PEARL HARBOR THE SEEDS AND FRUITS OF INFAMY PEARL HARBOR THE SEEDS AND FRUITS OF INFAMY Percy L. Greaves, Jr. Bettina B. Greaves, ed. Foreword by John Chamberlain LvMI MISES INSTITUTE ISBN: 978-1-933550-33-6 Copyright © 2010 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0. For information write the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832. Mises.org. Contents Editor’s Preface, Bettina Bien Greaves . vii Author’s Preface, Percy L. Greaves, Jr. xi Foreword, John Chamberlain . xv Acknowledgements . xix PART I: THE SEEDS OF INFAMY 1 U.S. International Policy (1933–1940). .3 2 Foreign Relations in an Election Year . .29 3 U.S. Ties to Britain Strengthened . .53 4 U.S. Military Plans and Preparations . .75 5 Talk of Ultimatums and Deadlines . .111 6 Modus Vivendi—Yes? No!. 129 7 Japanese Action Appears Imminent. 161 8 Th e Countdown Begins . 179 9 Tensions Mount. 203 10 Signifi cant Information Known in Washington . 221 11 Further Indications of Impending Japanese Action . 239 12 December 6, Part 1 . 249 13 December 6, Part 2 . 269 14 Th e Morning of the Fateful Day . .281 15 Air Raid, Pearl Harbor! Th is is No Drill!. 311 v vi Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy PART 2: THE FRUITS OF INFAMY 16 Th e First Response. 343 17 Th e Public Had Questions. 347 18 Th e Cover-up Begins . .359 19 Th e Administration Initiates an Investigation . 369 20 1942–1944 . 405 21 1944: A Year of Investigations . 417 22 Army Pearl Harbor Board . 437 23 Th e Navy Court of Inquiry ( July 24–October 9, 1944) . .489 24 1944: A Political Year. 545 25 Administration Directed Supplementary Investigations: Clarke, Clausen, Hewitt. 563 26 Safeguarding Military Information . 607 27 Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (November 15, 1945– May 31, 1946) Part 1 . 613 28 Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (November 15, 1945– May 31, 1946) Part 2 . 667 29 Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (November 15, 1945– May 31, 1946) Part 3 . 727 30 Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (November 15, 1945– May 31, 1946) Reports . 823 31 Epilogue . .839 Appendix: Dramatis Personae . 863 Bibliography . .877 Index. 887 Editor’s Preface o one can plan history. Every one of us—rich and poor, pow- erful and not so powerful, famous and infamous, important Nand unimportant—plans his or her actions in the hope of accomplishing some goal. History is the outcome of countless such purposive actions, intertwined, interconnected, interrelated. Although each action is planned by the individual actor in the hope of achieving some end, history itself is not only not planned, but unplannable. And so it is with the Pearl Harbor disaster which launched the United States into World War II. It was the unplanned, unintended consequence of countless separate pre- attack planned actions on the part of the principals concerned. And the post-attack coverup and revelations arose as the unin- tended consequences of the purposive actions of the principals concerned. Th e goal of the historian of any historical event is to try to discover how it happened as an unintended consequence of the purposive actions of individuals. And that is the goal of this book, as it was also the goal of the post-attack investigations, to deter- mine how and why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and how and why Washington offi cials responded as they did. My hus- band, Percy Greaves, became interested in the pros and cons of the December 7, 1941 attack from the moment he learned, as vii viii Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy research director of the Republican National Committee dur- ing the 1944 Roosevelt-Dewey presidential election campaign, that the United States had decrypted the Japanese diplomatic code in August 1940 and since then had been reading many of Japan’s SECRET and SUPER-SECRET messages. Th at secret, of course, could not be divulged so long as the war continued and we were continuing to decipher Japanese messages and learn their secrets. After the war ended in August 1945, Congress established a Joint Congressional Committee to investigate the attack. As Chief of the Minority Staff of that Joint Committee my husband researched the pre-attack background, the earlier investigations, and the available documents. He helped brief the Republican Committee members in questioning witnesses as to what was known in Washington about Japan’s plans before the attack, what intelligence and materiel had been furnished the Pearl Harbor commanders, and whether or not they had responded appropri- ately, given the available intelligence, materiel, ships, planes, and men. Th e hearings lasted