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

518 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
Was any information concerning [the ships-in-harbor messages]
sent by you to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacifi c Fleet?
Stark: “No I think not.” 93
And Stark did not recall seeing the “Pilot Message” intercept. 94
Asked if he had seen or “been made acquainted with” the contents
of Japan’s 14-part reply before the attack, Stark said he “had not
seen” it and didn’t have “the slightest recollection of having seen its
contents.” 95 When asked later if he knew on December 6 that 13
parts were at the Navy Department, he replied, “I did not know
it.” 96
Many messages were received in Washington during the
weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. “It was physically impossible,”
Stark said, for him to have read, or even to have seen, all
the intercepts. He explained the Navy Department procedure for
delivering classifi ed information to him as CNO:
Some I saw directly. Some came to me with evaluations.
Sometimes some came to me with a general picture—sometimes
orally, sometimes on a written memorandum. To take
a single dispatch with a specifi c question, we may read into it
now, in the light of hindsight, what we couldn’t see then.
Stark said, however, that he “was in complete touch—at least
that I assumed I was in complete touch—with the broad general
trend.” We were “unquestionably continually talking things
over.” And, he said, he always “aimed to keep the commanders
in the fi eld advised” of their conclusions; “we did not send them
every specifi c document.” 97 Th e general tenor of Stark’s remarks
93 Ibid., pp. 793–94.
94 Ibid., p. 792.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid., p. 801.
97 Ibid., p. 791.