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

810 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
the State Department and to Admiral Stark.” 263 Had Marshall
obtained a copy message from Stark or the White House, where
Kramer had made deliveries that morning? 264 Did Bratton’s assistant,
Dusenbury, deliver it to one of Marshall’s secretaries, possibly
Colonel Deane, earlier that morning, as Bratton said he
might have? 265 Or could he have gotten a copy of the fi rst 13 parts
at the White House during the night, possibly from Hull for
whom Bratton had delivered them to the State Department, or
from Knox to whom Kramer had delivered in his Wardman Park
apartment? FDR had not kept copies of the messages delivered
to him Saturday evening.
Marshall’s Sunday Morning Whereabouts
Another unanswered question concerns Marshall’s whereabouts
on the morning of December 7. He was supposedly on
duty 24 hours a day. If unavailable for some reason, an aide or
duty offi cer should have been able to reach him at any moment.
Yet Bratton told the JCC that when he called his quarters at
about 9:00 Sunday morning in the attempt to deliver the urgent
“One p.m. Message,” he was told Marshall was out “horseback
riding.” 266
Where was Marshall during the hour and a half between 10
or 10:30 a.m., when he returned Bratton’s 9:00 call, and 11:25
when he arrived in his offi ce? Marshall may have gone horseback
riding earlier, but where was he when he called Bratton? Bratton
assumed he was still at his quarters at Fort Myer. But was he?
Perhaps he was calling from somewhere else and that was why he
had told Bratton not to drive out, but to wait in his offi ce. Did he
263 Ibid., p. 4547.
264 Ibid., pp. 4544–45, 4547.
265 Ibid., pp. 4547–48, 4573.
266 Ibid., p. 4524.