Message. It meant War—and we knew it meant War.”^[30] By “we” Safford meant those who had been working on MAGIC and with whom he had been in close contact, such as Kramer, McCollum, Wilkinson, and Noyes.^[31] Safford considered that message clear evidence of the imminence of war. Thus he was “puzzled” when Washington officials did not send out any truly urgent warnings.^[32]In Safford’s words, the “Winds Execute” was “the unheeded warning of war.”^[33] As soon as these Japanese “Winds Code” setup messages were intercepted, Admiral Wilkinson, director of Naval Intelligence, directed Safford through Admiral Noyes, director of Naval Communications, to alert all intercept stations capable of monitoring Japanese news broadcasts to listen for such a false weather announcement. Safford described for the committee the preparations he had made for intercepting this message.^[34]

Safford not only considered the “Winds Code” setup extremely important,^[35] But he believed that the eagerness of senior U.S. officers to have Japanese news programs followed closely on the chance of intercepting such a false weather broadcast was evidence that they shared his view that it concerned something much more important than merely a break in diplomatic negotiations, that receipt of a “Winds Execute” would even portend the actual outbreak of war. U.S. government officials realized that if the Japanese implemented their “Winds Code” and actually sent such a false weather message, it would have had still further significance as a definite portence of conflict. Safford considered the implementation of the “Winds Code” “the most important message we had up to the time of the pilot message on December 6,” announcing that the Japanese reply to our note of November 26 was on its way.^[36]

The significance of the “Winds Execute,” if received, was reinforced by intelligence available from other sources: (1) the Japanese cable designating November 29 the deadline for terminating U.S.-Japanese negotiations, after which “things are automatically going to happen;”^[37] (2) the instructions to overseas Japanese nationals to destroy their codes.^[38] The “Winds Execute” gained further significance because of its indication that Japan wanted to reach its nationals all over the world after their codes were destroyed,^[39] because of the positive evidence it would give that Japan definitely intended to act—soon,^[40] and that war was about to start against the country or countries indicated—England? Russia? United States? According to Safford, any country, or countries, named in a “Winds Execute” would actually be involved in the war from the very beginning, and not just as a spectator.^[41] Thus the interception of a “Winds Execute” would provide us with an announcement of “the intentions and decision of the Japanese Government.”^[42] In Safford’s words, it would be “a short range forecast” of war.^[43]

Safford testified that a “Winds Execute” was actually intercepted in Morse code,^[44] and that Navy courier Kramer had delivered it to him in his office on the morning of December 4, 1941, typed on yellow teletype paper.^[45] It had indicated war with England and with the United States. Kramer had underscored the three code words in the message and had written below in pencil or colored crayon a rough translation:

War with England (including NEI, etc.)

War with the U.S.

Peace with Russia.

“This is it!” Kramer said as he handed the paper to Safford. This meant that Japan would soon be at war, not only with Great Britain but also with the United States. “This was the broadcast we had strained every nerve to intercept,” Safford said.

This was the feather in our cap. This was the tip-off which would prevent the U.S. Pacific Fleet being surprised at Pearl Harbor the way the Russians had been surprised at Port Arthur. This was what the Navy Communication Intelligence had been preparing for since its establishment in 1924—War with Japan!^[46]

Safford had immediately sent the “Winds Execute” by special messenger to Noyes, Naval Communications. If the messenger could not find Noyes in a reasonable time, he was to let Safford know. In a few minutes, Safford received word that the message had been delivered.^[47]

Representative Clark wanted to know if Safford had “immediately put it in the process of handling and distribution and disposal just as in the case of all other magic?” Safford said he had. He had checked Kramer’s folder of intercepts before Kramer had set out to make his daily routine deliveries of MAGIC intercepts about noon that day, December 4; the “Winds Execute” had been included.^[48] So presumably it was delivered that day to the usual recipients. Not only that, Safford said, but “in addition, it was telephoned around to various people by Admiral Noyes and so far as I know that was the first time that had ever been done.”^[49]

About an hour later, Noyes called Safford on the inter-phone. He did not mention the “Winds Execute” specifically, but told Safford that “we had better tell Guam to destroy all their excess codes and ciphers.”^[50] Safford then went to Noyes’s office—that was at about 3:00 p.m.—and there Noyes showed him a several-page message prepared in McCollum’s Far Eastern Section of Naval Intelligence.^[51] The final paragraph of McCollum’s long message, Safford testified, closely followed the “Winds Execute” giving “every indication . . . that Captain McCollum had read the winds message, had appreciated its importance, and was trying to get an urgent war warning out to the Pacific Fleet.”^[52]

Safford recalled that according to McCollum’s message: “Japan was about to declare war on the United States, about to declare war on England, including the Netherlands East Indies, and so forth, and would maintain peace with Russia.” The last sentence “added the forecast or evaluation ‘war is imminent’.”^[53] After the discussion of McCollum’s message, Safford saw Wilkinson leave Noyes’s office with it in his hand, saying, “I am going to send this message if I can get the front office to release it.”^[54] Safford learned much later that the McCollum message had not been sent.^[55]

Safford Responds to “Winds Execute” as Chief, Naval Communications Security

Being in charge of the security section of Naval Communications, Safford’s jurisdiction and responsibilities were limited to maintaining the security of communications; he was not permitted to send evaluations or orders to men in the field.^[56] Any messages he sent had to deal specifically with maintaining document security. In fulfillment of this obligation and as a result of the receipt of the “Winds Execute,” he filed four messages for transmittal between 3:00 and 3:20 p.m. on the afternoon of December 4. He instructed the naval attachés at Tokyo, Peiping, Bangkok, and Shanghai “to destroy all secret and confidential files except those essential for current purposes.”^[57] Similar instructions were sent to the commander-in-chief Asiatic Fleet in Manila.^[58]

Safford also sent a PRIORITY message to Guam and Samoa at 8 p.m. ordering a change in codes from their then-current code RIP 65 to a new code, RIP 66.^[59] This order was promptly received in Guam. Seventeen minutes later, a SECRET message was released by Ingersoll to Guam, DEFERRED precedence to allow time for the new code, RIP 66, to be implemented, asking Guam to

destroy all secret and confidential publications. . . . retaining minimum cryptographic channels necessary for essential communications. . . . Be prepared to destroy instantly in event of emergency all classified matter you retain.^[60]

Then in the attempt to warn Wake, Safford prepared a strong message that read in part: “In view of imminence of war destroy all registered publications on Wake Island except this system and current editions of aircraft code and direction finder code.”^[61]Ingersoll refused to send this strongly worded message as drafted by Safford. He released instead an “ambiguous” message with Wake’s name deleted from the text.^[62] Moreover, it was held up until December 6, when it “was sent deferred precedence which meant delivery [in Pearl Harbor for relay to Wake] by 9:00 on Monday morning, December 8, 1941.” Safford didn’t know when it got to Pearl Harbor but, he said,

no action was taken on it until long after the attack on Pearl Harbor; and then, because we had sent an ambiguous message, the fleet communication officer sent another ambiguous message. The net result was that when Wake was captured, I believe the 24th of December, some of the cryptographic aids fell into Japanese hands, and it was reported at the time by Commandant 14th Naval District, and later on some of the alphabet strips were captured at Kiska in some of the abandoned Japanese dugouts.^[63]

Given the limitations of their responsibilities and the Navy’s restrictions on their duties, Safford and McCollum did all they could to notify the field commanders.^[64] But their intended warnings were watered down, their urgency reduced by being sent deferred priority, or withheld. The “Winds Execute” seemed to be virtually ignored. Safford could not understand why anyone would “want to fail to make use of a wind execute message that meant war.”^[65]

Receipt of “Winds Execute” Contested by Other Witnesses

Most of the questions addressed to Safford by members of the JCC concerned the “Winds Code” and its implementation. Had we, or hadn’t we, intercepted a “Winds Execute” before the attack on Pearl Harbor, as Safford maintained? Once the Navy intercepted and translated Japan’s “Winds Code” setup on November 28, its code clerks had been alerted to listen to Japanese news broadcasts. Safford insisted their efforts succeeded and that the broadcast in which the crucial false weather message was embedded was intercepted on December 4. Yet few people professed to believe him. They preferred to believe that the Japanese government really hadn’t implemented the setup before the attack at all and that therefore we couldn’t have intercepted a “Winds Execute.” The situation was complicated by the fact that Safford could find no copy of it in the Navy Department’s files. “[T]hose files could not be located,” he said. All documentary evidence concerning the receipt of a “Winds Execute,” together with all information relating to the instructions to watch for it, which had been sent to Cheltenham, Maryland, the station Safford claimed had intercepted it,^[66] had vanished.

Until the August 1945 release to the press of the SECRET Army and Navy Pearl Harbor reports, the public had heard little or nothing about “Winds Code.” Safford gave Hart a list of “15 reliable witnesses” he believed had seen the “Winds Execute.”^[67] In a May 14, 1945, memorandum to Lieutenant Commander John F. Sonnett, assistant attorney general in the Navy who had served as counsel to the Hewitt investigation, Safford listed 26 officers who he believed had known of its interception on December 4, 1941.^[68] But when questioned, they denied it. Most of the people who had been in a position before the attack to know of the “Winds Execute,” if it had existed, swore they had never seen it.^[69] In spite of their testimony, Safford believed that McCollum, Wilkinson, Hewitt, and Noyes, among others, knew it had been intercepted.

By the time Safford appeared before the committee, he could not name a single person whom he could confidently expect to corroborate the pre-attack receipt of the message; he “would rather not attempt to estimate what any other witness is going to say on the stand.”^[70] Ferguson then cited three or four persons involved in the Pearl Harbor investigations other than Safford who admitted to having seen a “Winds Execute” prior to the attack. He quoted specifically from the testimony of Assistant Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ingersoll before the Hart Inquiry and the Naval Court of Inquiry^[71]—Safford said this “was the first time that I did not know that I was standing alone against the world in my testimony.”^[72]

Seeking Corroboration of His Memory Safford Writes Kramer on Duty in the Pacific

Safford knew that Kramer was familiar with the “Winds Execute.” After all, it was Kramer who had translated the crucial passages and handed the teletyped intercept to Safford on the morning of December 4. Then a week or so later Kramer and Safford together had gone over “a special folder of messages leading up to Pearl Harbor” that Kramer was assembling for Acting Navy Secretary Forrestal, in Secretary Knox’s absence from the country—in Hawaii, then a territory, not yet a state—to investigate the attack. Safford believed a copy of the “Winds Execute” was included in that special folder.^[73]

Safford had discussed the “Winds” intercept with Kramer in the spring of 1943, before Kramer left for Pearl Harbor and active duty in the Pacific. At that time Kramer’s memory, Safford said, coincided with his own. They had not then looked for it, for they had both expected to “find everything pertaining to that winds message in the files.”^[74] In any event, the “Winds Execute” was not then in controversy.^[75]

After that, Safford had had no occasion to talk to anyone about the “Winds Execute” until late 1943, when he had been “ordered by the Director of Naval Communications to prepare a history of radio intelligence up to and including the attack on Pearl Harbor.”^[76] He then began researching the pre-Pearl Harbor record, including of course the “Winds Code” setup and the “Winds Execute.” At that point Safford started asking anyone he encountered “who had been on duty in the War and Navy Departments, prior to Pearl Harbor, and might have been expected to have first hand knowledge of the winds message,” what they could remember about events of that period. That was when Safford learned from Commander Wesley A. Wright,^[77] who had had it from McCollum, that McCollum’s long warning message of December 4 had not been sent.^[78] He also discovered then that many intercept files were missing.^[79]

In his research of pre-Pearl Harbor radio intelligence, Safford testified, he wanted the benefit of Kramer’s recollections. So on December 22, 1943, he wrote Kramer, then in the Pacific.^[80] He asked Kramer primarily about his December 6–7, 1941, deliveries of the Japanese 14-part reply to Washington’s top officials. The war was still in progress, so Safford phrased his questions “very carefully, in the event that my letter might fall into unauthorized hands.” He wrote: “We can’t find the original ‘Weather Report’ . . . and its translation. What became of it?”^[81] When Kramer replied, December 28, 1943,^[82] he answered the questions about the December 6–7 deliveries, but had misunderstood Safford’s question about the “Weather Report.”^[83]

Safford wrote a second letter January 22, 1944, asking many more questions about the “Winds Execute.”^[84] This time he assigned code numbers to persons, dates, messages, places, etc., so that Kramer could answer Safford’s questions by citing numbers.^[85] He also asked for Kramer’s comment on Safford’s suspicions since November 15, 1943, which he said had been confirmed December 2, 1943, and absolutely proved January 18, 1944, that Kimmel, long considered a scapegoat, was actually the “victim of a frame-up.” Safford said he had “overwhelming proof of the guilt” of OpNav and the general staff.^[86]

Kramer did not reply to Safford’s second letter. When Kramer later turned the correspondence over to the JCC, Safford’s remarks about a frame-up, OpNav, and the general staff returned to haunt him.

