Chapter 24: 24. 1944: A Political Year

In politics, as in war, crisis is the normal state of affairs. In 1944, with the nation at war, the Germans and the Japanese were doing their utmost to create crises for the United States forces overseas. The people of this country, united in the war effort, were working hard. Our factories were booming; weapons, ships, and planes were coming off assembly lines at unprecedented rates. Yet politics doesn’t take time off for war. Although the people were patriotic and united in the national war effort, they were divided politically—between pro-administration Democrats and anti-administration Republicans. And in politics one can be sure of one thing; both parties will try to create crises for the other.

The Presidential Nominations

On June 26, the Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated as its presidential candidate the vigorous 42-year-old Thomas E. Dewey, a lawyer and former district attorney for New York County, who had won acclaim as a crime-buster, had put mob leaders Legs Diamond and Lucky Luciano behind bars,^[1] and had been elected, and was then serving, as governor of the State of New York.

President Roosevelt had already broken the traditional two-term limit by running for a third term in 1940. Although many people suspected he would run in 1944, even his closest associates did not know for sure. Finally, on July 11, with the Democratic convention little more than a week away (July 19–21), he answered the question reporters had been asking. He read to them from a letter he had written the national chairman of the Democratic Committee, Robert E. Hannegan:^[2] “I do not want to run. . . . All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River, to avoid public responsibilities. . . . [B]ut,” he continued, “as a good soldier, . . . I will accept and serve in this office, if I am so ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of us all—the sovereign people of the United States.”^[3] It was no surprise, therefore, that Roosevelt was nominated on July 20 to run on the Democratic ticket for a fourth term.

FDR was 62 years old. Although he had lost the use of his legs in 1921 through infantile paralysis,^[4] he had always been vigorous, healthy, and resilient. By 1944, however, he was showing the strain of almost 12 years of heavy responsibility as the wartime commander-in-chief. He looked thin and gaunt. His doctors insisted that he reduce his hours of work and get plenty of rest. But FDR and his political advisers did everything they could to make him appear well and vigorous. Roosevelt took several long trips during the campaign. Travel for President Roosevelt was not strenuous, as it was for common folks; rather it was a time of rest and relaxation, on trains in comfortable private cars or aboard luxurious ships in fresh ocean air and sunshine.

The Democrats’ Dilemma

In political campaigns, both parties expect crises. However, FDR and his administration faced two potential crises of which the American people were completely unaware. Both concerned the super-secret Japanese MAGIC intercepts. In the first place, the administration feared the reaction of the voters if they learned at this juncture, in the middle of the war, that Washington officials had been intercepting, deciphering, and reading secret Japanese messages as early as 1940 and that, therefore, they had known a great deal about Japanese intentions before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Why, then, the people would ask, hadn’t Washington officials adequately alerted the Hawaiian commanders? Why hadn’t they seen to it that the fleet at Pearl Harbor was better provided with the information, men, weapons, and planes needed to resist attack? After having lost thousands of loved ones at Pearl Harbor and after having lived through almost three years of war, how would the voters feel toward the president and his fellow Democrats? Would they feel revulsion at having been deceived and betrayed? And would they express that revulsion at the ballot box in the coming election? Would they vote for the Republican candidate and against FDR?

In the second place, the administration feared the consequences for the war effort. What if the Japanese learned that the United States was able to decipher some of Japan’s super-secret codes, codes she was still using to send messages to her diplomatic and military personnel throughout the world? If Japan realized that the United States was continuing to read many of her most private communications, she would change her codes immediately; our armed forces would lose a valuable source of intelligence; and the fighting and killing would be prolonged.

Republican Presidential Candidate Dewey Silenced

The Republican Party had learned that U.S. cryptographers had deciphered some Japanese codes and had been reading some Japanese intercepts since before Pearl Harbor. As Research Director for the National Republican Party in 1944, I learned that Dewey wanted to make a speech on Pearl Harbor and Washington’s knowledge of the Japanese intercepts. When Army Chief of Staff Marshall got wind of this, he considered this matter of such “a highly secret nature” that he felt compelled to prevent Dewey from speaking on the subject. On September 25 he wrote a “Top Secret” letter FOR MR. DEWEY’S EYES ONLY and had his emissary, Colonel Carter Clarke, hand-deliver it to Dewey, then on the campaign trail in Oklahoma.^[5]

Marshall wrote Dewey that he was contacting him “without the knowledge of any other person except Admiral King (who concurs) because we are approaching a grave dilemma in the political reactions of Congress regarding Pearl Harbor.

