National Affairs: Anatomy of Confusion

Up to the witness stand stepped Lieut. General Leonard T. Gerow, chief of the Army's War Plans Division in 1941, to accept full blame for one of Pearl Harbor's most egregious errors. On Nov. 27, a sharp warning of impending hostilities had gone out from General Marshall to Lieut. General Walter C. Short in Hawaii. On Nov. 28, General Short replied that he had ordered an alert against sabotage—which was like saying he had a butterfly net ready for a tiger. Yet his reply was never challenged by Washington. Why?

Explained General Gerow: he thought the Short message was an answer to other communications. Said he: "If there is any responsibility in the War Department for failure ... I accept that responsibility."

Then up stepped General Marshall himself to take part of the blame. He didn't recall seeing the Short message; he should have. "That was my opportunity to intervene and I didn't take it," he confessed. "Just why, I do not know."

Fourteen Points. The week's testimony also shed light on the warning that came too late—the message Walter Short received on Dec. 7 at 2:58 p.m. Hawaiian time, informing him that the Japs were on the way.

On the night of Dec. 6, Major General Sherman Miles, Chief of Intelligence, received from "Magic" decoders the first thirteen points of the strongly-worded final Jap diplomatic note being sent from Tokyo to its envoys in Washington. Next morning, some time between 7 and 8 o'clock, an assistant telephoned that he had "important" information. General Miles reached his office at 9 o'clock.

General Marshall had risen early, breakfasted at 8, looked over the Sunday papers, gone out for a horseback ride. (He usually rode for 50 minutes.) He was in the shower when an urgent message arrived by telephone from General Miles' assistant. He finished his bath, dressed quickly and went straight to the War Department. The time: 11:25 a.m.

Who's Confused? A hastily gathered staff meeting decided that the Jap note meant war, that a warning should go immediately to Hawaii, the Philippines, the West Coast, the Canal. General Marshall called Admiral Harold R. ("Betty") Stark, then Chief of Naval Operations. "Betty" Stark thought by some obscure reasoning that further warnings would "only confuse" field commanders.

General Marshall wrote out a warning anyway, called Admiral Stark again to read it. Stark decided on second thought that the warning might as well go to Navy commanders as well. General Marshall sent it on to the Signal Corps, which promised, according to General Miles, that it would be delivered in 20 minutes. It was then 11:50 a.m.; the attack was one hour and ten minutes away.

Instead of 20 minutes, the Signal Corps took eight hours and 28 minutes to get the message to Short (by commercial cable instead of Army radio). Nobody had bothered to check up on the Signal Corps; the General Staff took for granted that the message was going full speed ahead.