REMARKS AT THE MEETING OF THE
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
AND
MEMBERS OF THE KIMMEL FAMILY
DEALING WITH THE POSTHUMOUS RESTORATION
OF THE RANK OF ADMIRAL
FOR
REAR ADMIRAL HUSBAND E. KIMMEL, UNITED STATES NAVY
APRIL 27, 1995
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Proceedings recorded by electronic sound recording, transcript produced by transcription service (see below).

(Note: Readers may also wish to see the Pentagon's detailed response, some eight months later, to the conclusions of this hearing. If so, they may refer to the Dorn Report, submitted by Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn to the U.S. Congress on the 15th of December, 1995).

L.B.S., INC.
P.O. Box 182
Riverton, New Jersey 08077
TEL. NO. (800) 678-9558
FAX NO. (609) 829-3403

STROM THURMOND, Senator
JOHN DEUTCH, Deputy Secretary of Defense
JOHN DALTON, Secretary of the Navy
STEVE HONIGMAN, General Counsel of the Navy
MANNING M. KIMMEL, IV
EDWARD R. KIMMEL
ADMIRAL THOMAS H. MOORER, USN (Retired)
ADMIRAL JAMES L. HOLLOWAY, III, USN (Retired)
ADMIRAL HAROLD E. SHEAR, USN (Retired)
REAR ADMIRAL DONALD M. SHOWERS, USN (Retired)
CAPTAIN EDWARD L. BEACH, USN (Retired)
JOHN COSTELLO
MICHAEL GANNON
EDWARD B. HANIFY,

(Meeting convened.)

SENATOR THURMOND: The meeting will come to order. I'm a little hoarse so I hope you can hear me. I'll try to speak in this machine here. I appreciate the efforts of all present who have come to discuss this important matter. I would like to begin by introducing everyone. Department of Defense representatives here are Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. John M. Deutch, if you'll raise your hand.

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Right here, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Right here. Secretary of the Navy John Dalton; General Counsel of the Navy Steven S. Honigman; the Kimmel family, sons of Admiral Kimmel; Edward R. Kimmel, spokesman for the Kimmel family; Captain Thomas K. Kimmel, also a spokesman. Grandsons of Admiral Kimmel; Manning M. Kimmel from Rock Hill, South Carolina. Let me see now, where's that second page? These two are stuck together here. Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr., Edward R. Kimmel, Jr., Husband E. Kimmel, II, William S. Kimmel. Now, historians on World War II and Pearl Harbor; Captain Edward L. Beach, author of Scapegoats and Run Silent, Run Deep; John Costello, author of Days of Infamy -- where is he?

MR. COSTELLO: I'm here, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you. Michael Gannon, Professor of History at University of Florida, author of Reopen the Kimmel Case; retired Navy Flag Officers; Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I remember you from many years ago. Admiral James L. Holloway, former Chief of Naval Operations. I knew his father well when he had charge of personnel at one time I believe.

ADMIRAL HOLLOWAY: That's right.

SENATOR THURMOND: Admiral Noel A.M. Gayler.

A SPEAKER: Not present, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: He's not here. Admiral Kinnaird R. McKee.

A SPEAKER: He's not here.

SENATOR THURMOND: He's not here. Admiral Harold E. Shear, Vice Admiral William P. Lawrence.

A SPEAKER: Not here.

SENATOR THURMOND: Is he here?

A SPEAKER: Not present.

SENATOR THURMOND: Rear Admiral Donald M. Showers.

ADMIRAL SHOWERS: Right here, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Now, I want to thank all of you for coming. All of us present are concerned with the matter of the posthumous award of four star rank to Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who was Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet and Commander-in- Chief of the Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and a three star rank to General Walter Short, who was Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department of the Army December 7, 1941. Each person in this room has considerable background on this matter, which, since the war has been controversial.

I understand differences among the parties can be summarized by saying the Kimmel and Short families are on record in favor of awarding the rank specified. I understand that the efforts by the families have been investigated by many of the nation's highest ranking military officials, including the review of the Navy Court of Inquiry and a Joint Congressional Committee and by many Veterans' organizations. The Departments of the Navy and Army and the Department of Defense and the Administrations in the past have been on record against awarding these ranks.

It would seem that the best way to start what I hope will be a full and open discussion of the issue is to ask each group to state its position and to ask you to limit your remarks to five minutes. We've got a lot of people to hear. I sincerely hope that this discussion will lead to a resolution of the different viewpoints.

I'd like to congratulate Secretary Deutch on his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Deutch has a reputation for working hard and not leaving tasks uncompleted -- or to be incomplete, it should be. Since we will be dealing in facts today, I would like Secretaries Deutch and Dalton to assure me, one, and I'd like you two to listen to this, assure me that this matter be examined without preconceptions; that's one. That judgments be made on fact, fairness and justice. And three, that a correct but speedy action be taken. When I say "speedy" though, I would not ask you to act until you feel you have completed all the investigation thoroughly and feel that you're ready to act. But it should not be postponed unduly. A fair closure on this matter is in the best interest of the nation and to everyone in this room.

Do I have your assurances?

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Secretary Bill Perry and myself and Secretary Dalton and other members of the Department, you have my assurance that this matter will be examined without preconception, that the judgments will be made fair on the basis of fact and with justice, and that we will speedily arrive at the best judgment we can on this matter.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you very much. I want anyone present who has something to say to feel free to do so after we hear from these witnesses. You can raise your hand after we finish with these witnesses if you wish to speak.

First, to avoid any confusion, I ask Secretaries Deutch and Dalton to review the Government's official position with Admiral Kimmel and General Short. I think that completes my remarks and we'll start with the defense representatives if they have anything to say or unless they wish to wait until the testimony has been completed.

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Mr. Chairman, may I just make two comments to you, sir, and to the family of Admiral Kimmel. I know that Bill Perry would have liked to have been here. I come as his deputy and I come to make the assurances first and foremost that I did earlier and that you asked us to do about reaching a fair; as best we can, as quickly as we can, fair and complete judgment on this matter. I also would like to say that I think there's unanimous agreement about the patriotic and complete character of Admiral Kimmel. We face a very, very difficult historic issue here and we will deal with it as best we can and I want to say that I regard the presence, myself here today, in dealing with this issue as an issue which does involve the history of the country and how we arrive at judgments like this are important to our national character.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the Navy General Counsel Mr. Honigman to very, very briefly in no more than two or three minutes to present the current position of the Department of Defense, the position which I believe has been the position of the Department through a number of Administrations and those which we have just pledged to carefully review as a result of this meeting today.

SENATOR THURMOND: Well, I'd be glad to hear from you, Mr. General Counsel.

MR. HONIGMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I'd like to do is to state the official position of the Department today and that position is the following. In our view there are three principle reasons why Admiral Kimmel's rank should not be upgraded. The first, quite simply, is that the historical record does not establish convincingly that President Roosevelt, General Marshall, or others in Washington deliberately withheld information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short as part of a plan or a conspiracy to expose Pearl Harbor to attack in order to thrust America into the war.

The second is that Admiral Kimmel and General Short both have responsibility for failures in Hawaii that contributed to the unreadiness of the forces under their command to detect and defend against the Japanese attack. Those failures were detailed in the 1946 report issued by the Joint Congressional Committee at the conclusion of its extensive hearings and investigation. Admiral Kimmel enjoyed due process before that Committee. He was represented by counsel, he testified at length, and he had the right to call and question witnesses.

I should emphasize that the Committee's report specified that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were not guilty of dereliction of duty; however it did find that they made numerous errors of judgment, the most significant of those errors was dependence upon an inadequate system of command by mutual cooperation that was, in the Committee's words -- The conduct of operations in a state of joint oblivion.