What I have to tell you below is of such a highly secret nature that I feel compelled to ask you either to accept it on the basis of your not communicating its contents to any other person and returning this letter or not reading any further and returning the letter to the bearer.^[6]

Dewey read no further before handing the letter back to Clarke. He felt he could not accept the proviso that he not communicate its contents to any other person.^[7]

Marshall discussed the situation with Clarke and General Bissell, head of army intelligence. They concluded that “the matter was so important that we must make it a matter of record.” So Marshall again sent Clarke, traveling in civvies, to see Dewey, by then in Albany. Clarke phoned Marshall from Dewey’s office, saying Dewey was unwilling to read the letter unless he could share the information with at least one adviser and be permitted to retain the letter in his files. Marshall agreed.^[8] Dewey then read the letter.

Marshall wrote that he would have

preferred to talk to you in person but I could not devise a method that would not be subject to press and radio reactions as to why the Chief of Staff of the Army would be seeking an interview with you at this particular moment. . . . The most vital evidence in the Pearl Harbor matter consists of our intercepts of the Japanese diplomatic communications.

Over a period of several years, Marshall wrote, “our cryptograph people” had succeeded in reproducing a copy of the Japanese encoding machine so that we could decipher the Japanese diplomatic code. The Japanese were still using the same code, and this source was providing us with a great deal of valuable information. It had helped us to win victories at Midway, in the Aleutians; it told us of the movements of Japanese convoys and helped us in raiding Japanese shipping. Marshall told also of the serious consequences when the OSS had secretly searched the Japanese Embassy in Portugal. As a result of that incident, the Japanese had changed their military code all over the world, thus depriving us of an invaluable source of information.

You will understand from the foregoing, the utterly tragic consequences if the present political debates regarding Pearl Harbor disclose to the enemy, German or Jap, any suspicion of the vital sources of information we possess.^[9]

As a patriotic American, Dewey honored this request.

Shortly after this, Republican Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, unaware of the reason for Dewey’s silence, also scheduled a speech on the pre-war reading of the Japanese codes. Dewey called Ferguson to Albany and asked him not to say anything about it. There was no further reference to the matter during the political campaign.

One crisis for the administration was safely over. But another loomed.

APHB and NCI Reports Completed Two Weeks Before November 7 Election

While the NCI and APHB investigations were going on, FDR became “worried for fear there would be an adverse report by the Grunert [APHB] Committee just before Election.”^[10] Stimson was worried too. The forces in Congress which had led to the inquiry were “largely political,” he said, and were “trying to embarrass the president.” So Stimson had spent considerable time preparing for his appearance before the board in the hope of showing “how baseless the charges are that we people in Washington were negligent in any way.”^[11]

FDR “wondered whether it [the APHB] could not be asked to adjourn [its hearings] until after Election.”^[12] On October 13, Stimson conferred with the Navy as to “what we should do in regard to the two Pearl Harbor Boards.”^[13] Whether or not they tried to persuade the Grunert board to discontinue its hearings temporarily is immaterial; it didn’t. The NCI and the APHB reports were submitted to Navy Secretary Forrestal and Secretary of War Stimson on October 19 and 20, respectively, only a couple of weeks before the November 7 election. As FDR and Stimson had feared, the two reports shifted the burden of blame from Pearl Harbor to Washington.

The NCI effectively absolved Kimmel of responsibility by concluding that the steps he took had been “adequate and effective,” that his action “in ordering that no routine, long-range reconnaissance be undertaken was sound,” and that his decision “to continue preparations of the Pacific Fleet for war, was sound in the light of the information then available to him.” Then, after letting Kimmel off the hook, the NCI had charged Chief of Naval Operations Stark with having “failed to display the sound judgment expected of him in that he did not transmit to Admiral Kimmel . . . important information which he had regarding the Japanese situation.”^[14]

The APHB’s allegations against General Marshall, who was in Stimson’s words “invaluable in the war”^[15] disturbed Stimson especially. To be sure, the APHB had placed a share of the blame on Short’s failure “adequately to alert his command for war.”^[16] However, it criticized Washington officials severely: Secretary of State Hull for having issued the ultimatum to the Japanese on November 26, in spite of the “efforts of the War and Navy Departments to gain time for preparations for war,”^[17] also Marshall^[18] and Gerow^[19] for not having kept Short adequately informed.

