PEARL HARBOR: They Called It Intelligence

The Pearl Harbor Committee turned from diplomatic to military witnesses. Two facts were quickly established: 1) the Japs—sometimes through carelessness, sometimes through code messages—gave the U.S. much more advance notice of the Pearl Harbor attack than has been generally realized; 2) thanks to stupidity in Washington and in the field, the U.S. took the least possible advantage of the warnings.

To the stand went balding, bumbling Major General Sherman Miles, wearer of four rows of ribbons, Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence in the crucial days of 1941. Into the record went a long series of Japanese code messages intercepted...