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

Army Pearl Harbor Board 483
of the War Department” during the evening of December 6.
Marshall believed that it was
not . . . until I was before the Navy Court here recently that
I knew this had come in, had been made available to the
Secretary of State, the larger portion of that message, the night
before. 151
Russell pointed out to Marshall:
Th e evidence which is before the Board at this time is to the
eff ect that as early as 8:30, possibly not later than 9:00 a.m.,
on the morning of December 7th, the message which indicated
that the ultimatum would be delivered by the Japanese
Ambassadors at 1:00 on that day, and that the code machines
were being destroyed, was in the hands of a Colonel. . . . Bratton
of G-2.
Bratton’s energies from the time he received that message “were
devoted exclusively” to trying to locate Marshall and Miles. 152 Yet
Marshall couldn’t be reached for a couple of hours, not until he
fi nally arrived in his offi ce at about 11:30 a.m. Th e situation was
further complicated by the fact that the Army apparently had
no clear plan for handling emergencies when Marshall was not
available. 153 Moreover, this was a message, APHB member Frank
commented, “where the time of its delivery by two hours would
have made an awful lot of diff erence.” 154
Marshall off ered no explanation for his inaccessibility that
Sunday morning, except to describe his activities:
151Ibid., p. 2409. See also Bratton testimony, ibid., p. 2349.
152Ibid. See also Bratton testimony on delivery, ibid., pp. 2349–50.
153Ibid., p. 2409.
154Ibid., p. 2410.