Gleanings for History

Congress ended its long and laborious investigation of the debacle of Dec. 7, 1941. Last week, after 67 days of question & answer, the committee retired to pore over 67 volumes of testimony (2,741,600 words) plus 6,754,700 words of other reports and exhibits. The committee had started its work with politics heavy in the air. It ended its hearings more calmly aware of the responsibilities it will have in writing its report. It had dug deep into history, explored far into the never-never-land of U.S. foreign policy.

Much of the history had already been harvested by the Army & Navy reports and the Roberts Commission. The committee had doggedly gleaned the field. Some of the gleanings:

P: Army & Navy top commanders who had grown fat and stupid in peacetime service, or who were unable to comprehend the meaning of war.

P: An astonishing confusion of orders and messages, and differences of opinion at the top which had hamstrung action. (Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, was ready to appease Japan with a $2 billion loan and "most favored nation" status.)

P: The fact that high officials knew an attack was coming and the more disturbing fact that their conclusions were not turned over to the right people. (Said Franklin Roosevelt on Dec. 6: "This means war," but at Pearl Harbor Kimmel and Short had no inkling of their Commander's thoughts.)

P: The fact that no high official, from Franklin Roosevelt down, had even guessed that the attack would come at Pearl Harbor.

P: The utter inadequacy of U.S. military intelligence.

The committee had touched on a political incident (the Dewey letters). It had given away some military secrets (the code-breaking "Magic"). But more than anything else, it had disclosed the improvisations of U.S. foreign policy and how ill prepared the Army & Navy had been to back up the strong talk of the State Department. (Said Frank Knox to Admiral Richardson: "We have never been ready but we have always won.") Where liaison did exist between departments, it had been almost by accident. Army, Navy, State and White House had gone their various wayward ways, until the climax of mistakes on that Sunday morning on Oahu.

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