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

The Navy Court of Inquiry (July 24–October 19, 1944) 495
TOP SECRET.” 6 Finally on the morning of August 8, due to
“the purely fortuitous circumstance” that Admiral Ernest J. King
was acting secretary of the Navy that day, 7 Biesemeier received
Forrestal’s permission for one of Kimmel’s attorneys to examine
the secret fi les. 8 “Mr. Knox promised you access to all the
fi les,” King said, “so I can see no reason to refuse.” 9 Th us Navy
Captain Robert A. Lavender of Kimmel’s legal staff was given
the chance to inspect the secret fi les. He made his inspection that
very afternoon. 10
When Lavender was ushered into the room where he was to
examine the intercepts, he was “astounded” to see a stack “two
and a half feet high of intercepted messages.” He had only a limited
time to look through them. But Saff ord had given him the
numbers of the most important intercepts, so he was able to make
his examination rather quickly. Lavender became physically “nauseated,”
he said, “when [he] realized what the information in [his]
hands would have meant to Kimmel and the men of the Fleet
who died.” He selected some 43 messages that he thought should
have been sent to Kimmel in Pearl Harbor and had them copied
and authenticated. 11 Th at evening, attorneys Rugg and Hanify
dined with Lavender. Lavender “was still so sickened by what he
had uncovered that he could not eat.” 12
Th e next day, General Joseph McNarney, then deputy chief
of staff of the Army and an FDR appointee to the Roberts
Commission which had heaped opprobrium on Kimmel and
6Ibid., p. 54.
7Husband E. Kimmel, Admiral Kimmel’s Story (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co.,
1955), p. 130.
8Ibid., pp. 53–54. Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 32, pp. 53–54.
9John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1982), p. 81.
10Kimmel, Admiral Kimmel’s Story, p. 123.
11Ibid. See also Toland, Infamy, p. 82.
12 Toland, Infamy, p. 82.