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

516 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
According to Saff ord’s testimony, Wilkinson disagreed,
saying
Admiral Kimmel is a very busy man and may not see the
picture as clearly as you and I do. I think it only fair to the
Commander-in-Chief that he be given this information and I
am going to send it if I can get it released by the front offi ce.
Wilkinson then left, Saff ord presumed, to see Admiral Royal E.
Ingersoll, assistant CNO, and to have the message released. Until
November 1943, Saff ord had assumed that it had been sent. But
it hadn’t! 86
CNO Admiral Stark’s Memory is Poor
Admiral Stark was then called back to the witness stand
and asked about specifi c messages. His November 24 message
to the fi eld commanders “may well have been based upon or certainly
had taken into consideration” the Japanese intercepts. It
had warned that a “favorable outcome of negotiations with Japan
very doubtful. . . . [A] surprise aggressive movement in any direction
including attack on Philippines or Guam is a possibility.” 87
Moreover, the November 27 “war warning” message announced,
“Negotiations with Japan . . . have ceased and an aggressive move
by Japan is expected within the next few days . . . against either
the Philippines Th ai or Kra peninsula or possibly Borneo.” 88
In his messages to the fi eld commanders Stark had not mentioned
any of the Japanese-announced deadlines in his dispatches;
he “had become leery of dates.” “If I had set a date of the 25th, for
example,” he said,
86Ibid., part 33, pp. 774–75.
87Ibid., p. 788; see CNO Dispatch 242005, part 14, p. 1405.
88Ibid., part 33, p. 789; see CNO Dispatch 272337, part 14, p. 1406.