In the words of their report, both the Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii,

...failed to coordinate and integrate their combined facilities for defense in the crucial days between November 27 and December 7, 1941. While they had been able over a period of time to conceive admirable plans for the defense of the Hawaiian coastal frontier consistent with the system of mutual cooperation, when the time came for implementation of those plans, they remained hollow and empty contracts that were never executed. Had the responsible commanders conferred together in such matter as to reach joint decisions consonant with their plans, a system of mutual cooperation would have proved adequate. The tragic assumptions made by Admiral Kimmel and General Short concerning what the other were doing are a manifestation of the fact that this cooperation was not adequate. Each was the victim of the human reluctance to pry into what is regarded as another's business. The Commander-in-Chief, that is Admiral Kimmel, assumed that the Army would be on a full alert; the anti-aircraft, the aircraft warning service, and the interceptor command, yet he did not inquire to determine whether this was the case. Admiral Kimmel's and General Short's failure to effectively coordinate their efforts into a unified defense based upon adequate tactical communication of information, clear-cut allocation of responsibility and the shared understanding of such matters as alert levels were found by the Congressional Committee to have contributed to the scope of the losses at Pearl Harbor. These shortcomings by Admiral Kimmel as a commander on the scene had adverse consequences for the readiness of the Naval forces to defend against the Japanese attack which were independent of Admiral Kimmel's ignorance of the Magic intelligence that was known to others in Washington.

Asjust one example, an hour and a half before the Japanese attack, a Navy destroyer attacked a Japanese submarine at Pearl Harbor; yet notice of that encounter was not transmitted to the forces at Pearl Harbor at a time when they could have had adequate preparation to go to action stations, maintain the -- re-establish the watertight integrity of the battleships and position ammunition so that the guns could come into play as early as possible.

Moreover, Admiral Kimmel did have possession of certain intelligence and warnings from Washington, including a war warning message on 27 November, a hostile action possible at any moment message on 28 November, and a 3 December message regarding Japanese orders for destruction of codes. On the basis of this information, Admiral King concluded in his endorsement of the results of a Court of Inquiry, that Admiral Kimmel could and should have judged more accurately the gravity of the danger to which the Hawaiian islands were exposed and that Admiral Kimmel's faults of omission indicate lack of the superior judgment necessary for exercising command commensurate with his rank and assigned duties.

Thirdly, wholly apart from questions of individual fault or omissions is the application of the Naval services principle of the accountability of the commander. In accordance with that principle, it was proper to relieve Admiral Kimmel of command and therefore cause his reversion to two star grade. In reviewing Admiral Kimmel's matter today, another element should be added to those. That element is the principle of finality of official judgments of Congress, prior Presidents, and Secretaries of Defense and the Navy.

A vigorous and informed debate among historians, writers, and concerned citizens will enable the bar of history to reach its verdict on the quality of Admiral Kimmel's service as commander at Pearl Harbor and indeed on the conduct of the civilian and military leaders in Washington. More than 50 years after those events, it is for history, and not the government, to render that verdict. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you. We will now hear from some of the Kimmel family, the son of Admiral Kimmel, Edward R. Kimmel. Mr. Kimmel, would you speak out?

MR. E. KIMMEL: Yes. Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR THURMOND: And all of you speak in your loudspeakers so everybody can hear.

MR. E. KIMMEL: Yeah, can you -- you can hear me all right? I've never been noted for not being able to be heard so I'm sure you could. I would like to start this by turning this over for just a few short opening remarks to my son Manning M. Kimmel from South Carolina. Manning?

MR. M. KIMMEL: My name is Manning Kimmel. I live in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Admiral Husband Kimmel was my grandfather, a man I was fortunate to know as a child and a man that I have come to love and respect even more as an adult.

For as long as I can remember, my grandfather fought for the truth behind Pearl Harbor. I only wish that he could have lived to this day to see men like Senator Thurmond, and the distinguished Admirals and historians and others assembled in this room today voicing their support for him. But why does this country that he loved so much continue to deny him his rightful place in history? Historians now know with complete certainty that Admiral Kimmel was denied critical information that was sitting right here in Washington. Why it was never sent is a question still being debated by the historians and most likely will be for many years to come. Whether Admiral Kimmel was blindfolded intentionally or through bureaucratic bungling should have no bearing on this case. History now confirms there never was any factual basis for the ruinous allegation of dereliction of duty that Justice Roberts and his Commission so unfairly saddled upon my grandfather after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two Presidents in the last four years have recognized Admiral Kimmel's accomplishments. In 1991, Richard Trefry writing for President Bush said --

...There is no question that the Admiral was a loyal, dedicated, patriotic American who was professionally competent and who served his country to the best of his ability...

President Clinton echoed the same statements in 1994, writing --

...Your grandfather was without question a patriotic American who served our country with bravery and with dedication...

Similar statements have come from almost every level of government we have approached, but never have we been given a specific reason for denying our request for the posthumous promotion of Admiral Kimmel. How can you recognize a man as being loyal, dedicated, patriotic, and a man who served our country with bravery and dedication and not grant him this place in history? Again I say, there is absolutely no factual basis for the continuation of this injustice to Admiral Kimmel. If there is, we want to know what it is, right here, today and now. We don't want to leave this hearing with any unanswered questions or any innuendoes.

My father, who sits beside me here today, raised me with a great deal of love, discipline, and good common sense. One thing he taught me early on was to always admit when you have done wrong and be man enough to say when you're sorry. This country is not perfect and, God knows, neither is our military. We only need to look at the Hartwick, Tailhook, and now the Fielder cases to prove that. But these all pale in comparison to the injustice accorded to Admiral Kimmel. In fact, I've commented to my father on several occasions that had the media in 1941 been what it is today, we would not be here fighting for my grandfather's honor.

Admiral Kimmel was not derelict in his duty, but you have been in yours. The Washington military establishment continues to ignore its responsibility to search for the truth in the Admiral Kimmel case. If you had been searching for the truth, we wouldn't be here today. Your written denials lack specificity and clearly show the military has no interest in changing the convenience it's been afforded by having my grandfather as your scapegoat. At no time, at no time has the military shown any genuine interest in finding the truth. Instead, you have perpetuated the largest cover-up in U.S. history. Not only did you keep critical information from the Hawaiian commanders in 1941, but for 54 years you have never told the truth about it. Your inability to accept fault in the Pearl Harbor disaster, despite factual evidence to the contrary, is nothing more, I'm sorry to say, than arrogance. Over 50 years have passed since December 7th, 1941, yet you treat this case like the Japanese attack took place yesterday. You, better than anybody, should understand that to a soldier, honor is above life itself. Yet to my grandfather, you have relegated his memory to disgrace simply to cover up culpability of those who were in command a half century ago.

Admiral Kimmel's memory haunts you and will continue to do so until you do something about it. To suggest to the Kimmel family, as you have in numerous letters, that it's in the best interest of society and the U.S. Navy that this matter be left to the verdict of history is an embarrassment to our country and clearly indicates that the military only wants to protect itself and the status quo.

This is the 50th anniversary year of World War II. History demands that you set the record straight. If Robert MacNamara can admit his egregious errors in judgment over Vietnam, Secretary Perry and President Clinton can certainly do the same on behalf of their predecessors, who were obviously looking for scapegoats. Such a reversal would not open new wounds, but rather finally heal old ones.

MR. E. KIMMEL: Now, Senator, with your permission, I'd like to pick up on remarks that I would like to make.

SENATOR THURMOND: All right.

MR. E. KIMMEL: This meeting is the culmination of an effort begun in April, 1987 by my brother, Captain Thomas K. Kimmel, USN retired, and me, to erase the stigma and obloquy suffered by our father, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, and his family since the Roberts Commission report without basis charged him with dereliction of duty in January of '42, and to correct the injustice done him by the Departments of the Navy and Defense and numerous Administrations.

We're grateful for this opportunity to confront the management of the Department of Defense eyeball to eyeball to find out why they have repeatedly turned down our request to posthumously confer upon him the rank of Admiral on the retired list of Naval Officers.

The repeated turn-downs have not set forth any substantive reasons for the action. Secretary wrote me September 7th that Admiral Kimmel's status should not be changed and stated --

This conclusion is compelled by society's legitimate interest in the finality of official actions and by the weight, basis, and scope of the prior judgments on this issue.

General Counsel Honigman in a subsequent phone conversation with me said that this was the position of the Navy and Defense Departments and the Administration.

There have been nine investigations of the circumstances surrounding this Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Of these, the Roberts Commission, the Naval Court of Inquiry and the Congressional Investigation are the most important. The proceedings of the Roberts Commission were a travesty of justice. It denied Admiral Kimmel counsel. He was not permitted to read the testimony which the Commission received until late 1943 and early 1944. The Commission did not record the testimony of responsible senior Army and Navy officers in Washington. Without affording Admiral Kimmel the opportunity to defend himself, the Roberts Commission convicted him, without a trial, on secret evidence withheld from him and the public and published its findings to the world. Subsequently, Admiral William H. Standley, a member of the Commission, publicly repudiated its procedures and findings and disassociated himself from the work. He took the position that the Commission was hastily ordered by the President to forestall a Congressional investigation at that time.

