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

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 1 627
receiving some MAGIC information through Army facilities on
Oahu. 31 But in the very next paragraph he contradicted that understanding
when he acknowledged that Short’s assistant intelligence
offi cer (G-2), Colonel George W. Bicknell, relied on Washington
for information. 32 And Marshall’s urgent last-minute message on
December 7, certainly indicated that he didn’t believe his fi eld
commanders would have seen the 14-part MAGIC Japanese reply
to our November 26 “ultimatum” or Tokyo’s message instructing
the Japanese ambassadors in Washington to make delivery of that
reply at precisely 1:00 p.m., Washington time.
At the time of the attack, General Miles, head of G-2, the
Army’s military intelligence division, acknowledged under questioning
by the JCC that
Th ere were no steps taken to distribute these [intercepted and
translated] messages to [General Short in Hawaii]. . . . Th at
followed from the general policy laid down by the Chief of
Staff that these messages and the fact of the existence of these
messages or our ability to decode them should be confi ned to
the least possible number of persons; no distribution should be
made outside of Washington. 33
Miles was generally supportive of the policy not to disseminate
the MAGIC intercepts to Hawaii and other U.S. outposts.
However, he admitted that “the success of that Japanese attack
[had] depended, in very large measure, on their catching the
forces unalerted and therefore unprepared to meet that attack.” 34
Miles said he had not mentioned MAGIC before the APHB
in April 1944, when the war was still in progress, because “under
no condition would I have . . . intimated in any way the existence
31Ibid., part 35, p. 104.
32Ibid., pp. 104–05. Marshall affi davit for Clausen.
33Ibid., part 2, p. 791. See also pp. 810, 811–12.
34 Ibid., p. 877.