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

828 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
held 70 days of open hearings, examined 43 witnesses, taken
15,000 pages of testimony, introduced countless documents, and
admitted some 183 exhibits. 2 Incorporated in the volumes of the
hearings were the fi ndings of all previous Pearl Harbor investigations.
Moreover, the JCC had had access to a great deal of
secret information that had not been available before; much new
material had been revealed. To organize all this data, gathered
from various sources, to separate the wheat from the chaff , the
relevant from the irrelevant, and to determine responsibility was
a formidable task.
The Majority Report
Th e Majority Report itself was a veritable book, 492 pages
long. It reviewed in considerable detail the historical background
of the attack, Japan’s Asiatic policy, the Japanese-U.S. negotiations,
U.S. diplomacy, and U.S. agreements to cooperate with the
British and the Dutch. It described the attack itself, including the
Japanese plan for making and executing the attack, the defenses
of U.S. forces in Hawaii, the surprise occasioned in Pearl Harbor
by the attack, and the U.S. losses that resulted.
Th e Majority Report was signed by only eight of the committee’s
ten members. One of the signatories, Keefe, dissented in
some respects and presented “Additional Views.” 3
Th e conclusion of the Majority Report was that the “ultimate
responsibility” for the attack rested with Japan; the top
Washington offi cials had done nothing to provoke the Japanese
into attack and had
discharged their responsibilities with distinction, ability, and
foresight . . . and had made every possible eff ort, without sacri-
2 Ibid., p. xiv.
3 Ibid., pp. 266–266W.