On receipt of these reports, the two secretaries faced a dilemma. To make the reports public would reveal to the Japanese that we had broken their codes. To refuse to make them public would lead people to think the administration had something to hide, especially in view of the rumors circulating that the reports would absolve the two Pearl Harbor commanders of blame and shift the responsibility to Washington. The immediate response of the secretaries was to refuse to release the reports at that time. Parts of both reports were classified “Secret” and “Top Secret,” so they pleaded reasons of security.^[20]

Forrestal acknowledged receipt of the NCI report to Admiral Orin G. Murfin, president of the Naval Court. He would “personally examine the report and record of the Naval Court after they had been examined and approved by the Judge Advocate of the Navy” as to legal form. He would consult also with Admiral Ernest J. King, commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet and chief of naval operations, “to ascertain how much of this material sufficiently affected present military operations as to merit a security classification.” In the meantime, “pending inspection,” the report would not be made available to the public.^[21]

The War Department proposed a commission to rule on the “Top Secret” issue.^[22]

Forrestal and Stimson Consult Army and Navy Legal Experts

Even as Forrestal was announcing that the NCI report would not be made public, information about it was being leaked. The same New York Times story that reported Forrestal’s intentions to keep the report confidential told of reports that had “come from some quarters in recent months, and sometimes with a political background,” that “revelation of all details of the Pearl Harbor attack would clear Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieut. Gen. Walter C. Short of suspicion and, on the other hand, cast discredit on the administration”^[23]—this in direct contradiction to the findings of the pro-administration Roberts Commission. Thus, the release of secret or top-secret information might not only endanger the military but, if the reports really did clear Kimmel and Short and “cast discredit” on the administration, could prove a serious embarrassment to the administration in the coming presidential election.

Forrestal asked the opinion of the Navy’s senior legal officer, Judge Advocate General T.L. Gatch,^[24] and of [Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet] King.^[25] The Army consulted its top legal adviser, Judge Advocate Major General Myron C. Cramer, who wrote a long memorandum for the secretary of war.^[26] These men concluded that certain portions of the reports should not be released in any case.

Cramer, Gatch, and King all went over the APHB and NCI hearings and reports. In reporting to Forrestal and Stimson, they held that the two boards had been in error in maintaining that insufficient information had been supplied the Hawaiian commanders. In commenting on the APHB report, Cramer referred to Marshall’s testimony to the effect that “[t]he [scrambler] telephone was not considered . . . because . . . it would have been too ‘time consuming’ ” to serve as a rapid and reliable means for transmitting an urgent warning.^[27] “As to General Marshall,” Cramer wrote “the conclusions of the Board are unjustified and erroneous.”^[28] And Short, Cramer held, had been

adequately advised of the imminent rupture in diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan, of the imminence of war, of the probable momentary outbreak of hostilities by Japan against the United States, and of the possibility of sabotage and espionage.

Short’s

failure stemmed from a mistake of judgment on his part. . . . [He] had adopted wholeheartedly what was apparently the viewpoint of the Navy, namely, that there was literally no chance of a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor.^[29]

According to King, Kimmel “could and should have judged more accurately the gravity of the danger to which the Hawaiian Islands were exposed.”^[30] Concerning the NCI report, King warned that, if the necessary deletions were made, a “disjointed” picture would be presented,

full of unexplained gaps . . . [which] would lead to a demand of Congress and by the press for more information, on the ground that the part made public was incomplete, and that withholding of any information is indicative of a desire on the part of the Navy to “whitewash” high naval officers. A situation such as this might well lead to discussions that would inadvertently disclose just the information that we feel is vital to keep secret.

King pointed out that the law calling for the NCI“does not obligate the Secretary of the Navy to make any public statement of what the Court of Inquiry has ascertained.” Therefore, he concluded, “there is no necessity for making anything public.^[31] (Italics added. )

Stimson worried a great deal about how to handle the APHB report. He resented Congress for having “quite unnecessarily thrown” on him “this wretched piece of labor . . . the most wearing and rasping thing that I have had in the four years that I have been here.”^[32] He referred to this task in his diary variously as his “cross,”^[33] and as “[t]he miserable Pearl Harbor business.”^[34] He had had to spend his time “stopping rat-holes” because of “[t]he confounded Pearl Harbor case.”^[35]

The analyses of the APHB by Cramer and of the NCI by Gatch and King provided Stimson and Forrestal with the rationale they needed to reverse the APHB and NCI findings, to once more place the blame for the extent of the disaster on the Hawaiian commanders, and to vindicate the acts of Washington officials. Stimson considered Cramer’s analysis “a very fine job—really a humdinger . . . a very good help. . . . [H]e handled the Pearl Harbor Board without gloves and had analyzed very carefully and yet fairly all their mistakes.”^[36]

Sooner or later, of course, official statements about the Army and Navy reports would have to be issued. But from the point of view of the secretaries, later was better than sooner. They agonized for weeks over how to word their releases. They consulted. They composed several draft statements. And they agreed that their announcements should be coordinated and issued simultaneously. But they disagreed as to how frank they should be.

