Dec. 7 to Nov. 7

The amount of the Administration's responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster was up again last week. Republican Representative Melvin J. Maas of Minnesota, in a speech at St. Paul repeated the oft-made charge that responsibility for the disaster rested solely with President Roosevelt and other high Administration officials. His specific claim: that they had six hours' notice of the time & place for the attack, but did not warn the Army & Navy in Hawaii. Said he: a new secret report had been completed by the new Navy Court of Inquiry, but was being "suppressed" by the Administration.

Next day Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal told newsmen that he had indeed received the report from the court, which does not try anyone, merely assembles the facts. More than that the Secretary did not want to say. The document, he admitted, would be kept confidential for the present, because parts of it had been marked "top secret" and the rest "secret." Since the Navy insists that release of secret material "would cause exceptionally grave damage to the nation," all Secretary Forrestal could do was to buck-pass the report to Admiral Ernest J. King, with the request that he decide whether or not parts of it could be made public. At least one high-ranker sarcastically explained that the "damage to the nation" would be election damage.

In Boston Charles B. Rugg, counsel for Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, issued a statement saying that Forrestal's "suggested procedure is a spacious pretext to keep the truth of Pearl Harbor hidden from Dec. 7, 1941 to Nov. 7, 1944. This inconsistent and dilatory procedure is unjust to Admiral Kimmel."

One thing was probable: the court report would be kept secret until after Election Day. One thing was now certain: the famed Roberts report on Pearl Harbor issued in January 1942 did not tell the whole truth. The full history of Pearl Harbor had yet to be written.

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