Blamed for Pearl Harbor
Sixty years later, relatives still fight to clear the names of two commanders
The vital Magic code traffic was available to the president, top commanders in Washington, D.C., the British, and even American forces based in the Philippines--but not to the commanders in charge at Pearl Harbor. Kimmel didn't even learn of the decoded messages until 1944. By then, the need for wartime secrecy prevented a new, public inquiry that might have cleared his name.
Who knew? In the decades since, a fierce debate has raged over why Kimmel and Short were kept in the dark--and whether it makes any difference. In a controversial 1999 book, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, journalist Robert Stinnett cites new documents released by the Navy to argue that Roosevelt deliberately provoked war with Japan--and withheld the critical Magic messages to prevent the military from quashing a Japanese attack. "[Roosevelt] had to have a clean-cut act of war to overcome the isolationist movement in this country," says Stinnett. "He didn't want Kimmel or Short to interfere."
Other historians dismiss a Roosevelt-led conspiracy theory. "I wish we could find a culprit, but the bottom line is the government is too dumb to pull off a conspiracy this great," says University of Pittsburgh historian Donald Goldstein, coauthor of At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. Goldstein says the Magic intercepts are meaningful only in hindsight. But he does blame the commanders, noting that they should have conducted better reconnaissance and been more alert. "Kimmel and Short should have been ready, period. I concede they weren't the only ones responsible, but the man on the bridge has to be the one [to take the blame]."
Others are less sure the fault should rest on Kimmel and Short. "I think it was known in Washington that something was going to happen . . . and if ever there was an obvious target, [Hawaii] was it," says retired Navy Capt. Edward L. Beach, author of Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor. "Was there a conspiracy to keep them from knowing? I'm not saying that, but Roosevelt very much wanted to get into the war."
In taking the fall for the disaster, Beach says, Kimmel and Short enabled the shaken nation to rally behind the president and the military leadership in Washington. Indeed, later inquiries (there were more than 10, the last in 1995) called many of the first commission's findings into doubt and ultimately exonerated the two men.
A long campaign to change the record resulted in a congressional recommendation last year to restore Kimmel's and Short's ranks, which would symbolically clear their records. The president has yet to sign it.
Points of contention
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT. He needed an attack to persuade isolationist Americans to join the fight. But did he intentionally keep information from officers in Hawaii ?
ADM. HUSBAND KIMMEL. Unaware of decoded Japanese messages of a planned attack, he later said the disaster could have been prevented had he known.
LT. GEN. WALTER SHORT. Expecting sabotage, he lined planes up closely, giving Japanese pilots easy targets. Accused of failing to conduct reconnaissance, he retired quietly.
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