Navy Secretary Forrestal, apparently under the influence of King, leaned toward making no mention at all of any NCI criticism of Washington officials. Secretary of War Stimson felt that he should at least acknowledge that the APHB had criticized Washington officials, including Marshall. But Stimson expected to explain, at the time of making such an acknowledgment, that the charges had not been justified. However, his recommendation for acknowledging the APHB criticism of Marshall met opposition in the War Department.^[37] Stimson reasoned that

if we do not take the initiative ourselves and publish the fact that Marshall has been criticized at the same time with the vindication of it, why it will leak out in a much more disadvantageous way from the enemies who are already in possession of the secret.^[38]

According to Stimson, Marshall, who “has most to lose by the publicity which would come out of it,” favored Stimson’s version as “altogether the wisest thing.”^[39]

Unfinished Army and Navy Business

Neither the Army nor the Navy was willing to let the findings of the Army Pearl Harbor Board and Navy Court of Inquiry stand as the final word. They both authorized follow-up in-service investigations. On the oral instructions of Marshall, Carter Clarke was asked to explore “the manner in which Top Secret communications were handled.”^[40] Stimson directed Major Henry C. Clausen to investigate “Unexplored Leads in Pearl Harbor Investigation.”^[41] And Admiral Kent H. Hewitt was asked to conduct “Further investigation of facts pertinent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”^[42]

Stimson’s and Forrestal’s stalling tactics succeeded. No releases about the reports were issued before the election.

On November 7 FDR won reelection for a fourth term.

FDR’s Decides How and When to Release NCI and APHB Reports

The president was to cast the decisive vote on how the NCI and APHB reports were to be presented to the press. Finally on November 21, Stimson had a chance to talk with FDR and to show him his draft announcement about the Army’s Pearl Harbor report. The president had evidently already seen and approved of Forrestal’s proposed noncommittal release. FDR thought “the less said the better.” Stimson said the War Department “could not afford to go ahead and be frank when the Navy was not being frank.” And he thought the best hope for “keeping off a Congressional investigation was to make such a disclosure as I proposed to do.”^[43]

Stimson showed Roosevelt the conclusions of the Grunert board, and FDR read them carefully. When he saw the names of the persons the Army Board had criticized, he said, “Why, this is wicked; this is wicked.” FDR then read Stimson’s paper and praised it. But “he still adhered to his view that the safer plan was to follow as nearly as possible the Forrestal method.” We must “take every step” against Congress getting hold of the papers and the facts. We “must refuse to make the reports public,” he said.

[T]hey should be sealed up and our opinions put in with them and then a notice made that they should only be opened on a Joint Resolution of both Houses of Congress approved by the president after the war.

This resolution, FDR said, should say that that was “in the public interest.”^[44]

In spite of the fact that no news release concerning the Navy court’s conclusions had as yet been issued, the New York Times of November 26, 1944, reported that the Army and Navy Journal had

suggested [that] as a result of the recent [Naval] Court of Inquiry, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel might never be court-martialled for the Pearl Harbor disaster and that his Army associate at Hawaii, Maj. Gen. Short, would be vindicated.

The Times quoted the Journal as saying:

There will be no court-martial for Admiral Kimmel. . . . under the findings of the Court of Inquiry headed by Admiral Murfin, according to gossip in well-informed Washington circles. . . . As to the Army Board, which simultaneously investigated the disaster, it also is said to support the findings of the Roberts Board in the matter of the failure of officers of the War Department to comment to General Short upon the measures he had reported he took to guard the base in accordance with the instructions given him. . . . In the unlikely case that General Short should be court-martialled, his friends are convinced that he would be vindicated.^[45]

Finally on November 30, after Stimson and Forrestal had made some further revisions, the president approved their respective statements and authorized their release. Stimson and Forrestal planned to issue them simultaneously within the next two or three days.^[46]

