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

790 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
were being held. 202 When the senator returned to the committee
table, he said to me sotto voce, “Th is is it!”
Schulz had told his story about the evening of December 6
to no one except when he had spoken briefl y with Baecher the
previous December. Th is was his fi rst time to testify, he said. 203 He
had never written his experiences down and had no notes. 204
In 1941 Schulz had been a Navy lieutenant in the Offi ce of
Naval Communications for communications intelligence. He had
fi rst entered the White House on December 5, on a temporary
assignment from the communications division. On the evening
of December 6 he had been on temporary duty at the White
House as a communications assistant to Naval aide Captain
Beardall. 205 At about 4 p.m. Beardall told Schulz to remain in the
offi ce to receive a special message for the president. 206 “[D]uring
the evening Captain Kramer would bring up some magic material
and that I was to take it and give it immediately to the president,”
Schultz testifi ed. Th e material would be in a locked pouch, and
Beardall gave Schultz the key so he could remove the material. 207
Beardall told him it was “of such importance” that the president
was expecting it.
Beardall himself left at about 5:30 to attend a dinner party. 208
Th is was the fi rst time in his seven months as FDR’s naval aide
that he had been asked to make special arrangements to deliver
a message to the president after 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening, i.e.,
after the close of the ordinary workday. 209
202Ibid., pp. 4666, 4669.
203Ibid., p. 4669.
204Ibid., p. 4664.
205Ibid., p. 4660.
206Ibid., p. 4668.
207Ibid., p. 4661.
208Ibid., p. 4668.
209Ibid., part 11, p. 5278, Beardall testimony.