Certainly no weight can be given to findings of the Roberts Commission, yet its dereliction of duty charge is the genesis of the injustice done to Admiral Kimmel. This charge captured the headlines of every newspaper in the United States with the result that it was firmly implanted in the public mind that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were solely responsible for the success of the Japanese attack. And there is ample evidence that the public continues to believe this, despite the fact that subsequent investigations have thoroughly disproved it. To wit, the Naval Court of Inquiry and the Congressional Investigation, the latter which specifically found that there had been no dereliction of duty by either officer. However, before the investigations referred to, these officers were retired in disgrace, not permitted to serve their country in the armed forces.

The two investigations previously mentioned did not take place until 1944 and 1945 respectively and the findings of the Naval Court of Inquiry were not made public until August, 1945 and those of the Congressional Committee were not made public until the summer of 1946. This delay meant that the public had no information contrary to the findings of the Roberts Commission until three and four years after the dereliction of duty charges were made public.

It is the stigma and obloquy flowing from these charges that my brother and I believe the Government and the Navy should take appropriate action to eradicate from the public mind. The vehicle we have chosen for so doing is the posthumous award of four star rank to Admiral Kimmel and three star rank to General Short, permissible under law if the President nominates them and the Senate confirms. No money is involved.

As previously mentioned, there have been nine investigations of the Pearl Harbor disaster. However, it is worth noting that there might have been none other than the Roberts Commission but for the efforts of Admiral Kimmel. Three years after the attack, the Government had taken no steps to preserve testimony or otherwise investigate it. The Government appeared perfectly willing to let the matter rest with the report of the Roberts Commission and let Admiral Kimmel and General Short bear the blame.

In December 1943, Admiral Kimmel was supplied for the first time with an abbreviated copy of the record of the proceedings of the Roberts Commission. This and the Roberts Commission's previously published report guardedly intimated that the Navy Department had certain information which had been denied him. In January of 1944, looking forward to the day when he would be court-martialed, he retained a lawyer. Shortly thereafter in February, 1944, a Naval Officer friend told our father about secret decoded Japanese messages in the hands of the Navy High Command in Washington prior to the attack which had not been sent to him in Hawaii.

This was the first reliable, detailed information my father had about the nature and scope of the information which had been denied him. He and his lawyer conferred and caused to be introduced in and passed by the Congress, legislation directing the Navy and War Departments to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Pearl Harbor attack. This resulted in the Navy Court of Inquiry and the Army Board of Investigation, both of which began about May, 1944. Their proceedings were not completed until the fall of 1944 and as previously noted, their findings were not released until August, 1945.

These investigations revealed for the first time that the Army and Navy High Commands in Washington were responsible for the Hawaiian forces being caught by surprise and thus the total success of the Japanese attack. They had failed to pass on important information to the Hawaiian commanders pointing to Pearl Harbor as a likely attack target. Their messages to the Hawaiian commanders failed to convey the tenseness of the situation opposite Japan, which would have been obvious had they simply sent them available decoded Japanese messages.

Lastly, they failed to appreciate that the delivery time to the U.S. Government set by the Japanese for their December 6 reply to the U.S. Government November 26 "ultimatum" signified that the Japanese would take some action on or about that time and that it was their duty to warn outpost commanders. This was what General Marshall recognized immediately and attempted to do after he had read the messages when he arrived in his office that fateful Sunday morning. It was then too late. These investigations revealed publicly for the first time the important roles played by the Army and Navy High Commands in Washington in the Pearl Harbor disaster and showed that in effect they had blindfolded the Hawaiian commanders.

A few examples will suffice to prove the point. On September 24, 1941, Tokyo sent a message to its consul in Hawaii which established a grid for the consul to report locations of ships in Pearl Harbor. This message became popularly known as the "ships in harbor/bomb plot" message. Thereafter, there were reports by the Japanese consul to Tokyo giving ship locations per the established grid.

The bomb plot message was decoded in Washington in early October, but never forwarded to the Hawaiian commanders. The ensuing Japanese consul reports were likewise decoded and available in Washington through December 4, 1941, but none were sent to the Hawaiian commanders. This, despite the fact that the translating officer had specially marked the September bomb plot message as "very interesting" and had shown it to the Navy and Army High Commands as well as the President. Subsequently, the Army and Navy High Command had no recollection of ever having seen the message.

The final report to Tokyo from the Japanese consul in Hawaii received in Washington December 6th but not decoded until December 8 -- was received December 6th, but not decoded until December 8, reported on the status of barrage balloon defenses of Pearl Harbor and concluded --

I imagine that in all probability there is considerable opportunity left to take advantage for a surprise attack ...

He further stated that --

In my opinion, the battleships did not have torpedo nets ...

But Washington had not assigned priority to the decoding of the Japanese consul's messages and in any event was not passing them to Admiral Kimmel.

In November of 1941, the United States was busily engaged in trying to work out a modus vivendi with Japan. Negotiations were under way. Suddenly on November 26 the attitude of the United States changed for reasons which have yet to be satisfactorily explained and Japan was sent a message setting forth obviously unacceptable conditions for settlement of differences with the United States. This message became known as the United States ultimatum to Japan. When it was sent, Secretary of State Hull is reported to have said he washed his hands of the matter and now it was in the hands of the Army and Navy. Neither this message or Secretary Hull's remarks were forwarded to Hawaii.

The Japanese reply to the ultimatum was received in Washington December 6th, 1941 and decoded and delivered to President Roosevelt that evening. Upon seeing it, the President exclaimed, "This means war." The message was also shown that evening to the directors of Army and Navy Intelligence. No one did anything about the message and it was not forwarded to Hawaii. The Japanese reply also indicated that another message would come for the Japanese ambassadors and it would indicate the time the reply should be delivered to the United States Government. The time of delivery message arrived the evening of December 6 but was not circulated in Washington until the early morning of December 7th. The time of delivery was set at 1:00 p.m. Washington time. The time of delivery message was not sent to Hawaii.

The Washington High Command, both Army and Navy, did nothing, nothing, in response to these actions. Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, sat paralyzed in his office Sunday morning December 7, 1941 despite the fact that it was pointed out to him that the time of delivery was 7:30 a.m. in Hawaii and his Director of Naval Intelligence was urging him to send a warning message to Hawaii. General George Marshall was riding horseback and unavailable until late Sunday morning when he did act, but it was too late.

From the above one must conclude, however reluctantly, that prior to the attack there was ample evidence of its imminence even as to time and place available to the President and the High Command in Washington; evidence withheld from Admiral Kimmel and General Short.

The Naval Court of Inquiry severely criticized Admiral Stark for failing to forward important information to Admiral Kimmel, presumably these messages. The Congressional Committee severely criticized the War and Navy Departments for not forwarding the "ships in harbor/bomb plot" message to the Hawaiian commanders. In addition, the Committee severely criticized the War and Navy Departments for not being alert to receive the time of delivery message and for failing to recognize in the message that some military action would very possibly occur somewhere at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The Committee also found that the War and Navy Departments were not sufficiently alerted on December 6 and 7, 1941 in view of the imminence of war.

The Naval Court of Inquiry was the only investigating body where Admiral Kimmel was accorded all elements of due process; to wit, the right to counsel, the right to introduce testimony, the right to summon witnesses and the right to cross-examine witnesses. And the Naval Court completely exonerated Admiral Kimmel from fault. Consequently, the proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry should be accorded the greatest weight of all those bodies which placed Admiral Kimmel's performance under a microscope.

Admiral James O. Richardson preceded Admiral Kimmel as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet. In 1957 he wrote a book entitled On The Treadmill to Pearl Harbor. He set forth his views as to the respective roles of Admirals Stark and Kimmel in the Pearl Harbor tragedy. He wrote --

I consider that after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel received the rawest of raw deals...

I consider `Betty' Stark in failing to ensure that Kimmel was furnished with all the information available from the breaking of Japanese dispatches to have been to a marked degree professionally negligent in carrying out his duties as Chief of Naval Operations. This offense was compounded since in writing he had assured the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet twice (both myself and Kimmel) that the Commander-in-Chief was being kept advised on all matters within his own (Stark's) knowledge and you may rest assured that just as soon as I get anything of definite interest, I shall fire it along...