On December 1, the Army and Navy released to the public their statements on the findings of the APHB and NCI investigations.^[47] According tothe New York Times (December 2, 1944), Stimson and Forrestal revealed that they had

found no evidence to justify a court-martial of Maj. Gen. Walter C. Short and Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. . . . Both Secretaries were careful to speak of the evidence “now” available, and promised further investigation to obtain every bit of testimony. . . . On the ground of national security, both Secretaries refused to make the real story of Pearl Harbor public until the war had ended. Mr. Stimson considered it “highly prejudicial to war prosecution and the safety of American lives” to disclose it beforehand. The Navy Department said tersely that the record of the Court of Inquiry “will not be made public” while the war continued.

In their individual statements, Secretaries Stimson and Forrestal conceded errors on the part of unnamed officers at Pearl Harbor and in Washington. These officers, Mr. Stimson stated, “did not perform their duties with the necessary skill or exercise the judgment needed.” Mr. Forrestal sponsored a statement that there were “errors of judgement” by officers of his service.

However, Messrs. Stimson and Forrestal made it plain that no prosecution of any officer was contemplated now.^[48]

Press Reports Note Contradictions Between NCI/APHB Reports and Earlier Roberts Conclusions

The respected journalist Arthur Krock of the New York Times commented on the Forrestal and Stimson releases. He pointed to

a fundamental conflict of finding between the reports on Pearl Harbor of the commission headed by Justice Roberts and of those composed of admirals and generals as reviewed by their departmental superiors. If Admiral Kimmel and General Short . . . were guilty of “dereliction of duty,” as the Roberts commission concluded, then it cannot equally be true, as the Secretaries of Navy and War appraised their officers’ inquiries, that on the basis of available evidence no grounds exist for the courts-martial of the area commanders or any others in the service.

“Dereliction of duty is basis for a court-martial, and the Roberts commission imputed this to both Kimmel and Short.” This fact, Krock said, when

contrasted with the negative results of the official inquiries by the Army and Navy, makes an unsatisfactory situation for everyone concerned, including the Pearl Harbor commanders, who were removed, reduced in rank and refused the courts-martial for which they repeatedly applied.^[49]

Were Kimmel and Short guilty of “dereliction of duty” and liable for courts-martial? Or weren’t they? Krock believed Congress would want to see these contradictions resolved.

Many members of Congress have expressed this dissatisfaction, and their statements indicate revival of the suspicion that the fault for the surprise element in the air attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese rests more heavily on Washington than any published report has indicated. Congress forced the officers’ boards of inquiry on the Administration, which clearly wanted to let the entire controversy await the end of the war. . . . Now Congress, unless the continued investigation promised by Secretaries Forrestal and Stimson disposes of the conflict between the two reports and fixes responsibility on the basis of persuasive evidence, can be expected to try to find out the facts for the public and for itself.

Krock recognized, however, that such an investigation would have to await war’s end. To reveal the evidence required to resolve the conflict, as Dewey had learned during the presidential campaign, “would have been to invite a charge of imperiling security and the prospects of the Pacific war.”^[50]

The editorial board of the venerable New York Times came to essentially the same conclusion:

The Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments, and their advisers . . . have decided that on the evidence now available courts-martial of any officers are not indicated. . . . If the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, both honorable men, both loyal and devoted Americans, both vitally and successfully engaged in the prosecution of the war, give it as their considered judgment that full publicity and a public discussion now of the many ramifications of the Pearl Harbor attack would be inimical to the successful prosecution of the war, then that opinion must be heard with respect.

Admiral Kimmel and General Short are entitled to a full and open inquiry into all the circumstances of their preparation, or lack of it, to meet a Japanese attack. They are entitled to an opportunity to give a public explanation. . . . But first things come first. Winning the war is the paramount duty now before every official and every citizen. The best interests of the country will be served if the question of responsibility for the disaster of Pearl Harbor is put aside for the duration.^[51]

The next day, December 6, “an unpleasant account” about the Pearl Harbor investigation by “muckraker” newspaperman Drew Pearson appeared on the front page of the Miami Herald. Stimson considered it unfortunate that the president had thwarted his “original plan for giving a full and frank statement,” and he confided to his diary that he

had warned the president that the thing was sure to leak and here Drew Pearson had gotten hold of so many facts that it looked as if all of the rest would probably come out. Fortunately Marshall’s name was not mentioned and some of the things that Pearson said were entirely inaccurate and wrong and can be denied.^[52]