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

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Administration Directed Supplementary Investigations 571<br />

In addition to questioning the witnesses separately, Clarke<br />

held a roundtable discussion with Miles, Brigadier General Hayes<br />

A. Kroner (chief, intelligence branch, military intelligence division),<br />

Colonel John T. Bissell (chief <strong>of</strong> the counter intelligence<br />

group <strong>of</strong> military intelligence), <strong>and</strong> Bratton—“to iron out any<br />

little diff erences” that may have appeared in their testimony. 15 For<br />

instance, Bissell <strong>and</strong> Kroner had said that the Ultra secret intelligence<br />

derived from MAGIC had not been made available to<br />

them prior to <strong>Pearl</strong> <strong>Harbor</strong> but Bratton said it had been—through<br />

memor<strong>and</strong>a concerning subversive activities. Bratton reported<br />

that MAGIC was regularly distributed to the top administration<br />

<strong>and</strong> military <strong>of</strong>fi cials. 16<br />

Th ese four men, all concerned with some aspect <strong>of</strong> prewar<br />

military intelligence, discussed their pre-attack view <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Japanese threat. Although Kroner hadn’t seen MAGIC himself,<br />

he knew Bratton <strong>and</strong> Miles were h<strong>and</strong>ling it <strong>and</strong> insisting it be<br />

kept secret. 17 When news <strong>of</strong> the attack came on December 7,<br />

Kroner had actually been reading Miles’s November 29 estimate<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Far Eastern situation, so he remembered “distinctly” that<br />

that estimate did “not include in the lines <strong>of</strong> action open to Japan,<br />

an attack on <strong>Pearl</strong> <strong>Harbor</strong>.” 18<br />

According to Miles,<br />

the bulk <strong>of</strong> our information, all <strong>of</strong> it including Magic, indicated<br />

the major probability <strong>of</strong> a Japanese move to the south, Indo<br />

China, Siam, Th ail<strong>and</strong>, perhaps the Dutch West [sic] (East?)<br />

Indies, perhaps Malaya. . . . We did not exclude war with the<br />

United States since we specifi cally mentioned the Philippines<br />

as being part <strong>of</strong> the Japanese southern push <strong>and</strong> in a war with<br />

the United States <strong>of</strong> course there was a possibility, particularly<br />

15Ibid., p.72.<br />

16Ibid., pp. 70, 72.<br />

17Ibid., pp. 42–48.<br />

18Ibid., p. 48.

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