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

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 3 739
defend their previous testimony. As we shall see, each responded
diff erently.
Captain L.F. Safford, Naval Communications
Security, Discovers Kimmel Had Not
Been Sent MAGIC
In 1941 Saff ord had been in charge of the security section
of Naval Communications. He testifi ed that after the attack, he,
like millions of other Americans, blamed Kimmel for the terrible
losses at Pearl Harbor. He assumed Kimmel had been sent
information derived from MAGIC. Saff ord was bitter; he could
not understand why Kimmel had not been ready for the attack.
Saff ord said he thought that if Kimmel had received the “Winds
Execute,” which Saff ord had seen on December 4, Kimmel surely
would have recognized its signifi cance and would have “been
completely ready for the attack on Pearl Harbor, in fact with his
fl eet at sea, and Pearl Harbor just an empty nest.” 16
After Saff ord read the Roberts Commission report, he
expected to be called “as a witness for the prosecution” against
Kimmel. So he began to review the pre-attack record. 17 To his
dismay, Saff ord discovered that important information derived
from the MAGIC intercepts decoded before the attack, had not
gone to Kimmel. By mid-January 1944, Saff ord realized that the
Navy Department had not sent out the war warning prepared by
Captain McCollum, which Saff ord had read in Admiral Noyes’s
offi ce on the afternoon of December 4, 1941. His sense of justice
was aroused; Kimmel had been unfairly accused. Saff ord
then shifted from siding with the “prosecution” to siding with the
16Ibid., part 8, p. 3859.
17Ibid., pp. 3715, 3877.