The Navy had been preparing and planning for a Japanese surprise attack for many years. However, the subordinates in a military organization cannot stand with their arms raised in protective alertness forever. Some superior has to ring a bell that moves the subordinate members of the organization, trained, ready and expecting a fight but in the corners of their fighting ring out to the center of the ring...

The bell was never rung by Kimmel's superiors in Washington...

I consider that `Betty' Stark in failing to pick up the telephone and give Kimmel a last-minute alert on the morning of Pearl Harbor committed a major professional lapse indicating a basic absence of those military characteristics required in a successful war leader. I believe his failure in these respects were far more important derelictions than those of any of his subordinates...

"I do not assert that Kimmel was without blame for some of the Naval aspects of the Pearl Harbor debacle, but his blame was less than that of his superiors."

Not only did the Washington High Command fail to forward important messages and information to Hawaii, but it failed to exercise sound judgment in managing its decoding operations.

I have already mentioned the "ships in harbor/bomb plot" debacle. In addition, in 1941 it did not direct its decoding unit to decode messages in the Japanese Navy Operational Code JN-25, which, when the 1941 messages in this code were decoded for a study in 1945, revealed the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor and the nature and size of the attack force "Kido Butai."

The proffered explanation for this egregious failure was that there were not enough translators and decoders and the first priority was the diplomatic code. Certainly a few could have been diverted to attack JN-25, the code of principle importance to the United States Navy.

At this point it should be noted that when the JN-25 messages were decoded in 1945, a report of the information they contained was prepared for the Chief of Naval Operations and delivered to him in early 1946. He did nothing with it and failed to submit it to the Congressional Committee which was still sitting investigating the Pearl Harbor attack. This was a cover-up if there ever was one.

Sometime after July, 1941, the Navy High Command, without telling Admiral Kimmel, began to withhold from him important, secret decoded Japanese messages. Because up to that point he had been receiving such messages, he continued to think he was still getting them. The only explanation given for this appears to be the actions of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, Chief of the Navy War Plans Division. Admiral Turner took the position that no intelligence should be sent to the fleet except that which had been evaluated by him since intelligence could directly affect fleet operations and he had responsibility for giving operational orders to the fleet.

This issue went to Admiral Stark for resolution and he decided in favor of Admiral Turner. For this reason, the "ships in harbor/bomb plot" message and ensuing reports to Tokyo were not sent to the fleet. The same was true of the November 26th ultimatum, the Japanese response, and the time of delivery message. Admiral Turner had complete control over what information went to the fleet and with Admiral Stark is probably the person most responsible for the Japanese attack taking the Pacific Fleet by total surprise.

Finally, the Washington High Command failed to recognize the possibility of a Japanese carrier aircraft attack on Pearl Harbor, even though it expected Admiral Kimmel with less information to do so and because of this failure, sent Army B-17 search bombers originally destined for Hawaii to the Philippines thereby reducing the number of planes available for reconnaissance from Hawaii.

These are a few of the many failures in Washington which enabled the Japanese attack to be a success, yet the Washington High Command Officers who made the decisions; Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, Chief of Navy War Plans, General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, General Walter Bedell Smith, Secretary to the General Staff, General Leonard T. Gerow, Chief of Army War Plans, to name a few, were permitted to continue to serve their country and went onto distinguished careers in World War II and retired with the highest rank in which they served on active duty in the war and most importantly, with their reputations intact.

In view of the roles played by these officers of the Army and Navy High Command in Washington, how can anyone blame the Pearl Harbor disaster on Admiral Kimmel and General Short? Both Admiral Kimmel and General Short were cleared of dereliction of duty charges, both specifically by the Joint Congressional Committee and in addition, Admiral Kimmel by the Naval Court of Inquiry, which specifically approved of his decisions and disposition of forces.

There is no reason to deny Admiral Kimmel and General Short posthumous promotion to the highest rank in which they served on active duty on the retired list of Navy and Army officers other than the unwillingness of the Government to acknowledge that its position is not in accord with the facts, is not evenhanded, and is unjust and unfair to Admiral Kimmel and General Short and their families.

This case reminds me of a quotation I saw the other day -- "Some minds are like concrete -- all mixed up and permanently set." And as you gentlemen know, we have had public endorsement by the Professional Navy Officers. Thirty-seven retired Flag Officers signed a petition to President Bush and among whom were two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four former Chiefs of Naval Operations, 28 other Four Star Admirals, three Vice Admirals and one Rear Admiral. The Naval Academy Alumni Association passed a support resolution; the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, which is represented here today, passed a support resolution; the Admiral Nimitz Foundation passed a support resolution; the Veterans of Foreign Wars passed a support resolution; the Pearl Harbor Commemorative Committee of Lexington, Kentucky passed a support resolution.

And I submit this statement on behalf of myself and my brother. I have other materials which I put at everybody's desk and this is simply because in the early days of this, a great many of the people said they couldn't figure out if there -- whether there had been any injustices to Admiral Kimmel. Well just to get you all straight, I put a memo together, which is in front of you, and you can look at it at your pleasure, which details the injustices to Admiral Kimmel. And it's just outrageous.

Thank you very much.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Mr. Kimmel. You've given a rather complete chronology of what happened. Would you mind getting a copy of that --

MR. E. KIMMEL: They all have a copy of it.

SENATOR THURMOND: Oh, you have copies of that?

A SPEAKER: Yes, sir. He's submitted it to us.

SENATOR THURMOND: Okay. I think we'll move on now to some of these Admirals and then we'll come back if any of the members of the Kimmel family wish to make any other remarks. We've got a lot of witnesses here so I think we'll take Admiral Moorer. I think we'll move you next. Admiral Moorer is a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Defense Department as well as being, of course, the Chief Admiral in the Navy. Admiral Moorer.

ADMIRAL MOORER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm here today because this action taken against Admiral Kimmel has concerned me for many years. I am convinced that no matter what Admiral had been in Hawaii at the time and what General had been there when subjected to this surprise attack would have been able to do any better military job than was done by the people that were there already.

I was in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. I had been living in Hawaii for two years. I was the first pilot to take off after the Japanese departed and so I feel that I know quite a bit about what action was being taken to avoid or to -- I should say to detect the Japanese. I would like to emphasize the fact that people cannot resist more or less assuming that the capabilities of the equipment in those days was the same as the capabilities today. We had no radars. The only way you could find a ship was to see it and we didn't have very many aircraft at that. I recall with some concern seeing a brand new aircraft pass through Hawaii on the way to Australia on the way to the Dutch East Indies and we were still sitting there with the old aircraft with no leak-proof tanks and no heavy guns. And so it was quite a while before Pearl Harbor when the Congress did not see fit to build up the forces.

I feel that Admiral Kimmel used the forces available and the capabilities available to their extreme and I'm very concerned about what was going on in Washington and what happened in the cases of other people. General MacArthur, for instance; he had seven hours warning between the time that Pearl Harbor took place and then all of his planes were destroyed on the ground, the B-17's. I was out in the Philippines shortly after that and have talked, for that matter, to the Japanese about it.

In addition, why was General Marshall riding a horse around the parks of Washington when those messages were so severe and so frightening that Kimmel should have known all about what was going to happen? And I believe they sent him a message on Western Union and the kid was pedaling up in Kimmel's headquarters with the little yellow envelope when the Japs were flying all over the place.

So I think in all justice, anyone that has to make a decision on this problem should make certain that they are completely aware; A, of the military situation in Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean; and B, and the political situation and the information that was available here in Washington. And I believe if one really gives that a thorough look and uses common sense in his judgment, he will see that the fair thing to do is to restore the rank of four stars to Admiral Kimmel.

Thank you, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Admiral. Admiral Holloway, you're a former Chief of Naval Operations, I believe?

ADMIRAL HOLLOWAY: That's correct, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: May I hear you?

ADMIRAL HOLLOWAY: Thank you very much, sir. My statement is very brief. As a professional Naval Officer, I have to say that I'm a supporter of the principle of holding military commanders accountable for the performance of their forces and I have a very strong sense of the propriety of that principle. But on the other hand, I'm equally committed to the American concept of equal justice for all citizens whether they be civilians, or whether they be in the military, or whether they be in high or low rank. And from my review of the most recent historic analysis of the data available, and a great deal of it is new material, I'm personally convinced that Admiral Kimmel was treated unfairly.

