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

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 3 755
my memory.” 91 Saff ord believed Sonnett had “employed similar
tactics on other witnesses whose testimony had favored Admiral
Kimmel, particularly Rochefort and Kramer.” 92 When Sonnett
testifi ed before the JCC later, he denied that he had tried to infl uence
Saff ord in any way. 93
Many witnesses mentioned a “false winds message” that was
at one time believed authentic.
Richardson: Did it ever occur to you, that that [the false winds
message] was the only message that ever came in there on the
4th, and that you were mistaken?
Saff ord: Th is is only about the 20th time such suggestion has
been made to me, but I saw the winds message myself. 94
To Saff ord it began to look like a conspiracy. A message had
been intercepted—he was sure of that—the so-called “Winds
Execute,” that he considered “a short range forecast” of war, positive
evidence that the United States would be involved from the
very beginning in the war that was looming with Japan. Yet the
Washington offi cials who, according to Saff ord, had received the
message had really done nothing to warn the fi eld commanders
about it. McCollum’s long warning message had not been sent.
What seemed like an orchestrated attempt had been made to persuade
anyone who might have seen, or who had ever admitted seeing,
the “Winds Execute” before the attack to deny it. One person
after another named by Saff ord as possible witnesses, including
those who had admitted during earlier investigations that they
had seen it before the attack, changed their stories, decided they
had been mistaken, or denied that they had seen it at all. Saff ord
91 Ibid., p. 3607.
92 Ibid., p. 3610.
93 Ibid., part 10, pp. 5009–12.
94 Ibid., part 8, p. 3645.