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

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Reports 829
fi cing our national honor and endangering our security, to avert
war with Japan. 4
Th e Majority Report did not let Washington military offi -
cials get off scot-free, however. It charged the war plans division
of the War Department with having “failed to discharge its
direct responsibility to advise the commanding general he had
not properly alerted the Hawaiian Department.”
It also held:
Th e Intelligence and War Plans Divisions of the War and
Navy Departments failed: (a) To give careful and thoughtful
consideration to the intercepted messages from Tokyo to
Honolulu of September 24, November 15, and November 20
(the harbor berthing plan and related dispatches) and to raise
a question as to their signifi cance. . . . (b) To be properly on
the qui vive to receive the “one o’clock” intercept and to recognize
in the message the fact that some Japanese military action
would very possibly occur somewhere at 1 p.m. December 7. . .
. Notwithstanding the fact that there were offi cers on twentyfour
hour watch, the Committee believes that under all of the
evidence the War and Navy Departments were not suffi ciently
alerted on December 6 and 7, 1941, in view of the imminence
of war. 5
Th us the Majority Report was somewhat critical of Gerow
(War Plans) and Turner (Intelligence), for not being more alert,
and it placed some blame indirectly on Marshall and Stark for
not having reacted more promptly on receiving the “One p.m.
Message.” However, it held Hull’s diplomatic role justifi ed and
praised Knox and Stimson.
According to the Majority Report,
4Ibid., pp. 251–52.
5Ibid., p. 252.