almost a full year. Th e Majority Report continued to place considerable blame on the Hawaiian com- manders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short. A lengthy Minority Report held that the blame must be shared by higher-up Washington offi cials. Upon the conclusion of the Congressional Committee hear- ings, my husband continued to research the Pearl Harbor attack. He interviewed surviving participants, wrote and lectured widely on the subject. My husband completed this manuscript and wrote the side heads. We proofed it together and checked all the quota- tions and footnotes against the original sources. But then he was stricken with cancer, a particularly virulent variety. He died on August 13, 1984, just over a month after the appearance of his fi rst serious symptoms. By the time my husband died, his eff orts had yielded a mas- sive manuscript. When I reread that manuscript after his death, I decided that, although the names, dates, and documentation were Editor’s Preface ix all there, it was diffi cult to follow the sequence of events. Events alternated with revelations gleaned from the investigations and revelations alternated with events. Also Percy had included many lengthy supporting quotations within the text itself, interrupt- ing the fl ow of events. In the hope of making the story easier to understand, I have arranged everything in chronological order and paraphrased the quotes—from FDR’s inauguration and his early active intervention in international aff airs through the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, the post attack investiga- tions, the obstacles placed in the path of investigators, down to the fi nal reports. He and I often talked about this book. As usual I made sug- gestions; some he accepted; others he rejected. He would say, “If anything happens to me then you can do as you please.” Of course, he fully expected to fi nish it himself. But time was not given him to do so. Although I have reworked my husband’s manuscript, it remains his book. Th e research and documentation are his. Th e decision to present events primarily as they were viewed from Washington was his. My contribution has been to reorganize, revise, and rewrite his manuscript so as to present the events chronologically. Th roughout, however, I have tried to keep the book true to his research and faithful to his interpretation. My guiding principle has always been to present the results of Percy’s years of research as faithfully and accurately as possible and to describe the truth about Pearl Harbor as he saw it. Although I am sure Percy would have had some criticism of the way I have fi nished his book, on the whole I believe he would have approved. I only wish he could have lived to see the research of his lifetime published in this form. Any errors or omissions in preparing his work for fi nal publication are, of course, my respon- sibility alone. MRS. PERCY L. (BETTINA B.) GREAVES, JR. May 2007 Author’s Preface hen the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced on the radio, my sister phoned. I was outdoors playing touch football Wwith my nine-year-old boy and some of his friends. I went inside immediately and turned on the radio. From that moment on I have followed Pearl Harbor developments closely. At dawn on December 7, 1941, the Japanese had attacked the United States U.S. Fleet stationed in Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii was then a territory of the United States, not yet a state. Nevertheless, that blow brought the United States into the war that had been started in Europe by Hitler’s attack on Poland in September 1939. Th e war then exploded worldwide, with fronts not only in Europe and in the Atlantic but also in Asia and the Pacifi c. Th e generally accepted explanation for our entry into the war was simply Japan’s “unprovoked and dastardly attack” on Pearl Harbor. However, the responsibility for the extent of the disas- ter was attributed to a considerable extent to failures on the part of the two commanders at Pearl Harbor—Navy Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Army General Walter C. Short. To many, this settled the matter; the two commanders were to blame, held up to public shame, relieved of their commands, and forced into early retirement. xi xii Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy Th e fi rst hint I had that there was more to the Pearl Harbor story came in 1944. Th e then Republican candidate for President, Th omas E. Dewey, was trying to unseat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Several service personnel came to the Republican National Committee—of which I was then Research Director —with reports that U.S.