First, I believe all -- first I believe he did all he could have done and all that he could have been expected to do with what he was given by his superiors. And I'm talking now in terms of both forces, ships, aircraft, and people and in intelligence or guidance from his superiors. Second, and I think this is a very important point, Admiral Kimmel was told by his superiors of the capabilities of U.S. Intelligence to provide warning of a Japanese attack using the Purple code-breaking system. And he was promised, and as I recall he was promised by the Chief of Naval Operations personally, that he would be provided with this critical information in the event that it revealed a potential attack by the Japanese.

SENATOR THURMOND: You might tell us who was chief at that time.

A SPEAKER: Stark.

A SPEAKER: Stark was.

ADMIRAL HOLLOWAY: Harold Stark.

SENATOR THURMOND: Yeah, okay. I just wanted the record to show that. All right. Go ahead.

ADMIRAL HOLLOWAY: Now, when Kimmel was told he could depend upon warning and that this warning was virtually foolproof, like any military commander, he based his own command plans on adequate information coming from Washington. And I think from what you have heard and what you will read that this information did not get to him. There was a pattern of withholding, whether deliberate or otherwise. I don't think that that's what we want to look in today. But he didn't get it.

Admiral Kimmel was unfairly treated on both counts. He was not properly supported by his superiors and was unfairly disciplined by these very same authorities. And I think it's in the best public interest that these wrongs be addressed. Fair play is a fundamental characteristic of the American people and I believe if our attitudes towards the Japanese who were involved in this attack has ameliorated over time, that we certainly ought to be of a -- our sense of fair play and justice ought to lead us to look into the case of Kimmel and Short.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Admiral. Admiral Shear.

ADMIRAL SHEAR: Mr. Chairman, I think it's important that we look at the situation as it existed in 1941, late 1941. At that time I was a midshipman at the naval academy. My class had been accelerated by six months to graduate in December of '41 as a result of the situation in the North Atlantic Ocean and in Europe. All young officers at that time wanted to get into the action. The action was in the North Atlantic Ocean where we were in a critical situation. I requested North Atlantic destroyer duty and I got my first choice. I was ordered to a North Atlantic destroyer, to report the day after Christmas in 1941, which I did; and immediately we were deployed on convoy duties to Iceland and to England. We had been conducting those convoy situations for well over six months. We had actually lost one destroyer to a German torpedo attack, the Reuben James. We had another submarine attack that severely damaged the Kearny, so there isn't any question. We had been at war in the North Atlantic Ocean for a minimum of six months, declared or undeclared.

This doesn't give you any excuse for the fact that you tend to be mesmerized by the situation in the North Atlantic. It was critical that the North Atlantic be brought under control if we were going to be able to support Europe and it took until the end of 1943, incidentally, to get that ocean under control. This does not, however, give any excuse for our mesmerization, if you want to use that word, by the people in Washington with regard to information in the North Atlantic to the detriment of information being passed to the Pacific. And there isn't any question, as you've heard from the testimony here today, that there was a wealth of information available in Washington that should have gone to Pearl. It should have gone to Pearl for a number of months. It did not go. So I think it's a situation where it's totally improper to hold Admiral Kimmel and General Short available for -- responsible for information which they did not hold and were not capable of acting on because they did not know it. And I fully support the action here today to right that wrong.

Thank you, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Admiral. Admiral Showers.

ADMIRAL SHOWERS: Thank you, sir. I want to say at the outset that I was not at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack on December 7th, but I arrived there about two months later and I served during the entire war on Admiral Nimitz' staff and in his intelligence organizations and I worked with Admiral Layton and various other people who were important in the intelligence effort in the Pacific both before and during the war. Admiral Layton, in particular, who had served as Admiral Kimmel's Intelligence Officer from December, 1940, was interested in eventually learning what had happened that had caused him, as Admiral Kimmel's Intelligence Officer, to be denied the intelligence that he later found out was available in Washington prior to the attack.

Now Layton kept detailed notes on his experiences and impressions all during the war and those served as the basis for his memoir entitled And I Was There, which was published in 1983 with the assistance of the late Captain Roger Pineau and John Costello, who is here today. Throughout World War II, Layton looked forward to returning to Washington in order to search the files and learn what he could about the 1941 failures of which he had been informed. He had this opportunity late in 1945 and early in 1946 when he was called to Washington to testify before the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the Pearl Harbor attack, and his findings and his interpretations of that situation are discussed and -- reported and discussed in his memoir.

Layton had two objectives in writing his memoir. First, to provide a basis for action to restore Admiral Kimmel to his rightful position on the Navy's retired list and second, to seek previously denied recognition for Captain Rochefort who had led the analysis of radio intelligence that later enabled Admiral Nimitz to mount successful actions in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The Rochefort recognition was achieved in 1985 but the Kimmel action remains undone.

Now there can be no question in my mind as a professional Intelligence Officer that there were critical errors made in Washington concerning the likely initiation of war by Japan and the course of such a war. These errors were compounded by inept interpretations of available intelligence by persons such as Admiral Turner, who lacked understanding of intelligence and analysis. The Director of Naval Intelligence, on the other hand, was forbidden by directive from providing his professional intelligence interpretation to the fleets. To claim that Admiral Kimmel was uninformed as to the threat posed by Japan is too mild. He was in fact misled, because he was promised that the intelligence available would be given to him and it was never provided. And there are plenty of facts available to support that statement.

The fundamental failures or dereliction of duty actually occurred in Washington and any shortcomings later attributed to Admiral Kimmel were simply a reflection of Washington's inadequacies, so there can be no question in my mind that he was made a scapegoat by Washington, who was intent on covering up their own mistakes. And this wasn't the last time this was to occur.

Only about six months later as the Japanese were planning to invade Midway Island, Washington again misinterpreted the available intelligence and disagreed with the analysis done in Hawaii on which Admiral Nimitz based his action and his fleet deployment. So had the Battle of Midway resulted in any different result than we now know occurred, Admiral Nimitz might well have been accorded the same treatment that was given to Admiral Kimmel. Instead, the action was successful, Nimitz was vindicated, and Captain Rochefort was made Washington's scapegoat, but on a lesser scale. The Rochefort affair has been settled but it's now incumbent on a fair-minded, understanding, and grateful nation to accord corresponding treatment to Admiral Kimmel and I support that action.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Admiral. We will now go to some historians. Captain Edward L. Beach, I believe, has written a book that came out this year. Captain Beach, would you care to speak at this time?

CAPTAIN BEACH: Thank you, Senator. I have three very brief statements to make. It's a matter of historical principle that when a superior withholds information from a subordinate for whatever reason, he automatically assumes the full responsibility for whatever occurs as a result of that subordinate not having the information. That's the principle that the military has worked on all -- throughout history. And you'll find it repeated over and over again.

My second point has to do with the Destroyer Ward, which incidentally was built by my father in Mare Island in 1918. She was built in 17 days, or I should say keel laid and launched in 17 days. The Destroyer Ward at Pearl Harbor was the first ship to attack an enemy and it attacked a Japanese submarine apparently about the time of 6:45 in the morning. And there's criticism been made that Admiral Kimmel did not react quickly enough with that information. Well now, anyone who has been in the military service knows that when you are in a peacetime condition, you are not in battle stations, but you are in battle stations --

SENATOR THURMOND: Speak in the loudspeaker a little bit better.

CAPTAIN BEACH: I'm sorry, sir. When you are in a peacetime condition, you are not at battle stations. You may be prepared, you're ready, you're trained, but your people are at rest. The evidence indicates the Ward made the attack at 6:45, sent a message immediately thereafter. How long did it take them to get the message off? Well, they had to encode it, it had to be transmitted, it had to be receipted for. I have many times been in that situation and it's -- let me tell you that when you are sending a message to headquarters, every minute seems like five hours because it takes them an interminably long time to receive the message, record it, check out all the errors that they may have gotten, and finally send you the receipt that you're looking for. So the Destroyer had to encode the message, transmit the message. It had to be received in the headquarters and then something had to be done about it. The airplane that made the attack, there was an airplane there too which attacked, dropped bombs, it also reported and one of the considerations in the headquarters at Pearl Harbor was how many attacks are there being made? How many submarines are out there? Is this the same attack? Are two people claiming the same thing? What's going on out there anyway? Verify and repeat. And that was required.

