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

272 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
translating [sic] the very long and very important fourteen-part
message.” 8
[B]y 9:00 p.m. Saturday, the evening of the 6th of December,
[we] had received, broken down, translated [sic], and had typed
ready for delivery thirteen of those parts, several of them somewhat
garbled. 9
FDR Tells Australian Minister
He Plans to Address Hirohito
Late in the afternoon of December 6, Australia’s minister to
the United States, Richard G. Casey, spoke with FDR. Roosevelt
confi ded to Casey that he was planning to send a special message
to Hirohito. If no answer was forthcoming by Monday evening,
December 8, he intended to issue Japan another warning the following
afternoon or evening, asking that it be followed by warnings
from the British and others. 10
Stimson Requests Inventory of
U.S. Ships Around the World
While the cryptographers were busy decoding the 14-part
Japanese message, War Department people, at Stimson’s request,
were trying to determine the location of U.S. ships around
the world. At about 8:00 p.m. December 6, Major George L.
Harrison, an aide to Stimson, phoned the offi ce of the Chief of
Naval Operations asking for the following information by 9:00
a.m. the next morning:
8 Ibid., part 36, p. 66, Saff ord testimony at Hewitt Inquiry, May 21, 1945.
9 Ibid., part 33, p. 857, Kramer testimony before the NCI.
10 Ibid., part 11, pp. 5166–67.