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

The Administration Initiates an Investigation 387
emphasized right straight through that we must not disclose
our stand and that we must not alarm the population and that
we must take measures to protect against sabotage, against
espionage, and against subversive action. Nowhere did they
indicate in any way the necessity for protecting against attack.
Th ey also did indicate defi nitely that we must avoid publicity
and avoid alarming the public. 64
Short instituted what was known as Alert #1, for sabotage.
If the Army had gone to the next higher alert, Alert #2, all antiaircraft
guns would have been set out with live ammunition right
alongside; people would then have noticed. And that, Short
maintained, would have violated “the War Department’s intentions
to not alarm the population.” 65 On November 29 he detailed
the “precautions” being taken against “subversive activities.” 66
Washington “made no objection whatever” to Short’s report that
he “was alerted for sabotage.” Short told the Commission,
If they had any idea that that was not a correct order, they had
all the opportunity from November 27 to December 7 to come
back and say, “We do not consider the action taken by you as
suffi cient and that you should instead take action to defend
yourself against air attack”.
He took Washington’s failure to object to his action as “tacit
agreement with the course [he] had taken.” He did not “see how
[he] could draw any other conclusion.” 67
Short believed that if Washington really wanted him to know
something urgently, it would have contacted him by its speechscrambler
telephone. Short had a “secret phone . . . with connections
to the secret phone right in the Chief of Staff ’s offi ce.”
64 Ibid., p. 39, p. 58. Short testimony.
65 Ibid., part 24, pp. 1774–76.
66 Ibid., part 22, p. 39.
67 Ibid., pp. 45–48.