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

1944: A Political Year 565
Were Kimmel and Short guilty of “dereliction of duty” and liable
for courts-martial? Or weren’t they? Krock believed Congress
would want to see these contradictions resolved.
Many members of Congress have expressed this dissatisfaction,
and their statements indicate revival of the suspicion that
the fault for the surprise element in the air attack on Pearl
Harbor by the Japanese rests more heavily on Washington
than any published report has indicated. Congress forced
the offi cers’ boards of inquiry on the Administration, which
clearly wanted to let the entire controversy await the end of
the war. . . . Now Congress, unless the continued investigation
promised by Secretaries Forrestal and Stimson disposes of the
confl ict between the two reports and fi xes responsibility on the
basis of persuasive evidence, can be expected to try to fi nd out
the facts for the public and for itself.
Krock recognized, however, that such an investigation would
have to await war’s end. To reveal the evidence required to resolve
the confl ict, as Dewey had learned during the presidential campaign,
“would have been to invite a charge of imperiling security
and the prospects of the Pacifi c war.” 50
Th e editorial board of the venerable New York Times came to
essentially the same conclusion:
50 Ibid.
Th e Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments, and their
advisers . . . have decided that on the evidence now available
courts-martial of any offi cers are not indicated. . . . If the
Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, both honorable
men, both loyal and devoted Americans, both vitally and
successfully engaged in the prosecution of the war, give it as
their considered judgment that full publicity and a public discussion
now of the many ramifi cations of the Pearl Harbor