Why Was Safford Pressured to Change his Testimony About the “Winds Execute”?

Safford knew that when Kramer testified before the NCI in Pearl Harbor during the summer of 1944, he had described in some detail the interception of the “Winds Execute” and his role in its translation and disposition.^[87] Safford fully expected Kramer to acknowledge that a “Winds Execute” had been received before December 7. In fact, Safford said also that Kramer had told him, even after the start of the JCC hearings as recently as “[j]ust before Christmas” 1945, that he remembered the “Winds Execute.”^[88]

Over and over again the JCC members asked Safford about the “Winds Code” setup and whether a “Winds Execute” had actually been received before the attack. Why was no one other than Safford willing to testify to having seen the “Winds Execute” before December 7?

Safford: In 1945, there was a determined effort made to have me reverse my testimony before previous investigations and to say I had never seen the winds message.^[89]

Relentless effort was made to persuade him that he must be mistaken, that there had never been a “Winds Execute.” Lieutenant Commander John Sonnett, special representative of the secretary of the Navy and legal adviser to Admiral Hewitt, interviewed Safford several times. Sonnett had told Safford repeatedly that he thought his memory was playing him tricks, that he might be “suffering from hallucinations.” Sonnett told Safford he should

change [his] testimony to permit reconciling all previous discrepancies. . . . In some cases the idea was stated outright, in some cases it was implied, and in other cases it was unexpressed but obviously the end in view.^[90]

In all his experience as a commissioned officer of the Navy, Safford said, he had “never seen anything like it.” The whole procedure struck Safford as “quite unusual,” and he had prepared a memorandum on the subject “while the events were still fresh in my memory.”^[91] Safford believed Sonnett had “employed similar tactics on other witnesses whose testimony had favored Admiral Kimmel, particularly Rochefort and Kramer.”^[92] When Sonnett testified before the JCC later, he denied that he had tried to influence Safford in any way.^[93]

Many witnesses mentioned a “false winds message” that was at one time believed authentic.

Richardson: Did it ever occur to you, that that [the false winds message] was the only message that ever came in there on the 4th, and that you were mistaken?

Safford: This is only about the 20th time such suggestion has been made to me, but I saw the winds message myself.^[94]

To Safford it began to look like a conspiracy. A message had been intercepted—he was sure of that—the so-called “Winds Execute,” that he considered “a short range forecast” of war, positive evidence that the United States would be involved from the very beginning in the war that was looming with Japan. Yet the Washington officials who, according to Safford, had received the message had really done nothing to warn the field commanders about it. McCollum’s long warning message had not been sent. What seemed like an orchestrated attempt had been made to persuade anyone who might have seen, or who had ever admitted seeing, the “Winds Execute” before the attack to deny it. One person after another named by Safford as possible witnesses, including those who had admitted during earlier investigations that they had seen it before the attack, changed their stories, decided they had been mistaken, or denied that they had seen it at all. Safford himself, who refused to change his story, was vilified. Blame for the surprise attack had been levied by the Roberts Commission and by public opinion against the two Pearl Harbor commanders. And then there was the disappearance, not only of the “Winds Execute” message itself, which should have been retained in the files, but also any reference to the instructions to Cheltenham station concerning its interception.^[95] Moreover, other crucial pre-attack MAGIC intercepts had turned up missing as well.^[96]

Representative John W. Murphy questioned Safford about his remarks in his letter to Kramer, to the effect that “No one in OpNav can be trusted” and that Kimmel “was victim of a frame-up.”

Murphy: Tell us who was in Opnav who could not be trusted. . . . Please give us some names. . . . Who were you saying could not be trusted? Names please. Who could not be trusted? . . . Names, please. I am still waiting. Waiting. Will you please give us the names as to who could not be trusted in Opnav? Please, sir. . . .

Safford: I prefer not to answer.^[97]

Murphy also asked Safford whom he was accusing of framing Kimmel and Short. Framing somebody, Murphy said, was “one of the meanest and lowest crimes.” When pressed to say whether he “felt that the General Staff of the United States Army under General Marshall, and the General Staff of the Navy under Admiral Stark had framed Kimmel and Short,” Safford replied, “I felt that way.”^[98]

Senator Scott W. Lucas also questioned Safford ruthlessly about his letter to Kramer. He asked especially why the men whose names Safford had mentioned, “loyal and patriotic Americans” all, would want to secrete or destroy or disturb an important message of this kind. Safford finally said that he really had “no proper basis for suspicion” against Stark and Marshall. He had “no suspicion directed against any individual who can be named.” But the fact remained. “Official records have disappeared from the files of the Navy Department, and that is a suspicious circumstance. I have no idea how they disappeared. It is a fact that they are not present and cannot be accounted for.” However, Safford said he had “no suspicion against any individual.” He could name nobody.^[99]

Representative J. Bayard Clark was also relentless in questioning Safford. The effect of Safford’s “Winds Execute” testimony if true, Clark pointed out, was to accuse the most senior Army and Navy officers—Stark and Marshall—not only of “neglect of duty” but also of violating the criminal law of the land by secreting, removing, defacing or destroying public records. Safford admitted that his testimony was diametrically opposed to that of other witnesses. However, he said, the fact remained that documents were missing from the files.^[100]

Murphy even badgered Safford about his behavior at the time of the attack. Safford told the committee he had interpreted the “Winds Execute” to mean

that war would commence within two or three days in all probability, possibly Saturday, December 6, possibly Sunday, December 7. That was the best estimate that could be made as to the timing implied by a message of that nature.^[101]

The “One p.m. Message” had come in early that Sunday morning. Yet, Murphy pointed out, Safford had had no one on duty to translate that message promptly. He had left the office Saturday at 4:30 p.m. and was at home, in Murphy’s words, “still in pajamas having breakfast at 2:00.”^[102]

Safford explained that he had fulfilled his responsibilities as head of the security section of Naval Communications before he left the department on Saturday. He had done his best to alert the men in the field by sending out instructions concerning the need to destroy confidential codes and ciphers. He was not authorized to send out warnings to the field, and he had no responsibility to issue orders to the translators.^[103] Neither the Japanese reply to our note of November 26 nor the “One p.m. Message” had come in before Safford’s duty ended on Saturday. Moreover, Sunday was his “regular day off.”^[104] Even so, Murphy practically accused Safford of not being interested in protecting the American navy.

Murphy: Do I understand you to say you were not responsible for anything at all that might help with winning the war?

Keefe: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think that the answer bears any such interpretation. I think it is an unfair question. The witness didn’t testify to any such thing. The witness is entitled to some degree of fairness and fair play. . . . I object because the witness has testified that under the setup he had no responsibility for translators. You are trying to make it appear that he did have and had no interest in protecting the welfare of the Nation.^[105]

When Keefe had an opportunity to question Safford, he said he was “puzzled” and assumed other committee members were too. What “possible interest, personal interest” might Safford have in this controversy? “You realize, of course,” Keefe said to Safford, “that in view of the implications that have been stated in the cross-examination of you, especially by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Murphy], that you have made some rather strong charges? . . . That may well militate against your career as a naval officer. Did you realize that when you came here as a witness?”

Of course, Safford replied, every time he had testified. True, he had “no personal interest, except I started it and I have got to see it through.”

Keefe: And despite the fact that you have nothing personally to gain, and everything to lose, you have persisted in this story every time you have testified?

Safford: I have.^[106] . . . I believe the best defense is telling the truth.^[107]

Finally Safford completed five days (February 1–6) before the JCC, battered and bruised perhaps, but unbowed. His testimony remained consistent throughout the investigations.

Chief Warrant Officer Ralph T. Briggs, the Cheltenham code clerk who had intercepted the “Winds Execute,” had bowed to the command of his superior officer and did not testify. Safford had respected Briggs’s request for confidentiality, never mentioned his name, and revealed nothing Briggs had told him in confidence.^[108] (Because of personal problems—his wife was going blind—Briggs complied with the order of Captain Harper, his superior officer, out of fear he would be fired if he disobeyed. Only since his retirement in 1977 has he acknowledged intercepting the “Winds Execute” and located records proving this.^[109] The reassurance Safford received from Briggs that a “Winds Execute” had actually been picked up on December 4, 1941 must have given him added confidence in standing up to the vigorous and grueling cross-examination by some of JCC’s Democratic members. His determination to learn the truth about Pearl Harbor persisted for the rest of his life. He worked closely with this author in trying to follow investigative leads and to explain discrepancies in some of the testimony.

Safford later was recognized for some of his contributions to cryptography. On February 11, 1946, the Navy Department awarded him the Legion of Merit “for his work as a cryptographic expert from March 1942 to September 1945.”^[110] In 1958 Congress rewarded him $100,000 for his efforts in solving foreign codes and constructing our own codes.^[111] And in 1983, a decade after his death, he was awarded a delayed patent for his invention that “overcomes jamming of radio communications.”^[112]

Kramer, U.S. Navy Translator and Courier, Testifies

On February 6 Captain Alwin Dalton Kramer took the stand. Forty-two years old and a 1925 graduate of the Annapolis Naval Academy, Kramer had 21 years in the Navy. He had been in charge of a section of the Division of Naval Communications, but at the time of the attack he had actually been serving under Safford in the security section. During the crucial months before December 7, he had been the Navy’s courier and Japanese translator. A couple of years after the attack, he was sent to the Pacific where he served under Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor and then under Admiral Halsey in Noumea, New Caledonia. He had been promoted during the war from lieutenant commander to captain.^[113]

As Japanese translator and Navy courier, Kramer had been a crucial player in the pre-attack situation. It was hoped that, with his intimate knowledge of the Japanese intercepts, he would be able to shed some light on the receipt of these intercepts and the timing of their delivery to the various recipients.

When he was sworn in by Chairman Barkley, the old Senate Caucus Room was packed, the audience tense in anticipation. Among those who had been attending the hearings regularly for weeks was Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of the late Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, and widow of the late speaker of the House, Nicholas Longworth. Mrs. Longworth was in her usual seat on a bench behind the committee members. At the other end of the room, was Mrs. Kramer, who was often seen, standing on her seat nervously biting her fingernails, during the five days her husband was a witness.

Kramer said he had been thoroughly familiar with the Japanese MAGIC intercepts, but “It was not essential for the activities of my section that I be so familiar with the negotiations,” nor with the status of the diplomatic arrangements and intercourse between this country and Japan.^[114] However, his familiarity with the intercepts clearly made him one of JCC’s most important witnesses.

Kramer had not been called to testify before the Roberts Commission or the Hart inquiry. However, in 1943–44, when stationed in the South Pacific, he had had occasion to review the pre-attack situation. At that time he received two letters from Safford—one dated December 22, 1943,^[115] which he had answered, and a second dated January 22, 1944,^[116] which he had not.^[117] Then in mid-May 1944, Kramer’s commanding officer, Halsey, received a letter from Kimmel.^[118] Kimmel asked Halsey to consult Kramer about the “Winds Execute” and the December 6-7 deliveries of the crucial last-minute Japanese intercepts to top Washington officials.

Kramer reviewed the situation in his mind at that time and wrote a memorandum “For the benefit of Halsey,” answering in effect both Safford’s second letter and Kimmel’s letter to Halsey. Halsey read Kramer’s memorandum and returned it to him.^[119] Kramer did not send it to Safford. For reasons of security, he made only a single copy, which he retained in his personal files in a sealed envelope.^[120]

In September 1944 Kramer was issued travel orders to go from Halsey’s headquarters in New Caledonia to Pearl Harbor to testify before the Navy Court of Inquiry. When he appeared on September 13 he spoke quite readily about the arrangements made to intercept weather broadcasts, about his having been shown the “Winds Execute” when it was received, and about his having helped to interpret it.^[121]

The following spring the Hewitt inquiry had begun. On May 22, 1945, when Kramer appeared there, he was “less positive” that the “Winds Execute” had included the words referring to the United States, “Higashi no kaze ame.”^[122]

When recalled by Hewitt a couple of months later, Kramer was again questioned about the “Winds Execute,” this time by Lieutenant Commander John F. Sonnett, counsel to Hewitt and special assistant to the secretary of Navy. His testimony this time, on July 6, 1945, differed in important respects from his 1944 testimony before the NCI. In replying to Sonnett, Kramer adopted Sonnett’s phraseology, agreeing that “there was a ‘winds’ message,” but he could not say with certainty what the contents were.” Nor could he

recall the exact Japanese nomenclature used, but the phrase “not in accordance with expectations”. . . could have the implication of our words “relations are reaching a crisis,”. . . either a minor crisis or a major crisis.

