Truman's quick action had two immediate effects. First, the news of Marshall's appointment completely blanketed the media publicity that Hurley had hoped would be produced by his resignation and his startling reasons for doing so. Second, it called for a change in Marshall's schedule and that of the joint Congressional Committee (JCC) investigation of the... Read More

If the testimony on the knowledge and actions of the top Navy command on that momentous weekend seems to be confusing and inconsistent, that on the Army side was downright mysterious and almost impossible to comprehend without an understanding of two facts of human nature. The first is that few people will voluntarily confess their... Read More

Prior to the Pearl Harbor Congressional investigation this writer had twice met Homer Ferguson. During the 78th Congress when Ferguson was a freshman Senator, I was Associate Research Director of the Republican National Committee. That sounds like a political position but essentially it was a fact-finding one -- finding facts the Democrats didn't want known.... Read More

Remember Pearl Harbor? Of course you do. No American will ever forget December 7, 1941. Our casualties came to 3,435 -- Japan's were fewer than 100. We lost 188 planes outright -- Japan 29. Our proud Pacific fleet was smashed. Eight battleships were useless. Japan lost five midget submarines. It was the greatest military and... Read More

The latest furious round of publication and ensuing controversy about Pearl Harbor erupted at the end of 1981, and has not simmered down yet. The opening shot was the release in November that year of Gordon W. Prange's massive At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. Prange had been working on the... Read More

After the Pearl Harbor attack, Americans were told that it had come without any warning. The official story has been that it was a surprise attack that forced us into war against our wishes. For years the charges that Roosevelt lied and cajoled us into war were vehemently denied. In 1948 the great historian Charles... Read More

We have been solemnly assured even in our own day that gossip is part of history. We find it from Thucydides to Tacitus; Suetonius' History of the Twelve Caesars is liberally seasoned with gossip. And some of the most graceful and elegant gossip ever committed to posterity is to be found in Plutarch.[*] Apparently it... Read More

Before presenting the testimony relating to December 7th, it would be helpful to review the information available to Generals Marshall, Gerow and Miles as well as Secretary of War Stimson before they left their respective offices on December 6th. There was a mounting accumulation of facts and events that could not help but create an... Read More

We now come to the critical twenty-four hour period before the attack. What did the leaders in Washington know? When did they know it? What did they do about it? Unfortunately, the testimony is a jumbled mass of contradictions. Most witnesses swore under oath that they had performed their duties. Nonetheless, valuable hours were lost... Read More