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

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 3 749
could to notify the fi eld commanders. 64 But their intended warnings
were watered down, their urgency reduced by being sent
deferred priority, or withheld. Th e “Winds Execute” seemed to
be virtually ignored. Saff ord could not understand why anyone
would “want to fail to make use of a wind execute message that
meant war.” 65
Receipt of “Winds Execute”
Contested by Other Witnesses
Most of the questions addressed to Saff ord by members of the
JCC concerned the “Winds Code” and its implementation. Had
we, or hadn’t we, intercepted a “Winds Execute” before the attack
on Pearl Harbor, as Saff ord maintained? Once the Navy intercepted
and translated Japan’s “Winds Code” setup on November
28, its code clerks had been alerted to listen to Japanese news
broadcasts. Saff ord insisted their eff orts succeeded and that the
broadcast in which the crucial false weather message was embedded
was intercepted on December 4. Yet few people professed
to believe him. Th ey preferred to believe that the Japanese government
really hadn’t implemented the setup before the attack
at all and that therefore we couldn’t have intercepted a “Winds
Execute.” Th e situation was complicated by the fact that Saff ord
could fi nd no copy of it in the Navy Department’s fi les. “[T]hose
fi les could not be located,” he said. All documentary evidence
concerning the receipt of a “Winds Execute,” together with all
information relating to the instructions to watch for it, which had
been sent to Cheltenham, Maryland, the station Saff ord claimed
had intercepted it, 66 had vanished.
64Ibid., p. 3668.
65Ibid., p. 3655.
66Ibid., pp. 3756–58. Regulations required the receiving stations, including
Cheltenham, to retain one copy of every intercept only until notifi ed that the
other two copies forwarded to the Navy Department had been received. Th en