It could mean simply that “negotiations concerning an understanding with the United States were at an end or that relations were to be broken or it could even mean that the crisis was so severe that war was imminent.”^[123]

In his testimony before the JCC, Kramer said that in mid or late September, before the committee began its work, he was invited to Stark’s home for lunch. Also invited were Schuirmann and McCollum.^[124] The luncheon “was largely and primarily a social affair and we discussed old times.” But Kramer said “some aspects” of Pearl Harbor were discussed. “[T]he chief point” he remembered was “as to what time Admiral Stark got down [to his office Sunday morning, December 7] and whether there was a conference in his office.” There were no papers at the luncheon, and no mention was made of the “Winds Code” message, the “Pilot Message,” or the 14-part Japanese reply.^[125]

Then on September 28 Kramer was hospitalized.^[126] (A month earlier he had gone to the Navy Medical Hospital at Bethesda for a routine physical check-up.) The hospitalization of “the most important witness in the [upcoming congressional] investigation” attracted press attention.^[127] A United Press dispatch reported Republican charges, denied by the Navy, that he “had been ‘broken in mind and body’ and was being held incommunicado in a hospital psychopathic ward.”^[128] An Associated Press story also held, quoting an unidentified source, that Kramer was “being badgered to change his original testimony.”^[129] According to the New York Times,Kramer “had been beset and beleaguered . . . badgered and beset by an effort to breakdown (sic) his testimony.” He denied the charge and “asserted that he was feeling very well and would appear before the committee prepared to state fully ‘anything I know that they may want to know’.”^[130]

Kramer was visited in the hospital by Safford and committee members Gearhart and Keefe. Their conversation was “very pleasant in nature,” Kramer said; they made no attempt to “bulldoze” him into changing his opinion “or anything of that kind.”^[131] Kramer was also interviewed at the hospital by reporters.^[132]

Kramer’s NCI “Winds Code” Testimony vs. his “Refreshed” JCC Testimony

In his December 1943 and January 1944 letters, Safford had asked Kramer about his recollections of the pre-attack situation in Washington, especially about the “Winds Execute” and Kramer’s December 6–7 intercept deliveries. When Kramer appeared before the JCC, Keefe questioned him about his 1944 memorandum prepared for Admiral Halsey.^[133] In that memorandum and again before the NCI, Kramer had detailed his role in translating and delivering the pre-attack intercepts. Passage by passage, Keefe went over the memorandum with Kramer. And passage by passage, Kramer modified his 1944 statements.^[134]

There were serious discrepancies between Kramer’s earlier (1944) NCI testimony and his later newly “refreshed” JCC recollections concerning the receipt, or non-receipt, of a “Winds Execute.” At the NCI, Kramer had testified quite readily about the “Winds Execute,” even volunteering details on his own: “Higashi No Kaze Ame is East Wind, Rain. . . . The sense of that, however, meant strained relations or a break in relations, possibly even implying war with a nation to the eastward, the United States.”^[135] However, when Keefe questioned Kramer, he waffled:

Keefe: Was it the truth?

Kramer: It was not, sir. . . . It was the truth as it came to my mind at the time. . . . [T]hat occasion, namely, the Naval Court of Inquiry, was the first time that the question of what country appeared in that piece of teletype ever came up in any conversation in which I was participating. . . .

Keefe: So that we now have a situation where you make a statement on a vital issue before the Naval Court of Inquiry which you admit was not true because you claim that subsequent events have now convinced you that the answer which you gave was not [true]; is that the fact? . . .

Kramer: [D]espite the fact that I was caught cold [at the NCI] on that point when the question was propounded my reaction even then was that only one country was involved on that piece of teletype paper.^[136]

Keefe: Now you want us to understand when I read your testimony before the naval court that according to your present refreshed and current recollection you were mistaken, that there were no such words in the message that you saw?

Kramer: No words referring to the United States. . . .

Keefe: You do not remember what words were in the message; is that your testimony, Captain?

Kramer: What I mean to imply by that—I think it has been reiterated many times—is that I do not now and have never known since the time I saw that piece of teletype exactly what Japanese phraseology was in it, sir. . . .

Keefe: You pretended to know what words were in it when you testified before the Naval Court of Inquiry, did you not?

Kramer: That was apparently the impression I created; yes, sir.

Keefe: Yes. Now, I want to understand what your testimony is today. Am I correct in the assumption that according to your present, or what you have referred to many times as your current, recollection after being refreshed, you are not able to tell this committee what words were in that coded execute message?

Kramer: My present belief and conviction is that piece of teletype referred to one country and that country was England. . . . “Nishi No Kaze Hare.”. . .

Keefe: I asked you the simple question as to whether the statement which you made, which I have read to you, the answers that you gave in response to those questions was the truth. Was it or wasn’t it?

Kramer: [I]t was not the whole truth as I see it now, inasmuch as there was no reference in that answer to any handwriting [on the teletype message].^[137]

Keefe then turned Kramer’s attention to his mid-1945 testimony before Hewitt. Concerning the “Winds Execute,” Kramer had said at that time:

Kramer: It may have been “Higashi no kaze ame,” specifically referring to the United States, as I have previously testified at Pearl Harbor, but I am less positive of that now than I believe I was at that time. The reason for revision in my view on that is the fact that in thinking it over, I have a rather sharp recollection in the latter part of that week of feeling that there was still no overt mention or specific mention of the United States in any of this traffic, which I was seeing all of and which also was the only source in general of my information since I did not see, as a rule, the dispatches from the fleet commanders or going out to them from Operations.^[138]

Keefe: So as late as the time you testified before Admiral Hewitt you were of the opinion that it may have contained the words “Higashi no kaze ame,” but you were becoming uncertain about it in the light of your further refreshing?

Kramer: I meant to imply by that specifically that I did not recall, and still do not recall, the precise wording of the Japanese on the piece of teletype paper. . . .

Keefe: So we now get to the point of your testimony here that there was a message, it had something on it, and must have had something on it to designate it as a wind code execute message? . . . Then I am to understand, Captain Kramer, that this message, which was considered of top importance by everybody, which everybody was looking for and on the lookout for, and for which you have testified specific arrangements had been set up as in connection with no other message, after this message comes in you see it, you read it, you determine that this is the message you have been looking for, and you can’t tell us now what was on that message? . . . Or what it said? . . .

Kramer: That is correct, sir.^[139]

Keefe: . . . . Then Mr. Sonnett examined you about a lot of other matters. Then, Captain Kramer, at the conclusion of the examination of Admiral Hewitt, is it a fair assumption to conclude that as far as your testimony discloses, there was a wind execute code message received in the middle of the week, the exact date of which you were then uncertain, which may have referred to the United States, England, or possibly Russia, you were not certain: you were not then certain, and you are not certain what the message specifically said but it may have referred to one or both or all three of the countries in the original code set-up; is that what you meant to tell Admiral Hewitt?

Kramer: That is what I meant to tell him at the time. . . .

Keefe: Now, you, as the man in charge of translations of these messages, with knowledge that the whole Government was set up to pick up this very vital and important message, who handled that message, who saw it, who read it, who checked the interpretation of the watch officer on that message, sit here before us today, and say you can’t tell us what the message said, you have no collection of what it said at all; is that correct?

Kramer: That is correct, sir. However, I would like to point out to you, Mr. Keefe, that I think that an entirely unwarranted emphasis and importance is being attributed to that message, not only in this hearing but in past hearings, and in the press. There were many other messages more specific as to Japanese intentions during this period. . . . A wind message would have been only one further indication of the general trend of this traffic as well as the general trend of the international situation.

Keefe: Well I am very happy that you have made that statement, Captain, because I have concluded that, as one member of this committee, a long time ago that there were plenty of messages to have warned those who read them and saw them that war was imminent and just about to break, without this winds execute message. But, Captain Kramer, the Navy Department and all of the officials in the Navy Department—and I assume the War Department, too—considered that that winds execute message was of supreme importance, otherwise why did they set up this great set-up of cards and treat it as they did, with complete priority over every other message that was received? . . . Well it did appear, didn’t it. . . . Now, this message came in over the teletype, didn’t it? . . .

Kramer: Yes, sir.

Keefe: Yes. You saw it?

Kramer: I saw it.^[140]

Keefe: . . . . The thing that attracted the attention of the GY watch officer was that in this message appeared the same Japanese language words that were in the original set-up; isn’t that true? . . . And you still want to say to us that you can’t recall what those words were?

Kramer: That is correct, sir.

Keefe: They must have been the words of the original code, otherwise you wouldn’t have paid any attention to it. . . . And it is because the words on this teletype tape were the original Japanese code words in the original code set-up that you determined that this was the coded execute message at that time; isn’t that true?

Kramer: It is not sir. . . . I should like to explain precisely what I mean by that. The determination was not made by me in the case of this piece of teletype. On the number of previous times when I had been called down concerning possible messages in this winds system, I had examined long sheets of this teletype paper, had looked for the point of whether or not the expression was repeated or appeared as it was supposed to appear in the middle or at the end, or both. In this particular case my presumption was that the GY watch officer had made that determination inasmuch as the piece of paper I saw was only a short piece of paper, 3 or 4 inches in length as I recollect, and that presumably he had identified this message as being an authentic winds message, not only from the wording that actually appeared in it, but from its location in the Japanese plain language broadcast. That was a function of the GY watch officer not only as regards this winds system, but as regards all systems to determine its authenticity and to break it down. The only reason for having shown this piece of paper to me was in connection with the Japanese words thereon, and that is all, sir. . . .

Keefe: And you looked at those words and looked at the interpretation which he had given them. You may have corrected it in some particular, and you became convinced that the Japanese language words on that piece of teletype made that message the Japanese code execute message and you so determined at that time and went down to Captain Safford’s office and handed it to him, or saw the watch officer hand it to him and said, “Here it is.” “This is it.” “The thing that we have been straining ourselves for and setting up all this intercepting apparatus.” That is true, isn’t it?

Kramer: It is, sir.^[141]

Keefe: . . . . So if the words “Higashi no kaze ame” appear on this winds execute message the interpretation would mean “East wind rain;” that is right, isn’t it? . . . Then you say that is plain Japanese language. The sense of that, however, meant strained relations or a break in relations, possibly even implying war with a nation on the eastward, the United States. Now that interpretation is the same today as it was when you testified out there before the Naval Court of Inquiry, isn’t it?

Kramer: Exactly, sir.

Keefe: So that if you had wanted to you could have indicated that those words meant war with the United States, couldn’t you, and be within the interpretation which you had given to the Naval Court of Inquiry? It was one of the three alternatives, was it not?

