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

824 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
Colonel Knox never mentioned any such thing to me. . . . [S]uch
a conference at the White House, under those circumstances,
Stark said, would have been “so extraordinarily unusual” that it
should “unquestionably” have stood out in his memory. But he
didn’t remember any such meeting. 306
In spite of Krick’s detailed account of the events of the evening,
Stark’s memory did not revive. He remained consistent in
saying that he could recall neither attending the theater with the
Kricks nor phoning the president when he returned home. He
did “not remember that evening.” 307
Keefe had arrived at this special meeting only after Stark had
given the bulk of his testimony. He feared that by reopening the
hearings for this purpose they were establishing “a precedent now
that may plague us in the future” and that its proceedings could
go “on and on.” 308 Th e JCC fi nally accepted Richardson’s suggestion
“to take the Captain’s [Krick’s] testimony . . . and then if the
committee later decides not to use any of this testimony, all right;
on the other hand, if they allow it to go in, we have it.” 309
Krick testifi ed that he and his wife had seen the Starks socially
on May 25, 1946. Th e subject of their December 6 meeting came
up quite casually in the course of the conversation. Krick hadn’t
been following the JCC testimony closely, and so he hadn’t realized
what Stark had told the committee. But then he had seen a
headline to the eff ect that the admiral couldn’t remember where he
had been that evening. 310 He told Stark that they all had attended
a performance of Th e Student Prince at the National Th eater on
the evening of December 6. When they returned to the admiral’s
306Ibid., p. 5549 (part 11).
307Ibid., pp. 5554–55.
308Ibid., p. 5550.
309Ibid., p. 5552.
310Ibid., p. 5558.