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

610 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
Testimony as to the delivery of MAGIC to Marshall on the
evening of December 6, had been contradictory. Bratton, then
with War Department’s G-2, had told the APHB that he had
personally delivered that evening the 13 parts of the Japanese reply
not only to Hull’s duty offi cer, but also to Miles and Marshall’s
secretary. 123 However, in his affi davit for Clausen he “corrected”
his previous testimony and said he had told Dusenbury to deliver
Marshall’s set to his home at Fort Myer, and further that the only
message he, Bratton, had delivered that night was to the duty
offi cer for the Secretary of State. 124 Stimson ignores these contradictions
and simply accepts the statement in Bratton’s affi davit.
In his “Offi cial Report” Stimson wrote: “Th ere is no dispute,
however, that General Marshall did not get this information [the
Japanese reply] until the morning of December 7.” 125
Th e APHB had suggested also that if Hull had followed a
diff erent procedure with the Japanese envoys, he “might have
prolonged the negotiations until such time as the Army and
Navy were better prepared for hostile action.” Th is, Stimson said,
“amounts at best only to a conjecture.” He considered the board’s
comment in this respect “uncalled for.” 126
To the apparent satisfaction of the administration, the three
supplemental investigations had shifted the major responsibility
for the Japanese attack away from top Washington offi cials—
Marshall, Gerow, and Hull—and back once more to Kimmel and
Short, with some blame left over for Stark. Th e administration
considered the matter closed.
123Ibid., part 29, p. 2349. Bratton testimony before APHB, September 30,
1944.
124Ibid., part 35, pp. 97–98.
125Ibid., p. 17. Stimson’s “Offi cial Report” regarding the Pearl Harbor disaster
(August 29, 1945).
126Ibid., p. 19.