Kramer: Only, Mr. Keefe, insofar as you would evaluate the Japanese instructions contained in the set-up of this wind message referring to the destruction of codes and classified papers. An evaluation which concluded that that meant war would then include that interpretation; yes, sir.^[142]

Keefe then asked Kramer about the cards distributed at the direction of Noyes to persons who were to watch for a plain-language Japanese “Winds Execute.” Kramer had testified before the NCI that “these cards had on them the [Japanese] expressions contained in this exhibit, and the meaning.”^[143] However, Kramer told the JCC that “apparently my memory was faulty at that moment as to what was on the cards. My present belief and conviction is that the Japanese expressions did not appear on those cards.” Keefe thought it “perfectly in line with common sense” for Kramer to have listed the “Japanese words on the card, together with their meaning, so that these top-flight people to whom the cards were directed . . . would be able to compare it [a “Winds Execute”] with the Japanese words on the card and then know the meaning.” However, Kramer wanted to change that testimony. He insisted that, according to his “present, current, refresh[ed] recollection,” the only words he had put on the cards were the “English translation and the country referred to and that was all. . . . East Wind—rain—United States; west wind—clear—England; north wind—cloudy—Russia’.”^[144]

As Keefe’s questioning wound down, Kramer admitted that there had been a “Winds Execute;” on that point he and Safford were in agreement. And he had “believed that it was an authentic message of that winds system . . . [u]ntil the last few days when I. . . . had been making further studies, including the reading of interrogations of high Japanese officials by General MacArthur.”^[145]

When Republican Representative Keefe finished questioning Kramer, Democratic Senator Lucas took over. He pointed out that Kramer had had only a few brief seconds of contact, “Not over 30 seconds. Probably nearer 10 or 15 seconds” with the “Winds Execute” before it was handed to Safford. He had not been involved in its decoding, translation, and delivery. It was “by mere chance” that he had happened to be in his office as the GY watch officer passed on his way to deliver it to Safford. Thus, Lucas implied, Kramer’s contact with the message was so brief that it was not surprising his recollections were not too clear.^[146]

“Pilot Message” Received, Announcing Japan’s Response to U.S. November 26 “Ultimatum”

On Saturday morning, December 6, 1941, U.S. intelligence picked up a Japanese dispatch that became known as the “Pilot Message” because it announced to the Japanese ambassadors in Washington the impending arrival of their government’s 14-part response to the U.S. note of November 26 rejecting their latest proposal for compromise. This “Pilot Message” told the Japanese ambassadors that the time for its presentation to the United States would be wired separately^[147]—in “Purple”-coded English; it would need decrypting but not translating.

The time sheet shows that the “Pilot Message” was intercepted by a Navy station on the west coast December 6, 1941, between 7:15 to 7:20 a.m. (east-coast time) and then teletyped in Japanese code to the Navy in Washington.^[148] It was more than four hours later (12:05 p.m.) when the Army, whose day it was to decode, received it from the Navy. This abnormal delay was never accounted for. It was then decoded, typed up by the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, and delivered to the Army and Navy officer couriers.

When Kramer appeared before the JCC on February 6, he acknowledged that the Navy had intercepted the “Pilot Message” between 7:15 and 7:20 a.m. that Saturday morning and that it hadn’t reached the Army, until 12:05 p.m.^[149] In any event, Kramer was “as certain as” he could be “that the first knowledge I had that the [14-part] Japanese note was being sent to the United States was around 3 or shortly after 3:00 p.m. Saturday, December 6, 1941.” Although the Army might possibly have delivered the “Pilot Message” to Kramer’s section earlier in the afternoon, he had “no recollection of seeing that message until later in the afternoon.”^[150]

Two days later Kramer changed the story he was telling the JCC. He said he didn’t believe the “Pilot Message” had been disseminated Saturday afternoon at all and listed it (Navy #7149) as one of several intercepts that were delivered at 10:30 Sunday morning.^[151]

I find as a result of my study last night [after referring to a Navy Department file] that the pilot message was not disseminated, at least in the Navy, until Sunday morning subsequent to 10:00, at the time when the so-called hidden word message and a number of other short messages, including the 1:00 message, were disseminated.^[152]

When Senator Ferguson asked Kramer:

If you did not know what this pilot message was until 10:30 . . . on Sunday morning how did you know there was going to be a fourteenth part? . . . How did you know without the pilot message that you were going to get an answer to the 26th note?

Kramer replied that he

did not, at least, know positively but certainly at the time and now presumed from the context of the parts we were breaking down that that must be the reply to Mr. Hull’s note of 26 November.^[153]

Ferguson tried to find out what there was in the records to show whether the “Pilot Message” had actually been received in the Navy Department Saturday, December 6, or Sunday morning, December 7. Kramer admitted that “There is nothing whatsoever in the file, Senator, to show definitely one way or another that point.”^[154]

Kramer repeated again the next day his account of the Sunday morning receipt and delivery of the “Pilot Message.” His “present belief,” he told the JCC, was that he “did not get it in my section from the Army until the next morning, Sunday, December 7. . . . Sometime between 9 and 10:30 that morning.” His memory had been “refreshed . . . since I got to studying this on my arrival at Washington.”^[155]

As a matter of fact, Kramer told the JCC two days later that he did not believe the “Pilot Message” had even been included with the first delivery early on the morning of the 7th, but that it had become available only in time for the second round of deliveries. According to the “study I made . . . a few days ago, my best knowledge and present conviction is that my section in the Navy Department did not receive it until approximately 10:25 or 10:30 Sunday morning.”^[156] His “sole reason” for saying this, he told Ferguson, was “due to the fact that in the Navy book it [the “Pilot Message”] appears after the 14-part message and after the 1:00 message” (italics added). Thus he had been led to the “conclusion that it must have been delivered Sunday instead of Saturday.”^[157]

Kramer Testifies Further on Japan’s Reply to U.S. November 26 Note and Other Matters

When Republican Senator Brewster took over the questioning of Kramer, he said he was “amazed” that Kramer had not reread the memorandum he had written at Halsey’s request in 1944, not even when he had shown it to others—Lieutenant Commander Baecher, Admiral Wilkinson, his “long-time personal friend” Captain Rochefort, and Marine Corps Colonel Bales.^[158] Brewster could see no reason why Kramer shouldn’t have reviewed his memorandum prior to his appearance before the JCC. It would have been far easier to credit his story if he had, rather than basing his “entire present recollection on the refreshment received from consultation with officers who examined that document.”^[159]

Kramer, like Safford, had been examined by Sonnett, counsel in the Hewitt inquiry. Senator Lucas asked Kramer if his experience with Sonnett had been at all similar to Safford’s. Kramer denied that Sonnett had “badgered or beset” him at any time or tried to persuade him to change his testimony. He knew of no one in the Navy, Army, State Department, or chief executive’s office who had “provoked, angered, or tricked those peaceloving and harmless Japs into attacking Pearl Harbor” or who had “maneuvered, conspired, or attempted to lay the sole blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster on Kimmel and Short.”^[160]

Kramer was also asked why there were occasional gaps in the numbered intercepts. Sometimes the numbering machine would skip a number, he said. Army and Navy both often worked on decryption of the same intercept, he said, and both would assign it a number. When it was discovered later that the same message had been given two different numbers, one was canceled.^[161]

When asked to explain the missing “Winds Execute” teletype, Kramer said he believed

the purpose of having duplicates for any of this traffic, whether encoded or plain language, was to have an extra copy for systems which we were not reading so that more than one person could work on that system in attempting to break it down.^[162]

As for the “Winds Execute,” Kramer had not had anything specifically to do with it; it had gone directly to Noyes’s office and had not been handled through Kramer’s office.^[163]

Representative Cooper, vice chairman of the committee, questioned Kramer about how all the documents relating to the “Winds Execute” could have vanished from the files. He could offer no explanation. Given the precautions that had been taken to conceal the combination to the safe in which these papers were kept, Kramer couldn’t understand it. Only he and two others knew the combination, and if anyone had broken into the double-sealed envelope in the Navy Department’s front offices where the combination was kept, someone would surely have known.^[164]

Vice Chairman: I understand then, Captain that these messages, including the number 7001, were in your custody. . . . And were kept in your safe in your office?

Kramer: Yes, sir. . . .

Vice Chairman: And all of the files were in their proper order and in their proper place and kept there in your safe?

Kramer: That is correct, sir. I might further amplify that answer, sir, to this effect, that the so-called numerical file, after a series of messages were numbered for dissemination, a copy was invariably and immediately inserted in that numerical file. Messages were never removed from that numerical file for reference or for any other purpose. That numerical file had two primary purposes, one to have a solid file of what had been translated and disseminated and, two, the primary purpose was to have something to which the translators could turn in case of references to back traffic when future messages were received. We had a very complete and involved cross-index system on 3 by 5 cards, covering every originator in the Japanese diplomatic service. By that I mean every consulate, every embassy, every legation that originated messages had their own serial numbers for their series of messages. . . .

From this basic numerical file there was no occasion that I know of where anything was removed or destroyed from that file with the exception of the fact that if it was determined later, probably a few days or a week later, that we had two identical messages, one of which was a duplication of another, when that was discovered the latest numerical file number would be canceled as a duplication of the earlier one. . . .

Vice Chairman: Well, could anybody have gone in there and filched or stolen all of the messages relating to the winds execute message and you have known nothing about it?

Kramer: I don’t see how that would be possible, sir, with this possible exception, that the combination of the safe in which these were kept, there was a copy of that combination in a double-sealed envelope in some of the front offices. If that envelope had been opened someone else would, of course, be able to open my safe. Otherwise, the only people who knew the combination of the safe in which that particular file was kept were three people, Lieutenant Harrison, the then Chief Yeoman Bryant, and myself. . . . From an examination of the files last Saturday in the Navy Department and this study, exhibit 142, of about a week or so ago . . . I am as positive as I can be that that file number 7001 could not possibly have been any winds message. That is in addition to the fact that I have absolutely no matter of any kind, no recollection, no knowledge that a winds message was ever written up by my section.^[165]

Keefe questioned Kramer about the Japanese government’s 14-part reply. According to Kramer’s 1944 memorandum, Kramer recalled receiving the first 13 parts during the afternoon of December 6. He had tried by phone to locate Beardall, Turner, Wilkinson, and Bratton. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Stark. Kramer said he had delivered the 13 parts to Beardall’s aide at the White House that Saturday evening.^[166] He also told the JCC that he delivered the 13 parts about 9:45 p.m. to Knox at the Wardman Park and had then gone to Wilkinson’s home in Arlington, Virginia, where he was having a dinner party. [Kramer delivered to Wilkinson’s home and Beardall was there. Kramer thought Wilkinson MAY have phoned Stark and Turner that evening.] “Admiral Wilkinson was present, also Captain Beardall [FDR’s naval aide].” Kramer said his memory had been “refreshed only quite recently to the effect that General Miles was also present.” Kramer had then returned to the Navy Department, before going home.^[167]

He was positive that he had not delivered the 13 parts of the Japanese reply that evening either to Ingersoll, the assistant chief of Naval Operations, or Turner, chief of the Navy War Plans Division. Yet apparently Turner had seen it that evening; he testified before the NCI that “a rather long dispatch” had been brought to him “some time during the very late evening of December 6 or the early morning of December 7. . . . [T]he officer who brought the dispatch to the house stated that there was a part of the message missing . . . the latter part.”^[168] Still Kramer maintained he had neither telephoned Ingersoll nor delivered to him directly any of these intercepts that night.^[169]

Kramer held also that he had not delivered the 13 parts to Turner, although he had testified to the contrary.^[170] Ferguson read an excerpt from Turner’s JCC testimony, and Kramer had to agree that “Admiral Turner knew what he was talking about.” However, Kramer continued to maintain that he had made no delivery to Turner that evening. He would admit only that Turner’s recollection “obviously differs from my recollections.”^[171]

Ferguson elicited from Kramer that he had drafted for Noyes a December 1 message concerning Japanese movements in Thailand, thousands of miles from any U.S. possessions.^[172] Ferguson wanted to know why, especially if Kramer “knew nothing about our policy in case of an attack by the Japanese on the British,”^[173] he

felt that we should insure that they [CINCAF and CINCPAC] got that picture, sir, even though they may have received it and read it on the Asiatic station, the British also at Singapore, and the unit at Honolulu.^[174]

Why would he, Kramer, “send a message that involved the British and the Japanese a thousand miles from any of our possessions directly to the information of CincPac, which was Admiral Kimmel,”^[175] when he had not sent to either the Pacific or Asiatic Fleet the ship movement message, “which set up a plan of Pearl Harbor, indicating what they wanted it for was an attack later.”^[176]

Kramer said that “Every message bearing on ship movements, either of our Navy, our merchant marine, or foreign navies, specifically England, was given high priority in my section and all were translated and disseminated by my section.”^[177] He admitted that the Japanese had “used [this grid bombing map] for all ship movements subsequently to setting up of this abbreviated system of reporting ships in Pearl Harbor.”^[178] However, “evaluation . . . was never at any time a function of his section.”^[179] Moreover, Kramer pointed out, Pearl Harbor was not the only base the Japanese had been watching: “Back in 1940, during the course of negotiations with the Dutch in Java . . . the Japanese conducted rather rigorous reconnaissance of all military establishments, not only in Java but in other islands of the Dutch East Indies.” They had also requested information on the “military establishments, air bases, fleet facilities, in Panama and in part of the Western Hemisphere under United States jurisdiction. The Japanese diplomatic service, as well as their military and naval attaches abroad,” Kramer testified, “were very conscientious people and reported in meticulous detail all facts that they could learn. . . . They likewise reported in great detail the air bases in the vicinity of Seattle and Bremerton Navy Yard, sir, similarly on the San Francisco area.”^[180] Nevertheless, Kramer could not point to any requests from the Japanese “in the latter part of November or December [1941] in relation to San Francisco and Seattle” for bombing maps of any locations other than Pearl Harbor.^[181]

Kramer was on the witness stand for five long days (February 6–11, 1946; February 10 was a Sunday). After he finished testifying, he returned to the hospital where he remained until after the committee’s reports were released for the Sunday papers of July 21. The next month at age 46, he was given a medical discharge and an untaxed pension. He maintained his silence on Pearl Harbor throughout his remaining 26 years. He died in 1972.

