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

700 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
How would this tell us, Ferguson wanted to know, whether or not
the Japanese were coming to the Philippines?
Ferguson pointed out also that the message specifi ed that
these three small ships were to comply with “Minimum requirements
to establish identity as U.S. men-of-war.” Th e president
had even given exact instructions what that meant: “command
by a naval offi cer and to mount a small gun and 1 machine gun
would suffi ce.”
Ferguson: Now, if you had known of this message of the president,
from OPNAV to CINCAF . . . would that have indicated
to you an answer to that question as to what we were going to
do in case of an attack upon the Malay Peninsula?
Kimmel: It would have been useful information. It would have
still been short of any authoritative statement of what our
intentions were. 74
After receiving on December 3 Stark’s November 25 letter
concerning the possibility of a Japanese surprise attack—on the
Philippines—or what was more likely, a Japanese advance against
the Th ailand-Indochina-Burma-Road area, 75 Kimmel had certainly
not visualized U.S. naval action in the Pacifi c like that in
the Atlantic. However, in his testimony Kimmel had to admit
that, judging from the intercepts Ferguson was showing him, that
Japan might well have expected the United States to follow its
Atlantic strategy if the Japanese got into a war with England. 76
74Ibid., part 6, pp. 2872–73. See also part 5, pp. 2190–91 and 2416–17, Stark
testimony re FDR’s role in ordering the dispatch of the three small vessels and
the eff ort to coordinate with the British and Dutch the search to determine
where the Japanese were aiming—toward the Kra Peninsula or the Dutch
East Indies.
75Ibid., part 16, pp. 2223–25.
76Ibid., part 6, p. 2882.