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

734 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
automatically? . . . Did anybody in those meetings raise the
question that possibly the Japanese were sailing to a distant
point of attack?
Ingersoll: No: none that I recall. . . . Th e question of an attack
on Pearl Harbor, of course, was always considered as a possibility.
. . . [T]he places in the Far East were the only places of
which we had defi nite information towards which the Japanese
were moving. 5 . . . I did not think that the Japanese would risk
an air attack on Pearl Harbor. . . . [O]ur estimate was that the
Japanese would not do that, that they were fully occupied with
what they were doing at that time, and that the risks were too
great. 6
In view of our knowledge of Japanese military movements and
our close political ties with the British and Dutch, Representative
Gearhart and Senator Ferguson tried to determine what the
United States would have done had the Japanese struck British
and/or Dutch positions and not U.S. territory.
Ferguson: Did you know what our policy was prior to Pearl
Harbor . . . if there was an attack on the Malay Peninsula, what
the position would be of the United States of America, as far
as the Navy or the Army were concerned?
Ingersoll: As far as the Navy and Army were concerned, what
we would do was contained in our war plans. . . . I do not think
there was anybody in the Navy Department who knew what
would happen if Japan went into the Malay Peninsula, or into
Siam, or Th ailand. . . . Th e position of the Navy would have
been the position taken by the United States Government, and
what the president would have recommended to the Congress
5Ibid., pp. 4235–36.
6Ibid., pp. 4237, 4239.