Bratton, Army Courier, on Delivery of Japan’s Reply to U.S. Note of November

Colonel Rufus Bratton was another key figure in the events of December 6–7. As Army courier, he had been Kramer’s counterpart, charged with the delivery of the Japanese MAGIC intercepts to the Army’s list of officials entitled to see them. These included Hull, Stimson, Marshall, Gerow, and Miles. Bratton’s chief assistant had been Colonel Carlisle C. Dusenbury.

Every time Bratton testified he changed his story slightly in some respects.

On September 15, 1944, he had told Colonel Clarke, who was conducting a special investigation for Marshall, that Japan’s 14-part reply started coming in on the 6th of December. It was then his “recollection” that he had “transmitted a copy to the Secretary of State that night.”^[182] He made no mention of any other deliveries that evening.

On September 30, 1944, when appearing before the Army Pearl Harbor Board, Bratton testified that he had “had the bulk of it [the Japanese reply] since the evening” of December 6. “It came in fourteen parts. . . . Thirteen of those parts were received the afternoon and evening of the 6th.”^[183] He said he had delivered the first 13 parts to three recipients that evening: “the office of the Chief of Staff [actually Marshall’s secretary, Colonel, later General, Bedell Smith], the A.C. of S. G-2 [actually Gerow’s executive officer, Colonel Gailey], the office of the Secretary of State.”^[184]

On July 27, 1945, in an affidavit for Clausen, who was touring the Army’s several theaters of operations under orders of Stimson to interview and collect sworn affidavits from persons involved in some way with Pearl Harbor, Bratton had given a still different account of the events of December 6–7. Clausen had shown Bratton several sworn affidavits submitted by men Bratton knew, some of them Bratton’s superiors in the Army. Bratton had interpreted some of those affidavits as differing from his previous testimony, although on examination it is apparent that they were not actual contradictions so much as merely carefully crafted evasions. However, they influenced Bratton to revise his statement.^[185]

In his affidavit for Clausen, Bratton had said that, after receiving the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply and ascertaining that the 14th part would not be coming in that evening, he had directed Dusenbury “to deliver the set for the Chief of Staff at his home at Fort Myer.” The affidavit stated further, in contradiction to his APHB testimony, that he had delivered only one set of those 13 parts that evening himself, the set destined for the secretary of state, which he had left “between 10 and 11:00 p.m.” with the night duty officer at the State Department. He also said in his affidavit that the sets for the other officials on Bratton’s list “were delivered the next morning, 7 December 1941, with the fourteenth part.” Bratton had said that when he saw Marshall that morning, Marshall had on his desk the 14-part message, which he “had not given him.” He could not explain how it had reached Marshall. According to Bratton,

Any prior statements or testimony of mine which may be contrary to my statements here [the affidavit for Clausen] . . . should be modified and considered changed in accordance with my statements herein. This affidavit now represents my best recollection . . . after having my memory refreshed in several ways and respects.^[186]

By the time Bratton was finally called to the witness stand by the Joint Congressional Committee, he had been listening for months to the sworn testimony of witnesses, some of whom had contradicted one another; some had even contradicted their own earlier testimony, and some had offered to shoulder the blame for Marshall’s possible delinquencies.^[187] As the bewildered Bratton took the chair on February 14, 1946, suspense pervaded the packed hearing room.

Delivery to Top Officials Evening of December 6 of Japanese Reply to U.S. “Ultimatum”

Respecting the receipt of the “Pilot Message,” Bratton contradicted the testimony of his Navy opposite, Kramer. Kramer’s “refreshed” testimony was that the message had not reached him, ready for delivery, until about 10 or 10:30 Sunday morning, December 7.^[188] However, it was undoubtedly available to Navy officials in Washington on Saturday afternoon, for several Navy officers testified that it had been phoned or distributed to the usual Navy recipients by then.^[189]

Bratton told the JCC the message had first come to his attention at about 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, that it had been translated by the Army, typed, and delivered to him. He then had it distributed “that afternoon about 3:00”^[190] to the full list of persons for whom he was responsible.^[191] Bratton said he even recalled discussing its contents with both Gerow and Miles.^[192]

If the “Pilot Message” had been decoded and distributed on Saturday, as Bratton testified, then Washington officials would have been on notice that Tokyo’s reply to our November 26 note was on its way. They expected this reply to be a rejection of our proposal, so they would have had reason to anticipate a final break with Japan, possibly the outbreak of war, and would have had some opportunity to think about how best to respond. If it had not been available until Sunday morning, as Kramer said, the top personnel would not have been expecting Japan’s response and would have had little time to anticipate and decide how to respond to the Japanese threat.

When the first 13 parts of Japan’s reply, which had been intercepted, decoded, and typed up by early Saturday evening, were actually placed in the hands of the top Washington officials was crucial for determining what we knew of Japan’s intentions prior to the attack. Bratton had testified variously about his deliveries of this intercept. JCC Associate General Counsel Kaufman asked him about these several discrepancies.

“Now, before answering your question,” Bratton began,

I would like to state that this is the fifth time I have appeared as a witness in this Pearl Harbor investigation, I hope it will be the last time, but it is also the first time that I have had an opportunity to examine files, records and documents in the War Department to refresh my memory as to the details of various events and it is the first time that I have had an opportunity to talk to the people I worked for and with at that time. In consequence my memory as to the details of certain events have [sic] been greatly improved. As to the details of certain other events it is foggier than ever for the reason that I have heard and seen so many conflicting arguments and statements here and elsewhere since my return to Washington.^[193]

Returning to the 13 parts:

There are several details . . . that stand out very clearly in my mind. . . . First, I called up the SIS [Signal Intelligence Service] . . . to ask if there was any likelihood of the fourteenth part coming in later that night [December 6]. . . . After some discussion in the SIS, this officer returned to the phone and he said “No, there is very little likelihood of that part coming in this evening.”

Bratton knew Hull had a strong interest in this message, so he put the 13 parts in the pouch, locked it, and delivered it personally to the State Department’s night duty officer some time after 10:00 p.m. He advised the night duty officer that this was “a highly important message as far as the Secretary of State was concerned” and it should be sent out to his quarters immediately. Bratton was assured it would be.^[194]

Then at about 11:00 p.m. Bratton had returned to his quarters. From there he phoned Miles’s home and was told he was out. When Miles got home and returned Bratton’s call, Bratton described the 13 parts “in guarded terms” and added that the 14th and most important part had not yet been received. Miles said he had seen the 13 parts where he had been a dinner guest. Bratton also told Miles that he, Miles, had delivered the first 13 parts to Hull.^[195] Kaufman asked Bratton if Miles had told him it wasn’t necessary to deliver the 13 parts to Marshall that night. Bratton remembered no such instructions. Kaufman then read into the record Miles’s JCC testimony, in which he took

full responsibility for that . . . message not going to the Chief of Staff that night. . . . I knew its substance. I did not consider that it was necessary to arouse the Chief of Staff at that time of night for that message.^[196]

After having this testimony called to his attention, Bratton added: “I would like to say further at this point that if there was any error of omission or commission with respect to the delivery of the 13 parts of that message Saturday night of the 6th of December 1941 to Army personnel the error was mine, and I accept full responsibility for it.”^[197] In this way, both Miles and Bratton added their names to the list of those willing to take the responsibility for a possible failure on the part of Marshall.

Denials by Top Officials Lead Bratton to Doubt His Earlier Testimony

The persons in the Army who “customarily” received MAGIC, Bratton said, were Marshall, Gerow, and Miles. “And do we have it now,” Kaufman asked, “that no delivery was made to any of those persons other than to the Secretary of State and excepting General Miles who had already seen it at Admiral Wilkinson’s house?”

“This is the point” Bratton said at which his “memory begins to go bad”; he could “not state positively whether there was any delivery made that night or not at this time.” He had testified before the APHB that he “had made delivery to the Secretary of the General Staff, to the night duty officer, or to General Gerow and to General Miles.” That, Bratton said, was his “normal procedure.” He “tried to make simultaneous delivery to all these people.” However, when he made that statement to the APHB he “had not remembered . . . that Colonel Dusenbury was working with me in the office that night.”^[198] Also Clausen had shown him a number of sworn affidavits collected from various officers: Bedell Smith, General Ralph Smith, Gerow, Gailey, and others

to the effect that they did not receive the 13 parts of this message from me or from anyone else Saturday night. Now, I know all these men. I do not doubt the honesty and integrity of any one of them, and if they say that I did not deliver these pouches to them that night, then my memory must have been at fault.^[199]

Asked by Ferguson why he had changed his testimony, Bratton replied:

It was a combination of facts, sir. . . . My subsequent recollection that Colonel Dusenbury was at work with me in the office that evening . . . and the affidavits of various officers stating that I did not make deliveries to them on Saturday evening, and my recollection of the telephone conversation with General Miles at about half-past eleven Saturday night, my subsequent conversations with Colonel Dusenbury, with whom I have talked here in Washington, my conversations with General Gerow, with whom I talked here in Washington, my conversations with General Miles before he appeared before the Committee, all of these have combined to lead me to the belief that the evidence that I have given before the committee today is my best recollection of the facts.^[200]

After the lengthy questioning of Safford, Kramer, Bratton, and all the other officers concerned, it was difficult to know just what to believe. Their testimony had often been confusing and contradictory. Kramer’s testimony did little to clear up the mystery over whether a “Winds Execute” had been intercepted before December 7—or if it had been, what it had meant. His testimony about the “Pilot Message” raised questions as to whether it was actually received before or after the 14-part response itself. And Bratton’s testimony on the delivery of the Japanese intercepts during the evening of December 6 helped little in clarifying the situation.

Intercepts Indicating Imminence of War Delivered to the White House Evening, December 6

At my suggestion, committee member requested a list of all persons who had been on duty at the White House on December 6 and 7. One name on that list was Navy Commander Lester R. Schulz.

On February 12, 1946, while at sea aboard the Indiana, Schulz received orders to come to Washington.^[201] When he arrived at the Capitol, Senator Ferguson and Lieutenant Commander Baecher, assistant counsel and the Navy’s liaison to the committee, took him aside in a room adjoining the chamber where the hearings were being held.^[202] When the senator returned to the committee table, he said to me sotto voce, “This is it!”

Schulz had told his story about the evening of December 6 to no one except when he had spoken briefly with Baecher the previous December. This was his first time to testify, he said.^[203] He had never written his experiences down and had no notes.^[204]

In 1941 Schulz had been a Navy lieutenant in the Office of Naval Communications for communications intelligence. He had first entered the White House on December 5, on a temporary assignment from the communications division. On the evening of December 6 he had been on temporary duty at the White House as a communications assistant to Naval aide Captain Beardall.^[205] At about 4 p.m. Beardall told Schulz to remain in the office to receive a special message for the president.^[206] “[D]uring the evening Captain Kramer would bring up some magic material and that I was to take it and give it immediately to the president,” Schultz testified. The material would be in a locked pouch, and Beardall gave Schultz the key so he could remove the material.^[207] Beardall told him it was “of such importance” that the president was expecting it.