Finally, at the end of that time, the thing was sorted out and telephone calls were going all over the Navy Yard and that whole sequence of events took approximately an hour. Now to say that this was adequate time for anything to have been done to a person who has ever experienced it is simply not a logical thing. What could be done at battle stations is very different. You would not go through all that procedure. So I feel that that is not an adequate criticism of Admiral Kimmel.

And my third point is very shortly stated. Not only is the honor and respect of Admiral Kimmel and General Short at issue, the honor of the United States Navy and the honor of the United States as a whole is involved. I was brought up to a concept of honor. I believe in it very strongly. I'll never change. And my country must equal my feeling about honor.

Thank you, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Captain. Mr. John Costello, author of Days of Infamy. I believe you've written a book on this subject.

MR. COSTELLO: Three actually, sir. And I would like to extend my thanks to you for inviting me as a British citizen to appear before a committee to discuss an issue as important to American history as this. I can't help feeling that if the boot was on the other foot and I were an American historian asked to explain why we lost Dunkirk or the Battle of Crete, I wouldn't even been afforded a hearing let alone in such distinguished company.

SENATOR THURMOND: Are you speaking in the loudspeaker so we can all hear?

MR. COSTELLO: Yeah, I hope I am, sir. I got involved in this through my work with Admiral Layton and after 20 years of plowing through the paper trail of documents that have slowly emerged, not only in this country but also very recently in Britain on the intelligence side, one can -- I want to endorse all the points that have been made about the lack of intelligence.

It's very significant to me that the British were circulating Magic reports from the Purple machine that should have been at Pearl Harbor that was operating at the British code-breaking center at Bletchly Park. Now there are documents that are appearing on the British file that put a new dimension on this, critiques that were made by the British of the lack and the failure of America to act as a result, for instance, of the report passed on by the British double agent Popov to Hoover which went to the Naval Intelligence Department, information that did not surface at the Pearl Harbor hearings, that this specific report had led the Navy Department to prepare a chicken feed operation to go back to the Germans so they knew what was coming.

I find disturbing this doctrine of -- the finality of administrative responsibility. I think that this should be explained to us. It has been my privilege recently to deal with Soviet intelligence records and not even in what is now Russia is the finality of decisions that were taken under the Stalin era. So therefore it surprises me that we invoke that doctrine here today.

It seems to me that it's rather like a large concrete sarcophagus which is inscribed with a large rump on the backside saying this butt must be protected. History is an ongoing and living process. We're still rewriting the history of the Trojan War. One of the points that was made by Santiano was not only that if we don't learn the lessons of history we're condemned to repeat them, but that history has always been written wrongly and therefore needs to be rewritten. And the idea that there is a closed mind, that there is no way that this issue can be opened because the public are entitled to the finality of a decision which was made incorrectly on partisan evidence over 50 years ago is something that does not speak well to me of what I understand the justice of the United States to be about.

A point that I would like to emphasize again, in the course of the work with Admiral Layton on the Rochefort matter, we had -- and I had played a minor part in this, we had the same problem with the Navy Department. They didn't want to rewrite history that had already been rewritten. It took documentary evidence to actually change their minds which showed that Rochefort had done the code breaking for Midway, that he was denied by people in the Navy Department who were covering it up.

The final point on this is the reference to a conspiracy. The impression given that anyone who wants to revise the history of Pearl Harbor in some way believes that Franklin Roosevelt had a conspiracy going to have Pearl Harbor attacked, that even Eleanor Roosevelt in flying goggles was piloting the lead Japanese plane into the attack. I hear from the counsel to the Navy department the idea that there is a conspiracy. That it was -- this was part of a conspiracy that has to be proved. That is not the conspiracy, I submit, and I submit it in the book that was produced just before Christmas, Days of Infamy.

The revisionists have been right all along but for the wrong reasons. The conspiracy was not to set Pearl Harbor up to be attacked. The conspiracy was to protect the butt of the Navy Department and the War Department and ultimately the Commander-in-Chief in the White House for the fundamentally wrong strategic decision that had been made at the time of the Argentia Conference when General MacArthur was recalled to the colors which shifted the front line of the Pacific defenses to the Philippines. The idea that this could be moved, and the documentary evidence is now available for British sources, shows that this guarantee was given to the British. It had to be stood by. It was fundamentally empty and fallacious. It was based on the B-17 bomber. But what it did do was remove the attention of the Navy Department in Washington from the fact that Pearl Harbor was no longer in the front line. The idea that the Philippines was where the focus was is exemplified by the war warning reports which all specifically talked about the attack on the Philippines.

In my long interviews with Admiral Layton and other people who are unfortunately no longer with us, they were looking in the wrong direction. They knew that war was coming. They knew that there was going to be a Japanese attack. But it was 5,000 miles to the west of the Philippines -- to the west of Pearl Harbor in the Philippines. And you can see now that the impact of this -- on the dissemination of intelligence was critical. This was why Kimmel was not told the -- given the information from Magic that the British commanders in Hong Kong and Singapore and the China station were given. They had Magic too. It was circulated to them but was not sent to the American commanders in Hawaii because the feeling was Hawaii was safe.

When the balloon went up, somebody had to protect their butts over this monumental blunder that had been made of the deterrent strategy. And I've taken up enough of your time, but there are documents now which the British Government is beginning to declassify, secret exchanges between Churchill and Roosevelt that I don't think the U.S. Navy Department has located yet because they've not even been put in the files in the NSA which show that Churchill and Roosevelt were exchanging high level intelligence about Magic using the secret channel through the British Secret Intelligence Service in New York starting on the 24th of August, 1941 and running right up to Pearl Harbor. And it is surprising to me that in the release of the latest documents, the British Government cannot find the critical cables, the critical information that went to Churchill on the eve of the decision to make the U- turn in diplomatic policy on the 26th of November which Mr. Kimmel has mentioned. This was critical. From that point on, war was coming.

Why was that decision taken? That is something that can only be explained by the missing British documents, but again, it shows that people were facing the wrong direction. Without the planes necessary to protect Pearl Harbor that Admiral Kimmel and General Short had been promised in the spring which by the summer had been sent to the Philippines to protect -- and I quote here the assurance given by Admiral Stark to the British at the Argentia Conference in August, 1941, that these were to be used --

... not just for the defense of the Philippines but for the defense of British territories in Singapore, Malaya, Australia, and even India ...

And this explains why there was the conspiracy to cover up after the event; why Roosevelt, justifiably in my submission, after the attack on Pearl Harbor had to unite the country. Had the isolationist lobby known the extent and the degree to which American forces which should have been in Hawaii were committed to the defense of British territory under what was arguably an unconstitutional de facto defense pact against Japan, then there would have been serious trouble in keeping the country united for the war.

And Admiral Kimmel and General Short, I have compared to two sentries who, if you believe in the doctrine of ultimate -- of military responsibility, should take the can because they were on watch. But they were on watch, they had been blindfolded by the lack of intelligence, they had been ill-equipped in terms of the ability to protect themselves, and they were told to face the wrong direction when the attack was coming. And it is for all those reasons that I believe that justice cries out, historical justice.

I'm not speaking as an American citizen. I'm speaking as a historian concerned with the evidence. History demands that in fairness that the United States now looking back 50 years after the event put the record straight and admit the errors that were made for all sorts of justifiable reasons in 1941 through to 1945 and to see the totality of Pearl Harbor in the context of the overall strategic situation and the diplomatic situation in the Pacific at that time.

And I'd like to thank you again, Senator, for inviting me to speak.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Mr. Costello. Professor Michael Gannon, Professor of History at the University of Florida and author.

MR. GANNON: Thank you, Senator. My interest has been in distant aerial reconnaissance and the allegation that Admiral Kimmel did not inaugurate such reconnaissance though he had the aircraft with which to conduct it. As you've heard, the Navy Court of Inquiry in 1944 exonerated Admiral Kimmel of the charged dereliction of duty pronounced against him by the Roberts Commission in 1942, but those findings were reversed by Admiral Ernest J. King, the war time Chief of Naval Operations. He did so, he stated in his negative endorsement, because among other things, Admiral Kimmel had not instituted distant reconnaissance of the sea approaches to the island of Oahu. Admiral King brought along in his negative reaction to the findings of the Court the new Secretary of the Navy, James V. Forrestal. Forrestal said that Kimmel's failure to inaugurate long range reconnaissance of the sea approaches constituted his most grievous failure.

