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

558 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
commanders. In commenting on the APHB report, Cramer
referred to Marshall’s testimony to the eff ect that “[t]he [scrambler]
telephone was not considered . . . because . . . it would have
been too ‘time consuming’ ” to serve as a rapid and reliable means
for transmitting an urgent warning. 27 “As to General Marshall,”
Cramer wrote “the conclusions of the Board are unjustifi ed and
erroneous.” 28 And Short, Cramer held, had been
adequately advised of the imminent rupture in diplomatic relations
between the United States and Japan, of the imminence
of war, of the probable momentary outbreak of hostilities by
Japan against the United States, and of the possibility of sabotage
and espionage.
Short’s
failure stemmed from a mistake of judgment on his part. . . .
[He] had adopted wholeheartedly what was apparently the
viewpoint of the Navy, namely, that there was literally no
chance of a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor. 29
According to King, Kimmel “could and should have judged
more accurately the gravity of the danger to which the Hawaiian
Islands were exposed.” 30 Concerning the NCI report, King warned
that, if the necessary deletions were made, a “disjointed” picture
would be presented,
full of unexplained gaps . . . [which] would lead to a demand of
Congress and by the press for more information, on the ground
27Ibid., p. 260.
28Ibid., p. 267.
29Ibid., pp. 239, 268.
30Ibid., p. 344. Yet King “admitted” to Kimmel a month later, in an interview
December 7, 1944, that “he had never read the proceedings upon which the
Court had based their fi ndings” (Admiral Kimmel’s Story, Henry Regnery,
1955, p. 161).