Beardall himself left at about 5:30 to attend a dinner party.^[208] This was the first time in his seven months as FDR’s naval aide that he had been asked to make special arrangements to deliver a message to the president after 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening, i.e., after the close of the ordinary workday.^[209]

The first 13 parts of the Japanese reply were in the Navy Department and ready for distribution by 9:00 p.m. on December 6. Before delivering the locked pouch with these 13 parts to anyone else, Kramer took them to the White House.^[210]

Schulz had been given a small office, not in the White House proper, but in a corner of the mailroom in the White House office building. At about 9:30 p.m. Kramer came in with a locked pouch, which he handed to Schulz. Schulz immediately took the pouch over to the White House and obtained permission to go up to the president’s study on the second floor. He was accompanied by someone from the usher’s office who announced him to the president. Then Schulz went into FDR’s study alone. “The president was there seated at his desk, and Mr. [Harry] Hopkins was there,” Schulz said. He told FDR that he was delivering the material which Kramer had brought.^[211]

Schulz unlocked the pouch, took out the papers, “perhaps 15 typewritten pages . . . fastened together in a sheaf,” and handed them to Roosevelt personally. According to Schulz,

The president read the papers, which took perhaps 10 minutes. Then he handed them to Mr. Hopkins. . . . Mr. Hopkins then read the papers and handed them back to the president. The president then turned toward Mr. Hopkins and said in substance . . . “This means war.” Mr. Hopkins agreed, and they discussed then, for perhaps 5 minutes, the situation of the Japanese forces, that is, their deployment.^[212]

Schulz was a young graduate of Annapolis, decent and upright in appearance, his manner open and forthright. There could be no doubting the truth of what he was saying. The spectators in the packed hearing room listened in complete silence, straining to catch his every word.

Counsel Richardson asked Schulz if he could remember anything specific that FDR or Hopkins had said. Schulz could remember only a few words, but he could say “definitely” that

the substance of it was that—I believe Mr. Hopkins mentioned it first—that since war was imminent, that the Japanese intended to strike when they were ready, at a moment when all was most opportune for them. . . . That is, when their forces were most properly deployed for their advantage. Indochina in particular was mentioned, because the Japanese forces had already landed there and there were implications of where they would move next.^[213]

The president mentioned having sent a message to the Japanese emperor concerning the presence of Japanese troops in Indochina and requesting their withdrawal.^[214] Schulz did not see Roosevelt’s message, but he recalled

the president quoting from this message that he drafted to the effect that he had told Hirohito that he could not see how it could be held that there was any danger to peace in the Far East as far as the United States was concerned if there were no Japanese forces in Indochina.

In other words, we were not going to attack Indochina, nor was anyone else. Therefore the presence of Japanese forces in Indochina was for an aggressive purpose or for ulterior purposes on the part of the Japanese. We ourselves held no threat for Indochina.^[215]

Schulz continued:

Mr. Hopkins then expressed a view that since war was undoubtedly going to come at the convenience of the Japanese, it was too bad that we could not strike the first blow and prevent any sort of surprise. The president nodded and then said, in effect, “No, we can’t do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people.” Then he raised his voice, and this much I remember definitely. He said, “But we have a good record.”^[216]

Schulz got the impression that “we would have to stand on that record, we could not make the first overt move. We would have to wait until it came.”^[217]

The only geographic name Schulz remembered was Indochina. There was no mention of Pearl Harbor. The time when war might begin was not discussed. “[T]here was no indication that tomorrow was necessarily the day,” he said. Schulz “carried that impression away because it contributed to my personal surprise when the news did come.” According to Schulz, “There was no mention made of sending any further warning or alert.”^[218]

After the discussion to the effect that the war was going to begin at the convenience of the Japanese, the president said

he believed he would talk to Admiral Stark. He started to get Admiral Stark on the telephone. It was then determined—I do not recall exactly, but I believe the White House operator told the president that Admiral Stark could be reached at the National Theater.

Schulz could not hear what the operator said, but he did hear the National Theater mentioned. The president then went on

to state, in substance, that he would reach the admiral later, that he did not want to cause public alarm by having the admiral paged or otherwise when in the theater, where, I believe, the fact that he had a box reserved was mentioned and that if he had left suddenly he would surely have been seen because of the position which he held and undue alarm might be caused, and the president did not wish that to happen because he could get him within perhaps another half an hour in any case.^[219]

According to Schulz, nothing was said about telephoning anybody else. “To the best of my knowledge that is all that was discussed. The president returned the papers to me and I left the study.” Schulz had been there about a half hour; he left about ten.^[220]

He then went back to the office “over toward the State Department. . . . on the basement level.” Kramer was waiting. According to Schulz’s recollection, he returned the locked pouch to Kramer.

The happenings during that particular period are somewhat hazy but I know that I did not have the papers the next day. Further, I hadn’t too suitable a place to put them during the night because of their high secrecy classification. . . . I would not have kept them under any circumstances.^[221]

Schulz phoned Beardall “to inform him that I had received the papers, the president had seen them and I had carried out my instructions.” Schulz was then free to go home. He “left the White House at about 10:30.”^[222]

Schulz’s testimony demolished the administration’s claim of shocked surprise at the Japanese attack. The Democratic members of the JCC were stunned; they did not attempt to rebut. His appearance was a highlight of the congressional investigation.

General Marshall Does Not Recall His Activities Saturday Night, December 6

There is no evidence in the JCC hearings that FDR actually summoned his closest aides to the White House the night of December 6–7. But for FDR to call a meeting to discuss the growing crisis would have been consistent with his operational style; he liked to talk things over with his associates. Marshall and Stark were the only ones asked if there might have been such a meeting, and their answers were not very helpful.^[223]

Keefe: Can you state definitely whether or not you have a present recollection as to whether the president did in fact contact you?

Marshall: I am quite certain that he [the president] did not [contact me]. . . . There is no question in my mind; no. That is a positive answer.

Keefe: And you are certain that you did not attend any meeting then, at the White House that night?

Marshall: I am absolutely certain of that. . . . So, all the evidence, in my own mind, short of my absolute knowledge of the matter, is that I was home, as was customary. . . .

Keefe: But you are certain of one thing and that is that you received no communication from the president on the evening of the 6th of December and that you didn’t attend any meeting at the White House that night?

Marshall: That is correct. I will add that the first information I had of anything unusual was, as I have testified, after I got into my shower, or was going into my shower [December 7, a.m.] when this message was relayed to me from Colonel Bratton that he wanted to come out to the house with an important matter.^[224]

Gearhart questioning Stark: When you left the office on Saturday night didn’t you leave word there as to where you were going to be and where you could be reached on December 6, 1941?

Stark: Yes; when I went out I always left word. I do not recall of any time when I did not. . . . I do not recall being out that night but I also do not recall whether I was out or not; so there it is. . . . [I]f I were going out at night my aide would usually leave word with the duty officer where I could be found, assuming that my intentions to go out were before I left the office. If after I got home I suddenly decided to go out somewhere, I would leave word with the house and usually call up the duty officer in addition.

Gearhart: Well, have you searched the records in the office of the chief of Naval Operations to ascertain where you were on Saturday night, the 6th day of December 1941?

Stark: We have found nothing as to where I was and it follows my assumption that my thought was that I was at home. There is nothing I have been able to find out which locates where I was that evening.

Gearhart: In view of the fact that the Chief of Staff [Marshall] cannot remember where he was on that night is it possible that you and he could have been together?

Stark: I think we had no such conspiracy at that time, sir.

Gearhart: Well, do you shut it out as being an utter impossibility that you and he could have been in each other’s company that night?

Stark: I do not shut it out as an utter impossibility that we could have been in each other’s company, but I think we were not.

Gearhart: You do not remember that.

Stark: No; but I feel that perhaps we both would have remembered it if that had occurred.

Gearhart: Well, you not remembering where you were certainly you cannot remember that you were not with General Marshall on that night, can you?

Stark: Well, I think that may be a reasonable assumption.

Gearhart: You were together a great deal all the time, were you not?

Stark: We were together either talking by telephone or interoffice visits a great deal during office hours. We were not together a great deal in the evening. . . . I have heard that an effort was made to locate me.

Gearhart: And you also have learned that a courier called at your quarters and you were not there?

Stark: No; I have not heard that.

Gearhart: Did you have any telephone call that evening from Colonel Knox, the Secretary of the Navy?

Stark: Not that I recall.^[225]

Thirty two years after the attack, evidence of just such a December 6–7 White House meeting surfaced. It came in a letter from James G. Stahlman, a longtime friend of Knox, then on active duty in the Navy. On his return from Pearl Harbor immediately after the attack, Knox confided to Stahlman “that he, Stimson, Marshall, Betty Stark and Harry Hopkins had spent most of the night before [the attack] at the White House with FDR, all waiting for what they knew was coming after those intercepts.”^[226]

Intercept Heralding Actual Approach of War Delivered to the Navy Sunday Morning, December 7

Saturday evening, with the delivery of the first thirteen parts of Japan’s 14-part reply to our note of November 26, it was apparent that war with Japan was imminent. It was the next morning, Sunday, December 7, 1941, that the Japanese intercepts that heralded the final approach of war were received in Washington. Most notable among these were the fourteenth part of Tokyo’s reply and the “One p.m. Message” giving the Japanese ambassadors in Washington instructions as to precisely how and when to deliver that reply to Secretary of State Hull. JCC members devoted considerable time to asking Navy courier Kramer about his Sunday morning deliveries.

Kramer had said in his 1944 memorandum that on his first trip Sunday morning he had seen Stark with others in his office “[a]bout 0900” when he, Kramer, had “left night-before matters,”^[227] including all fourteen parts of Japan’s reply to our note of November 26. However, after “talking it over with people” upon his arrival in Washington and after having had his memory “refreshed as to the events,” Kramer revised his testimony slightly as to his delivery times; he said then that “[a]ctually [he] did not

go to Admiral Stark’s office until about 9:30,” although he admitted he was “still a little hazy on precise times.”^[228]

When Kramer reached Stark’s office on Sunday morning, December 7, all of the higher Navy echelon, including, Stark, Wilkinson, and Turner, were there. Kramer agreed with Congressman Keefe who was questioning him that “Sunday was not usually a day for the big boys in the Navy to assemble at their offices”^[229] and that the arrangements for such a group of top level officers to meet that Sunday morning must have been made the night before.^[230] It was “no formal conference, but many officers were in Admiral Stark’s office, and going and coming.” Kramer said,

It was in a similar manner that the normal 11:00 conference was held more or less daily in Admiral Stark’s office, similarly assembled. . . . However, it was no formal conference but a continuing discussion that Sunday morning.^[231]

After making his first round of deliveries that Sunday morning, Kramer returned to the Navy Department. There he had encountered the “One p.m. Message” plus several other intercepts^[232] with final words of advice and thanks to the Japanese ambassadors for their efforts. Kramer recognized the importance of the “One p.m.Message” immediately and this added special urgency to his second round of deliveries.^[233] In his 1944 memorandum for Admiral Halsey, Kramer had described in “pretty meticulous detail”^[234] his haste to deliver the “One p.m. Message” that Sunday morning, December 7.

In his testimony before the NCI in 1944 Kramer said that on this, his second trip of the morning, he had first delivered the “One p.m. Message” to Stark’s office between 1030 and 1100, secondly to the White House and finally to Navy Secretary Knox who was still in a meeting at the State Department with Secretary Hull.^[235] At the JCC, he changed the sequence of his deliveries slightly, saying that after delivering first to CNO Stark, he had delivered it secondly to Knox at the State Department and then finally to the White House.^[236]

When Kramer testified before the JCC about delivering the “One p.m. Message” to Navy Secretary Knox at the State Department, where Knox was still meeting with Secretary of State Hull, he said that before the folder was taken in to Mr. Hull “there was a brief conversation . . . pointing out the tie-up of the time 1:00 Washington, with the situation in the Southwest Pacific.” Kramer had talked with one of Mr. Hull’s private secretaries about that, also with the Army courier, he thought it could have been Bratton who was there at the time making delivery to Secretaries Hull and Stimson.^[237]

Safford had told the NCI that when Kramer made delivery to Knox at the State Department on Sunday morning, December 7, Kramer had sent a note via Knox’s personal aide, a foreign service officer, “saying in effect, that this means a sunrise attack on Pearl Harbor today and possibly a midnight attack on Manila.”^[238] Kramer said he had not then seen Knox personally, and he had “most emphatically not” sent him a note. “There was only the verbal explanation.”^[239] Kramer had not said that the time, 1:00, had “any significance in connection with any attack at Pearl Harbor.”^[240] It had been Safford’s interpretation, Kramer said later, that turned that remark into a reference to Pearl Harbor.

