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

754 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
even after the start of the JCC hearings as recently as “[j]ust before
Christmas” 1945, that he remembered the “Winds Execute.” 88
Over and over again the JCC members asked Saff ord about
the “Winds Code” setup and whether a “Winds Execute” had
actually been received before the attack. Why was no one other
than Saff ord willing to testify to having seen the “Winds Execute”
before December 7?
Saff ord: In 1945, there was a determined eff ort made to have
me reverse my testimony before previous investigations and to
say I had never seen the winds message. 89
Relentless eff ort was made to persuade him that he must be
mistaken, that there had never been a “Winds Execute.” Lieutenant
Commander John Sonnett, special representative of the secretary
of the Navy and legal adviser to Admiral Hewitt, interviewed
Saff ord several times. Sonnett had told Saff ord repeatedly that
he thought his memory was playing him tricks, that he might be
“suff ering from hallucinations.” Sonnett told Saff ord he should
change [his] testimony to permit reconciling all previous discrepancies.
. . . In some cases the idea was stated outright, in
some cases it was implied, and in other cases it was unexpressed
but obviously the end in view. 90
In all his experience as a commissioned offi cer of the Navy,
Saff ord said, he had “never seen anything like it.” Th e whole procedure
struck Saff ord as “quite unusual,” and he had prepared a
memorandum on the subject “while the events were still fresh in
88Ibid., p. 3710.
89Ibid., p. 3606.
90Ibid., pp. 3608–09, From Saff ord July 14, 1945, “Memorandum of Conversations
in Connection With Admiral Hewitt’s Investigation of the Pearl Harbor
Disaster.”