I took an interest in this for a number of reasons, not the least of which was an aide memoir that Admiral Kimmel wrote after a meeting that he had upon Admiral King's invitation in Admiral King's Washington office on December 7th, 1944, a fateful anniversary date. In that meeting where Admiral Kimmel expected to be supported by Admiral King, he learned to his surprise that Admiral King had decided that he, Kimmel, was guilty after all of dereliction of duty because he had not inaugurated long range aerial reconnaissance.

After that charge was made, Admiral King went on to say to Admiral Kimmel, as the latter recorded in his aide memoir, that he had not read any of the testimony given before the Court. Now that re- instituted charge of dereliction of duty is the one that remains with us now, a half century later. And it was made, if we may believe Admiral Kimmel's memorandum, without consulting any of the testimony that had been given before the Court.

I looked into the question of aerial reconnaissance and I began with the Martin-Bellinger Report that was put together by Major General Frederick Martin for the Army and Rear Admiral Patrick Bellinger for the Navy dated 31, March, 1941. I found there a long list of the many problems that faced Admiral Kimmel in undertaking long distance reconnaissance, including the statement that was made by Martin Bellinger --

In a dawn air attack, there was a high probability that it could be delivered as a complete surprise in spite of any patrols we might be using.

But it was impossible, I found, for Admiral Kimmel to have instituted patrols 360 degrees around the compass out to a distance of 800 nautical miles, which was expected to be the distance you would have to fly to detect a carrier before it could launch its aircraft. In order to do that, you would need 84 aircraft flying 16 and a half hour flights during daylight hours. And in order to have 84 aircraft doing that, you had to have 200 aircraft total because of the number of mechanical breakdowns and crew exhaustion. Those numbers 84 and 200 are very instructive because the number of patrol aircraft that Admiral Kimmel had at his disposition was 49. He had begged for such patrol aircraft repeatedly.

In the spring of 1941, as John Costello has said, he was promised a sufficient number of aircraft in order to conduct such patrols. They never came. In the meantime, a thousand such PBY's were sent to the British Isles. In November, Kimmel was promised a hundred, but they never came. The 49 that he did have were breaking down repeatedly from cracked nose sections and other mechanical problems. There were no spare parts. There were very few trained aviation machinist mates and there were no spare crews. And Kimmel had a responsibility under War Plan 46, namely to launch an attack against the Japanese Mandates, the Marshals to the southwest, and to do so within 13 days of the beginning of hostilities.

He and his staff went over their responsibilities. They went up and down the scales many times on this issue. Should we send out the 49 planes knowing that in a matter of days, certainly a week, a week and a half, all of those planes will be in the shop for overhaul just when probably we will need them to pursue the mission that has been entrusted to us and about which he was reminded twice just prior to December 7th by the Department of the Navy. It was decided that they should pursue expansion training and preparation of those aircraft for the mission that was assigned to them.

Admiral Halsey said after the war, any Admiral worth his stars would have made the same decision. Now, I go back and I look at those negative endorsements of Admiral King and Secretary Forrestal, who re-charge Admiral Kimmel with dereliction of duty for not having done something that he certainly would have done and I'm sure with great perfection had he the aircraft with which to do it. I believe that the numbers that I have advanced here today would meet the scrutiny of Admiral Moorer, who himself was a patrol plane pilot in Pearl Harbor at that time.

Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Professor Gannon.

MR. HANIFY: Mr. Chairman, it has been suggested by my colleagues at the table that since I was designated by the Navy as one of Admiral Kimmel's counsel and attended all the hearings of the Naval Court of Inquiry, went with him to the Army Board of Investigation, and also heard a great deal of the testimony at the Joint Congressional Hearing that perhaps I have a duty to say something. My name is Edward B. Hanify. I've been practicing law since 1936 in Boston and as a Lieutenant JG in the United States Navy in 1944, I was designated as one of Admiral Kimmel's counsel because at that time he hoped that he would be given an opportunity to defend himself in a court-martial.

Now may I say this briefly. As I understand the position of the Defense Department and the Navy Department today, there is no basis whatever for a charge of dereliction of duty. Therefore, I suggest there is such a thing as remedial justice. If that is true, those facts must have been available in 1941, in 1942, in 1943 and during the ensuing years. And therefore in the name of justice, why did the Navy Department permit this man to labor under that cloud in the pillory for all those years and now say there's nothing to it? Now I would like to suggest to the Department of the Navy a few points of view listening to what I've heard today from counsel for the Navy.

The first point which he raised as the present position of the Navy Department apparently was that any justice to Admiral Kimmel implies that General Marshall and Franklin Roosevelt were in some kind of a conspiracy to get us into war. That, I submit, is an entirely irrelevant consideration with respect to justice for Kimmel. He should not be a hostage to the reputation of General Marshall or Franklin Roosevelt. That's point number one.

Now point number two with respect to the relationships between Admiral Kimmel and General Short; I hope that the authorities who are looking at this situation new will recognize that they were not opposite numbers. General Short was in command of the Hawaiian department and the Army had direct responsibility for the defense of Pearl Harbor. Short had a order from Washington to report the state of his alert and that alert was a sabotage alert, and Washington and the Army knew that it was a sabotage alert. And that was the state of Short's readiness as prescribed by his superiors.

Now Kimmel had no authority to dictate to Short whether or not his own bosses in Washington were telling him what to do properly. And Kimmel's responsibilities were entirely different from Short's. Kimmel, as Professor Gannon has said, was required to be prepared to conduct the raid on the Marshall Islands when war broke out to divert the Japanese from the Philippines and from a British territory in the Far East. To do that, he was supposed to be ready under his war plan to take that step. General Short had nothing to do with that maneuver.

Now there was an Admiral who was in charge of local defense. That was Admiral Bloch. There was a local Defense Officer. There was a plan for local defense. All the Navy and the Army had to do was say execute JCL-41 and they didn't. So it seems to me that as we go back over the history here, we find a repetitive effort to keep this charge of dereliction of duty over Kimmel's head and he had to emerge from the cloud by his own effort.

It was he who initiated the direction to the Army and Navy to investigate Pearl Harbor because he was being denied a court- martial in which to defend himself. I know that because I know how that legislation was introduced and where it came from. The Navy Court of Inquiry was a creation of the Congress. The Navy Department was totally indifferent about any investigation. They were prepared to let this man go down in history under that charge of being derelict in his duty, which is an abandonment of duty. So I feel very strongly here today, and I want to add one other personal note.

I was sitting with Admiral Kimmel in the Navy Department in July of 1944. He was preparing his statement to the Navy Court of Inquiry. Suddenly, Admiral Walter DeLany knocked on the door and came in and he said to Kimmel, I have very bad news for you, Admiral. And I knew a blow had been struck because his eldest son, Commander Manning Kimmel, had been lost outside the coast of Borneo. And I knew that the Admiral hoped for the day when that boy would live to see his father's reputation relieved from this smirch of delinquency. And he didn't.

But today, thank God, we have two sons here; Captain Thomas Kimmel, who has a -- had a great career in the Navy, and Ed Kimmel, who was in the Naval Reserve during the war. And I hope, because we're all reaching the sunset of our lives and that goes for assistant counsel, that I hope before the sun sets, that the Navy will see and the Department of Defense will see the opportunity to recommend to the President remedial justice in this case.

Thank you very much for indulging me that long, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you very much. We're very pleased to have you here to express yourself. Now, I understand that Dr. Deutch is going to have to leave. How soon do you have to leave, Dr. Deutch?

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Fairly shortly, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Fairly shortly. Before he leaves, does anyone have -- and I'll come back to the Kimmel family; does anyone have anything he wants to bring up he'd like for Dr. Deutch to hear especially before he leaves?

CAPTAIN T. KIMMEL: Sure, I do. You bet.

SENATOR THURMOND: All right. Captain Kimmel, we'll be glad to hear from you.

CAPTAIN T. KIMMEL: I am sick and tired of hearing this business about the people at Pearl Harbor not being alert and I have in front of me a letter that Admiral Spruance wrote. You remember him, don't you? He's the guy that won the Battle of Midway for us. Well anyway, he wrote a letter to Samuel Morison, the historian, in which he complemented Admiral Kimmel and said he was poorly treated and then he said --

"I always felt that the Navy..."