[T]he reference to Pearl Harbor was purely a passing reference for the benefit of non-naval personnel, namely, these foreign service officers and the Army officer present. . . . [He] never intended in the least to imply that those remarks . . . indicated an attack on Pearl Harbor, or, in fact, any overt intention on the part of the Japanese directed toward the United States.^[241]

He had only intended to comment “on how the hour [1:00 p.m. EDT] tied with the sun and moves in progress elsewhere;”^[242]

After delivering the “One p.m. Message” at State, Kramer had gone to the White House “to deliver the same set of traffic.”^[243]

Intercept Indicating Actual Approach of War Delivered to the Army Sunday Morning

“On or about December 10, 1941” Miles and Bratton drafted “a memorandum for the record, of [their] recollection of what took place in General Marshall’s office that morning” of December 7.^[244] Bratton had referred to this memorandum when appearing before both the Army Pearl Harbor Board and Clarke’s investigation.^[245] Most of Bratton’s testimony before the JCC concerning the events of this morning were also based on that memorandum. Bratton told the JCC that “the fourteenth part of the [Japanese] message was not delivered to me until between 8 and 9:00; around 8:15 or 8:30” on the morning of December 7. It had then been “delivered immediately to the State Department.” Bratton didn’t remember whether he had taken it himself.

It is entirely possible that I may have gotten a car and rushed over there with the 14th part so that the Secretary of State’s book would be complete. On the other hand, I may have given it to Colonel Dusenbury to deliver.

In any event Bratton knew that “the Secretary of State had all 14 of the parts before 10 o’clock that morning.”^[246]

He continued:

[A]t about 9:00 or shortly before 9:00 there was placed in my hands the so-called 1:00 p.m. delivery message. This immediately stunned me into frenzied activity because of its implications and from that time on I was busily engaged trying to locate various officers of the General Staff and conferring with them on the exclusive subject of this message and its meaning.^[247]

Bratton said he “washed my hands of all other matters, turning them over to my assistant, Colonel Dusenbury, and proceeded to take steps with the 1:00 p.m. delivery message.” When he

discovered that neither the Chief of Staff [Marshall], Chief of War Plans Division [Gerow], or G-2 [Miles], were in their offices [I] immediately put in a phone call for General Marshall at his quarters at Fort Myer. One of his orderlies answered the telephone and informed me that the General had gone horseback riding.

Bratton asked the orderly to find Marshall and “tell him who I am and tell him to go to the nearest telephone, that it is vitally important that I communicate with him at the earliest practicable moment.” The orderly assured Bratton he would do so.^[248]

He then phoned Miles at his home and told him to come to the office. Miles came in about 10:00. Bratton discussed “this whole business with General Miles in his office. . . . So that General Miles was thoroughly conversant with the entire matter” before he and Bratton went together later into Marshall’s office after he had arrived. Bratton or Miles had then phoned Gerow, although Bratton said he didn’t “remember seeing General Gerow that morning until he joined us in General Marshall’s office” at about 11:25.^[249]

Bratton’s frantic call had reached Marshall’s orderly “shortly after 9:00,” probably between 9 and 9:15. From that time until Marshall arrived in his office, Bratton “kept [Marshall’s] copy [of the “One p.m. Message”] in my hands until I gave it to [Marshall] in his office.”^[250] Marshall had returned Bratton’s call “in person sometime between 10 and 10:30.” Bratton “explained to him that I had a most important message that he must see at once, and that if he would stay where he was, I would get a car and bring it to him.”^[251] Bratton thought he “could have gotten there in 10 minutes.”^[252] Marshall replied, “No, don’t bother to do that. I am coming down to my office. You can give it to me then.”^[253]

Marshall finally arrived about an hour later, at 11:25 a.m. Bratton couldn’t explain why it had apparently taken Marshall an hour or more to reach the War Department, when it was normally a ten-minute trip from his quarters to his office.^[254] It took Marshall only ten minutes to make that same trip in the afternoon after he had heard the news of the attack.^[255]

After his phone conversation with Marshall, Bratton “went up towards General Marshall’s office, and stood around there in the hall, or in the office of the secretary of the General Staff, waiting for General Marshall to arrive.” When Marshall finally arrived at 11:25, he “went into his office from the door that opens into the hall and General Miles and I . . . not more than a minute or 2 minutes after that walked in through the other door.”^[256]

Bratton was “positive” that when he reached Marshall’s office at 11:25, the chief of staff had on his desk all 14 parts of the message that Bratton had not delivered to him.^[257] Bratton was waiting for him with the “One p.m. Message” in his hand. “General,” he said, “I have a very important message here which I think you should see at once.”^[258] But Marshall did not look up; he had the 14-part reply “and was reading it.” Bratton and Miles “tried to interrupt him with this 1:00 p.m. delivery business but he would not be interrupted, and he went right ahead with his reading until he got to the end of the 14 parts.”^[259] Marshall hurriedly drafted his last-minute warning to the field commanders.^[260]

Bratton had taken this message to Colonel French, Signal Corps officer in charge of the message center, and had “explained to him that it was General Marshall’s desire that the message be transmitted to the addressees by the fastest possible safe means, giving the Philippines first priority.” Bratton testified that he reported back to Marshall, who asked him to return to the message center and find out how long it would take for the messages to reach the addressees. French said “the message would be encoded in about three minutes, on the air in about eight minutes, and in the hands of the addressees in about thirty minutes.”^[261]Bratton checked his watch; it was then 11:50 a.m.^[262] The message should be in the hands of the Army Signal Officer in Hawaii, still in code, by 12:30 EDT—7:00 a.m. in Hawaii.

One important question still remained unanswered when Bratton finished testifying: If he hadn’t delivered the 14-part reply to Marshall, how was it on his desk when he arrived at 11:25 a.m.? Gearhart asked Bratton where Marshall could have obtained it when “the only places that the 14 parts had been delivered before that meeting at 11:25 was at the White House and the State Department and to Admiral Stark.”^[263] Had Marshall obtained a copy message from Stark or the White House, where Kramer had made deliveries that morning?^[264] Did Bratton’s assistant, Dusenbury, deliver it to one of Marshall’s secretaries, possibly Colonel Deane, earlier that morning, as Bratton said he might have?^[265] Or could he have gotten a copy of the first 13 parts at the White House during the night, possibly from Hull for whom Bratton had delivered them to the State Department, or from Knox to whom Kramer had delivered in his Wardman Park apartment? FDR had not kept copies of the messages delivered to him Saturday evening.

Marshall’s Sunday Morning Whereabouts

Another unanswered question concerns Marshall’s whereabouts on the morning of December 7. He was supposedly on duty 24 hours a day. If unavailable for some reason, an aide or duty officer should have been able to reach him at any moment. Yet Bratton told the JCC that when he called his quarters at about 9:00 Sunday morning in the attempt to deliver the urgent “One p.m. Message,” he was told Marshall was out “horseback riding.”^[266]

Where was Marshall during the hour and a half between 10 or 10:30 a.m., when he returned Bratton’s 9:00 call, and 11:25 when he arrived in his office? Marshall may have gone horseback riding earlier, but where was he when he called Bratton? Bratton assumed he was still at his quarters at Fort Myer. But was he? Perhaps he was calling from somewhere else and that was why he had told Bratton not to drive out, but to wait in his office. Did he call from somewhere in the War Department? From Stark’s office in the Navy Department? The White House?

One report of Marshall’s whereabouts that morning comes from then Colonel (later Major General) John R. Deane. On the day of the attack, Deane was one of the secretaries of the general staff. Marshall had asked him to come in to the office that Sunday morning to write a one-page statement on the number of planes and antiaircraft guns in the United States. Marshall wanted that information to refer to during his scheduled appearance before a congressional committee the next day. Later, in describing the events of the day, Deane wrote that Marshall had “arrived at the office at about 10:00 or shortly thereafter and had a series of conferences with staff officers from G-2 and the War Plans Division.”^[267]

So Marshall could have phoned Bratton from the War Department at 10:00. But why would Marshall not want to tell Bratton where he was? Why would he want to conceal his activities that morning? Would they have destroyed the myth that the Japanese attack was unexpected? Or was some devious scheme afoot that would have ruined the nation’s reputation as a peace-loving nation if it had become known?

Some years later in an interview (May 3, 1961), Captain Arthur H. McCollum, at the time of the attack chief of the Far Eastern section of the Navy’s communications division, told me that he knew nothing about the JCC testimony reporting Marshall out horseback riding that Sunday morning, but he was willing to swear that he had seen Marshall coming out of Stark’s office at around 9:30.

Stark Cannot Recall His Saturday Evening Whereabouts or Early Sunday Morning Activities

Like Marshall, Stark was supposed to be available 24 hours a day; if he was not home or in his office, an aide or duty officer should have been able to locate him at any time. Yet Kramer, who had phoned Stark’s home Saturday evening about the 13 parts, had not been able to reach him. Wilkinson testified that he had also tried, unsuccessfully, to telephone Stark at his home that evening.^[268]

Asked during the JCC hearings where he had been the night before the attack, Stark replied,

Nobody reached me [that evening]. . . . I thought I was home but if they had tried to reach me I should have been there. Also if I were not there word would have been left where I was. Also the duty officer was generally informed of my whereabouts.^[269]

Stark testified that he had tried to chase down several leads in the attempt to discover where he had been that evening. “Unfortunately,” he said, his wife had

destroyed her date calendar of that time. . . . We have found nothing as to where I was and it follows my assumption that my thought was that I was at home. There is nothing I have been able to find out which locates where I was that evening.^[270]

Gearhart asked Stark: “In view of the fact that the Chief of Staff cannot remember where he was on that night is it possible that you and he could have been together?” Stark thought they “had no such conspiracy at that time.” He did

not shut it out as an utter impossibility that we could have been in each other’s company, but I think we were not. . . . We were together either talking by telephone or interoffice visits a great deal during office hours. We were not together a great deal in the evening.^[271]

JCC general counsel Mitchell told Stark that, according to the record, Knox and Wilkinson had both received Japan’s first 13 parts during the evening. As a result, Knox had made an appointment for the next morning with Stimson and Hull. Yet Stark said he had “no recollection of having seen or heard of the pilot message” announcing that the Japanese reply would soon be en route; his first information on that score, he said, was “Sunday forenoon.”^[272] Stark also insisted he had not heard anything at all that evening about the 14-part message.

He was asked by JCC members when he had gone to his office on Sunday morning. He didn’t answer directly.

I can only guess on that. . . . I usually got down to the office Sunday mornings around 10:30 and I just assumed that I had gotten there somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00. I was lazy on Sunday mornings unless there was some special reason for getting up early. I usually took a walk around the grounds and greenhouse at the Chief of Naval Operations’ quarters and didn’t hurry about getting down and my usual time, as I recall, was about 10:30 or 11:00. What time it was on this particular Sunday morning I couldn’t go beyond that.^[273]

According to Stark, therefore, it was about 10:30 or 11—after he reached his office that morning—that he saw the 14-part Japanese reply. It was then also, he said, that he had learned that the Japanese ambassadors had been directed to present his government’s reply “to the Secretary of State at 1:00 p.m.” that same day.^[274] Stark said he had discussed the Japanese reply and the time of its presentation with Navy Captain Schuirmann, State Department liaison.^[275] However, several other witnesses told of seeing Stark in his office much earlier than 10:30 or 11:00. Kramer told the 1944 Naval Court of Inquiry that he “made the hurried delivery” of the 14-part Japanese reply to Stark in his office “at about 9:00 a.m. on the morning of December 7.”^[276] Stark had not been alone, he said; there were then “about 12 or 15 officers present. Most of the heads of divisions in the Navy Department and those that attended the Admirals’ conference were there.” Kramer was relieved that Wilkinson was there because Kramer could “let him carry the ball with Admiral Stark as far as any further explanation of references were concerned.”^[277]

In February 1946 before the JCC, Kramer changed his story slightly. He testified: “As soon as this 14th part was typed up . . . shortly after 8:00, delivery was made to Captain McCollum along with the other 13 parts.”^[278] Kramer’s 1946 “recollection” was that it was “about 9:30” that all fourteen parts were delivered to Stark’s office.^[279]

Wilkinson also testified before the JCC that Stark was in his office earlier that Sunday morning than 10:30 or 11:00, Stark’s “usual” arrival time. Wilkinson had reached his own office “shortly after 8:00 on the morning of Sunday, the 7th.” He thought it was about 9:15 when he and McCollum “went to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations [Stark], where,” he recalled, “Admiral Stark, Admiral Ingersoll, and Admiral Turner were present.”^[280] In any event, he was quite clear that Stark had read the 14-part message in its entirety by 9:15 or 9:30. Wilkinson was struck by the “fighting words” in the 14th part. He was “more impressed by that language than by the breaking off of negotiations” and he had pointed out to Stark “the seriousness of that language.”^[281]

Wilkinson believed the Japanese “were going to press on in the direction of the advance which they were then following in the South Sea and that something might be expected in that or other directions.” He was particularly concerned that, in view of “this strong language,” the fleet “should be advised of the latest development.” According to Wilkinson, Stark had the authority to act. Wilkinson thought Stark should act. But Stark did not act.^[282]

It would certainly appear that Stark was in his office and had seen the 14-part reply and even the “One p.m. Message” several hours before the Japanese ambassadors’ delivery deadline. Yet, except for the assembly of an unusual number of naval officers, the apparent lack of any sense of urgency in Stark’s office contrasted sharply with the frantic activity in Marshall’s office at the last minute, after he finally arrived there at 11:25.^[283]

Stark said that when Marshall phoned him at about 11:40 and asked “what I thought about sending the information concerning the time of presentation on to the various commanders in the Pacific,” Stark’s first response was that “we had sent them so much already that I hesitated to send more.” A minute or so later, Stark called Marshall back and told him “there might be some peculiar significance in the Japanese Ambassador calling on Mr. Hull at 1:00 p.m.” and asked him to include instructions to his Army people “to inform their naval opposites.”^[284]

Pearl Harbor Attack— Not a Complete Surprise to FDR

Further evidence that the attack did not take the administration by complete surprise is revealed in FDR’s letter, dictated December 5, to Wendell Willkie, defeated 1940 Republican presidential candidate. In that letter, FDR had suggested that Willkie visit Australia and New Zealand as special representative of the president.

