Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

U.S. Military Plans and Preparations 107
Dutch East Indies, where she might expect to get oil production
going in some six months or so. 67
The October Revolution in ONI
Th roughout 1941, a struggle was going on within the Navy
Department as to whose responsibility it was to evaluate secret
military intelligence and pass it along to the commanders in the
fi eld. Both the chief of War Plans, Rear Admiral Richmond K.
Turner, and the chief of Offi ce of Naval Intelligence, Captain
Alan G. Kirk, claimed this responsibility. Th e table of organization
at the time seemed to place the responsibility with ONI.
And Stark’s March 22 letter to Kimmel supported that position. 68
However, Turner was aggressive and persistent. He fi nally persuaded
Stark to reduce ONI to a fact-gathering agency, and War
Plans assumed the responsibility for evaluating available intelligence
and for determining what should be sent to the fi eld
commanders. Th is Occtober 1941 power struggle between ONI
and War Plans confused the lines of communication and created
doubt as to just where the responsibility actually lay.
Th en also in October, Kirk and his top assistant were removed
from duty. According to communications-security chief Saff ord,
this was the fi rst time in Navy Department history that both
chief and assistant chief of a bureau had been removed from
offi ce simultaneously. Th e previous practice had been to remove
only one of the two top men at a time, so as to assure continuity.
Th e third man in charge, then in London, was not involved.
67 Author’s notes of Albert E. Hindmarsh interview, January 9, 1954.
68 Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 16, pp. 2159–60. Stark to Kimmel,
March 22, 1941.