1945 – Reports of three federal investigations conducted to determine how the United States was caught unprepared by the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor along with a denial from President Truman claiming it was the American Public and not President Roosevelt who deserved the blame

Washington, DC, 1945. Very good. Within days of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the press, the public, and government officials began clamored to learn how such a disastrous event was allowed to occur. It was not just the astounding amount of vessels and plans that were destroyed, but the incredible unpreparedness that allowed the disaster to happen. Over the next three and a half years, eight hearings would be held. Three of them are included:

The 22-page “Statement of the Secretary of War Regarding the Pearl Harbor Disaster,”

The 88-page “Court of Inquiry” report released by the Secretary of the Navy, and

(truncated) The massive 304-page “Report of the Army Pearl Harbor Board.”

President Truman’s response is also included. It astonishingly proclaims it was Congress and the American Public who were responsible for the disaster and not President Roosevelt or his Democratic Administration.

“I have read [the Pearl Harbor reports] very carefully and come to the conclusion that. . . every time [President Roosevelt] made an effort to get a preparedness program through the Congress, it was stifled. Whenever [he] made a statement about the necessity of preparedness, he was vilified. . .. I think the country is as much to blame as any individual in the final situation that developed in Pearl Harbor.” . The three principle investigative reports included in this lot reached significantly different conclusions.

In 1946, a Joint Congressional Committee Investigation released a 40-volume report that included information provided in these three investigations along with another five. It apportioned blame among the principals including on-site Hawaiian military commanders and Roosevelt’s War and Navy Department Secretaries. Also, despite unsuccessful pressure from the Committee’s Democrat majority to suppress it, a minority report censured President Roosevelt himself, noting

“It [is] impossible to concur with the findings and conclusions . . . because they are illogical anD unsupported by the preponderance of evidence. . .. The President . . . was responsible for the failure to enforce continuous, efficient, and appropriate coordination [as well as failing to] dispatch clear and positive orders to the Hawaiian commanders as events indicated the growing imminence of war. . .. The contention coming from . . . President Truman on August 3, 1945, that the ‘country is as much to blame as any individual . . . cannot be sustained. . ..”

Since these reports were released, additional documentation indicating that President Roosevelt and others likely conspired to suppress evidence so the full extent of responsibility could never be determined.

(For the most impartial information regarding these investigations, see “Doing it Until We Got it Right. . ..” at the National Security Agency/Central Security Service website, “Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack” at the U.S. Senate website, and “The Minority Pearl Harbor Report.”)

All of the Pearl Harbor investigative reports are available through digital subscription databases and in hard-copy at the National Archives and Library of Congress. Individual hard-copies are otherwise scarce. . (Inventory #: 010451)