It would, of course, be of real value to cement our relations with New Zealand and Australia and would be useful not only now but in the future. There is always the Japanese matter to consider. The situation is definitely serious and there might be an armed clash at any moment if the Japanese continued their forward progress against the Philippines, Dutch Indies or Malays or Burma. Perhaps the next four or five days will decide the matter.

After the attack, before mailing, the president had added in longhand: “This was dictated Friday morning—long before this vile attack started. F.D.R.”^[285]

Committee Adjourned

The committee, created by a Senate Resolution of September 6, 1945, had held its first open hearings on November 15, 1945. By the time Commander Schulz appeared on February 15, 1946, most of the principals involved in the attack had been heard from. The hearings continued a few more days and a few more persons were questioned. Finally the committee members decided it was time to wind up their hearings. In closing Chairman Barkley congratulated the members: “[O]n the whole the attendance of this committee and the interest it has manifested in the testimony of all the witnesses has been extraordinary.” The committee adjourned February 20, 1946, subject to recall by the chairman.^[286]

Committee Reconvened to Hear Testimony re December 6–7 Whereabouts of Stark and Marshall

On April 9 Barkley reconvened the committee to question Stark and Marshall once more as to their whereabouts on December 6–7.^[287]

Marshall had been appointed ambassador to China by President Truman in November 1945, but was back in Washington for a brief visit in April 1946. At that time he appeared once more before the committee.

Brewster asked Marshall, among other things, to explain why, in view of all pre-attack considerations and factors, he had not expected an attack on Pearl Harbor. Marshall said he had

felt that was a vital installation. . . . [T]hat was the only installation we had anywhere that was reasonably well equipped. . . . In our opinion, the commanders had been alerted. In our opinion, there was nothing more we could give them at the time for the purpose of defense. In our opinion, that was one place that had enough within itself to put up a reasonable defense.

MacArthur, in the Philippines, was just beginning to get something. His position was pitiable, and it was still in a state of complete flux, with the ships on the ocean en route out there and the planes half delivered and half still to go.

The Panama Canal was quite inadequate at that period, seriously inadequate in planes, and, of course, of vast importance to anything in the Pacific.

The only place we had any assurance about was Hawaii, and for that reason we had less concern about Hawaii. . . . [W]e had worked on it very industriously . . . and we felt reasonably secure at that one point.^[288]

When Marshall was in Washington testifying, Ferguson in the men’s room in the Capitol overheard him talking with Barkley. Ferguson did not see the two men, but he recognized their voices and heard Marshall tell Barkley that if Marshall were to say where he was on the night of December 6–7, it would get the “Chief” (FDR) in trouble.^[289]

These remarks may also have sparked the following line of questioning by Keefe. He reminded Marshall that on Saturday evening, after the president had read the first 13 parts, he had turned to Hopkins saying, in substance, “This means war.” The President had then tried to get in touch with Stark.

Keefe: Can you state definitely whether or not you have a present recollection as to whether the President did in fact contact you?

Marshall: I am quite certain that he did not. . . . There is no question in my mind; no. That is a positive answer.

Keefe: And you are certain that you did not attend any meeting then, at the White House that night?

Marshall: I am absolutely certain of that. . . . I might say that . . . not only had I no dinner engagements of any kind between the 1st of November and the 7th of December . . . but that Mrs. Marshall was convalescing from having broken three or four ribs and we didn’t go out anywhere. . . . So all the evidence . . . is that I was home, as was customary. . . .

Keefe: That is your present recollection? . . .

Marshall: I can’t say that is my recollection. I am certain I was at home, but I don’t recall anything about it.

Keefe: But you are certain of one thing and that is that you received no communication from the president on the evening of the 6th of December and that you didn’t attend any meeting at the White House that night?

Marshall: That is correct.^[290]

When asked about the morning of December 7, Marshall repeated his account of his Sunday morning routine. He said

the first information I had of anything unusual was . . . after I got into my shower, or was going into my shower when this message was relayed to me from Colonel Bratton that he wanted to come out to the house with an important matter.^[291]

When Stark appeared before this reconvened session of the JCC, his mind still drew a blank as to where he had been or what he had been doing Saturday evening. He remembered “very clearly having seen a revival of The Student Prince, but I had not connected it with that Saturday night.” Nor did he now. “My recollection was it was in Philadelphia” that he had seen the revival and he had “contacted my daughter and her husband who were there, and they said no. The next I heard of it was in connection with Commander Schulz’s testimony.” But even that did “not ring any bell” with him. He could “only assume, in view of the testimony of Commander Schulz and of others who tried to contact me . . . that I probably was there.”^[292]

And Stark did not remember hearing from the president that evening. “To the best of my knowledge and belief, the president did not call me that night.” Nor did he think he had learned then that “there was a dispatch down there [at the White House] which was clear-cut and which meant war.”^[293] In any event, he was “absolutely certain” that he “did not go to the White House that night, December 6” and that he “did not see the first 13-parts of the Jap 14-part message that night.”^[294]

Stark persisted in saying that his visit to the office Sunday morning had been “routine.”^[295] He did not recall meeting there that morning with various officers, as Kramer and Wilkinson had testified that he had.^[296]

---

On April 11, 1946, after introducing additional material on the record, the committee stood “adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.”^[297] However, on May 23, it reopened to accept a few more documents. Among other materials, Ferguson introduced for the record written statements from former Secretary of State Hull^[298] and former Secretary of War Stimson.^[299] Stimson’s notes for December 7 described a meeting with Hull and Knox that morning and told of his position that “the main thing is to hold the main people who are interested in the Far East together—the British, ourselves, the Dutch, the Australians, the Chinese.” For the record, Stimson attached copies of the statements expressing similar sentiments he had solicited that morning from Hull and Knox.^[300]

With the introduction of these documents, the hearings were “officially closed” and the committee stood “adjourned, subject to call by the Chair.”^[301]

JCC Hearings Reopened Again to Hear an Account of Stark’s December 6 Evening

Although officially closed, the committee reopened once more on May 31, 1946, at the special call of Barkley. Stark had written Barkley a letter advising that he had finally been reminded of his whereabouts on the evening of December 6.^[302] Barkley did not feel he should sit on Stark’s letter. Nor did he think he should simply put it in the record where it would in effect be lost and buried. The matter could not be delayed as Stark was leaving for London that afternoon.^[303]

Barkley hurriedly reopened the hearings just to hear from Stark and his informant. Some of the ten committee members were out of town and unable to attend on such short notice. Only four Democrats appeared, and one Republican—Keefe—who, having had only a few minutes notice by phone, arrived late.

Stark had written Barkley that Navy Captain Harold D. Krick, a personal friend and Stark’s former flag captain, had reminded Stark that the two men and their wives had spent that evening together. They had attended a performance of The Student Prince at the National Theater in Washington. When they returned from the theater to Stark’s quarters, one of Stark’s servants told him that the White House had called. Stark went immediately upstairs to phone FDR from his study, where a direct line to the White House was located. According to Krick, when Stark came back downstairs, he told him “in substance that the situation with Japan was very serious.”^[304]

When the two couples again met socially on Saturday, May 25, 1946, Krick happened to relate these events to Stark. Stark did not remember the occasion, but he realized that this meant that his testimony that he had not talked to FDR that evening was incorrect. The more Stark thought about this, “the more disturbed” he became. He thought “the committee should have this, the record should have it straight.” He got up around 2 or 3 in the morning and wrote the letter that he had delivered to Barkley on May 27.^[305]

Counsel Richardson asked Stark:

Admiral, if the president had told you in his talk with you that night . . . that this thirteenth-part message meant war, thereby impressed you with his very serious estimate of it, what would have been, in accordance with your custom, the action for you to have then taken, with that information?

Stark thought that he “should have gotten in touch with Ingersoll [assistant CNO] and with Turner [chief, Navy War Plans]. We had had a conference a few days previously,” Stark said,

going over the seriousness of the situation, if there was anything more we could have sent, and, as I say, we practically repeated this fourteenth point . . . some days earlier we had sent the same thing. We thought, and the president knew every move that we had made, that we had sent everything possible, on that premise, that war was in the immediate offing. I don’t know that I would have done anything. I couldn’t say.

Richardson then took advantage of the opportunity to ask Stark “another odd question” about a possible late-night December 6-7 meeting at the White House.

I never heard of such a conference. I know of nothing now regarding such a conference, was not present at it, I had never even heard anyone suggest such a thing until it was mentioned here in previous hearings. My honest opinion is that nothing of the sort took place. It was a complete surprise to Marshall that even the question came up. It was to me. I am certain that I didn’t leave the house after the Kricks left. I just can’t think of any such thing as happening. Certainly I was not present, and Colonel Knox never mentioned any such thing to me. . . . [S]uch a conference at the White House, under those circumstances,

Stark said, would have been “so extraordinarily unusual” that it should “unquestionably” have stood out in his memory. But he didn’t remember any such meeting.^[306]

In spite of Krick’s detailed account of the events of the evening, Stark’s memory did not revive. He remained consistent in saying that he could recall neither attending the theater with the Kricks nor phoning the president when he returned home. He did “not remember that evening.”^[307]

Keefe had arrived at this special meeting only after Stark had given the bulk of his testimony. He feared that by reopening the hearings for this purpose they were establishing “a precedent now that may plague us in the future” and that its proceedings could go “on and on.”^[308] The JCC finally accepted Richardson’s suggestion “to take the Captain’s [Krick’s] testimony . . . and then if the committee later decides not to use any of this testimony, all right; on the other hand, if they allow it to go in, we have it.”^[309]

Krick testified that he and his wife had seen the Starks socially on May 25, 1946. The subject of their December 6 meeting came up quite casually in the course of the conversation. Krick hadn’t been following the JCC testimony closely, and so he hadn’t realized what Stark had told the committee. But then he had seen a headline to the effect that the admiral couldn’t remember where he had been that evening.^[310] He told Stark that they all had attended a performance of The Student Prince at the National Theater on the evening of December 6. When they returned to the admiral’s quarters, one of the servants had told Stark that there had been “a White House call during the evening.” Stark “excused himself and retired to his study on the second floor.” When he returned he said only “that the conditions in the Pacific were serious . . . in a critical state, something of that sort.”^[311]

Krick’s reminder of their December 6 theater party made Stark realize that he had given wrongful testimony to the JCC and, according to Krick, he was “very disturbed.” Stark told him: “You realize that I have testified to the contrary,” and he implied that this matter should be laid before the committee.^[312]

Asked by Lucas how he could remember this so vividly, Krick replied that the events of the evening were strongly impressed on his mind “because I was a very small fish, and great things were transpiring, and you don’t forget that sort of thing. It is not like looking down, when you look up at something.” When the Pearl Harbor disaster struck the following day, “the entire evening was definitely impressed” on him, and he said “it will be there for a long time to come.”^[313]

Thus by chance the committee learned of Stark’s whereabouts on the evening of December 6. Unfortunately, no witness ever came forward to enlighten the JCC similarly as to Marshall’s doings during these crucial hours.

Finally, the Committee adjourned subject to call.^[314]