He was in Pearl Harbor from mid-September of '41 until the time of the attack. He says --

I always felt that the Navy there was very much on the alert for a possible attack. This was especially true when we were operating at sea but it also applied when the ships were in Pearl Harbor.

Now -- so I broke out and I found a paper in my father's book and let me read it to you.

Security of fleet in port. Under my standing orders, I place the guns of the fleet at the disposal of the local anti-aircraft defense. My security order IICL41 prescribed a plan for berthing ships in sectors to develop in each sector the maximum AA fire. I designated the Commandant of the 14th Naval District as Defense Officer because he was permanently stationed in Pearl Harbor and always would be familiar with local conditions. I delegated to him the duty of advising the senior officer present afloat, exclusive of the Commander-in-Chief, just what condition of readiness to maintain in the ships in port. This was a flexible system designed to use the fleet's resources in port in the base defense. In addition, I issued standing orders for all ships that ammunition for all AA guns; 5", 3", 1.1 and 50 caliber be kept available and in the ready ammunition boxes at the guns at all times, day and night. These orders also required that there would be on board at all times a sufficient number of trained personnel to man completely all the guns of the AA battery. All double bottom and lower deck compartments of the ships in harbor were to be kept closed except when work required they be temporarily opened. No higher state of material readiness could long be continued without serious reduction in the morale and physical condition of men and the accomplishment of necessary work on the ships. At the time of the attack, the orders in effect required that one-fourth to one-half of the AA guns, depending upon the type of ship, be manned at all times in port. At the time of the attack, the guns were so manned. Admiral Inglis has testified on the morning of the attack all the AA batteries on all shifts were manned and firing within four to seven minutes. The men of the fleet on December 7th made the transition from peace to war with speed and courage.

And this order remained in effect after he had left and I don't know any -- how anybody can read that and try to say that they weren't alert at Pearl Harbor because it must -- it's just about all you could do. If you've had anything to do with ships, you can't keep people standing at attention all the time, you know.

Thank you.

SENATOR THURMOND: Captain, thank you very much. Now, Mr. Kimmel, do you want to speak at this time?

MR. T. KIMMEL, JR.: Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this marvelous opportunity. Thank you, Secretary Deutch and Secretary Dalton for your time. Mr. Honigman, a special thanks to you. For the first time in as many years as I can recall, we have actually been given some facts. Those facts, I can assure you, will be dealt with in great detail at a later date, but one I would like to address right now.

My remarks have one main point and that main point is this. The only tribunal with the professional competence and legal jurisdiction to hear the Pearl Harbor attack matter exonerated Admiral Kimmel and criticized the Chief of Naval Operations for not keeping Kimmel properly informed. This was also the only tribunal, the only tribunal to afford Admiral Kimmel and all interested parties the rights of an accused. Admiral Kimmel was not afforded due process at the Joint Congressional Committee Hearing as previously stated in your opening remarks. This tribunal, the only tribunal to afford Admiral Kimmel due process, was the Naval Court of Inquiry.

I have here a letter from former Secretary of the Navy James Webb. I hope, Secretary Dalton, that you are interested.

Dear Mr. Kimmel: I have read the materials you sent to me in your letter of January 7th. Based on these materials, I would reiterate even more strongly the suggestion I made in 1987 when I was Secretary of the Navy that Admiral Kimmel's performance of duty to and during the attack on Pearl Harbor be reviewed with an eye toward placing him posthumously on the retired list as an Admiral O-10. This recommendation does not in any way constitute a desire to substitute my judgment for those who were in positions of high authority during World War II; nonetheless the following points argue very strongly in favor of reopening this matter. One, fresh information contained in Michael Gannon's prodigious research capsulized in the December, 1994 Naval Institute Proceedings article. Two, the fact that the only reviewing forum where he testified and was given the basic elements of substantive and procedural due process, the Naval Court of Inquiry in 1944, Admiral Kimmel was completely exonerated. Three, the known historical fact that the Pacific theater was given short shrift in assets dedicated to war preparation compared to the European theater reflected in Admiral Kimmel's lack of full air resources with which to conduct full reconnaissance. On this point, it is interesting to remember that General MacArthur, for whom I have a deep admiration in most areas of his career, was never reprimanded for having been completely surprised in the Philippine Islands many hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, losing virtually his entire air force on the ground. Indeed, the Medal of Honor MacArthur received for his defense of the Philippines was in part for his `preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest.' Obviously, the distinction was made in his case and not in Admiral Kimmel's that a surprise attack can be successful even against adequately prepared forces. General MacArthur had the opportunity to redeem himself by continued command; Admiral Kimmel did not. You may use this letter in any way you consider helpful. James Webb.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Mr. Kimmel. Is Mr. DeLorenzo here, Pearl Harbor survivor?

MR. DeLORENZO: Yes, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: And did you care to make some remarks?

MR. DeLORENZO: Yes, I would, Senator. Mr. Chairman and distinguished guests, thank you for allowing me to make a few remarks on behalf of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. My name is Anthony DeLorenzo. I'm the seventh district director for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. My fellow survivors are quite concerned that this issue has not been favorably resolved. After almost 54 years, the families of Admiral Kimmel and General Short must continue to live with this stigma. We feel that they have suffered and anguished enough and that it is time for healing.

On December 7th of 1996, our association will commemorate the 55th anniversary of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This could very well be our last gathering since our next one would take place in year 2001 and time is taking a heavy toll on my fellow survivors. Wouldn't it be most fitting, Mr. Chairman, that here in Honolulu where it all started 55 years ago, that I may address my fellow survivors and say that Admiral Kimmel and General Short have been exonerated and ranked with stardom. I would say to you, sir, that time is what we no longer have.

Mr. Chairman, join us in our crusade. Please be our ally.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you for your statement. Now, I understand General Short is not represented here by anyone because his family is either deceased or very old and couldn't be here. If anybody has any contrary information, I'd be glad to hear from you.

MR. E. KIMMEL: I can help a little bit. General Short himself is dead. General Short's wife is dead.

A SPEAKER: His son is dead.

MR. E. KIMMEL: General Short's son is dead. And his son's widow is still alive. I got a note from her the other day. She had picked up that this was going to take place and she wished my brother and me well and she hoped that General Short would have his rank restored in this proceeding.

Now, there's one thing that hasn't come out here that I think I will address at this time and that is that in 1992, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records voted to restore General Short's rank to Lieutenant General after reviewing all of the incidents of the Pearl Harbor thing. However, when that recommendation of the Army Board went up for examination at the civilian level of the Department of the Army, it was turned down by a John W. Matthews, Deputy Assistant Secretary. So there is also strong support within certain elements, at any rate, of the Army to rectify the situation opposite General Short.

SENATOR THURMOND: And you feel they both should be in the same category, I presume, from what you say?

MR. E. KIMMEL: Yes.

SENATOR THURMOND: Admiral Kimmel --

MR. E. KIMMEL: Yes.

SENATOR THURMOND: -- and General Short.

MR. E. KIMMEL: Yes. They should be treated together. They were treated -- so treated following the war and I'd say the same thing ought to be done now.

SENATOR THURMOND: Now does any other member of the Kimmel family have anything to say?

CAPTAIN T. KIMMEL: I have one other thing.

SENATOR THURMOND: I'd be glad to hear from you, Captain.

CAPTAIN T. KIMMEL: I would like to know from the Department of Defense what they are afraid of and why won't they tell the public the truth?

SENATOR THURMOND: Does anyone else -- Captain?

CAPTAIN BEACH: Yes, Senator. I thought it would be worthwhile to add one point. We've heard errors referred to. We've heard Murphy's Law referred to, but no one here that I know of in this room holds that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did anything wrong. If anything, what he did was preserve Western civilization by getting our country into the war. We had to get in it. We all recognize that that was something we had to do and had we not done it, Hitler would have defeated England, would then have turned and defeated Russia, and who knows where we would be standing today. So I think President Roosevelt must be regarded as having been the preserver of Western civilization and indeed, many sacrifices had to be made and many mistakes were made. But in the long run, he, more than anyone, won that war for Western civilization.

SENATOR THURMOND: Thank you, Captain. Does anyone else --

MR. M. KIMMEL: Senator?

SENATOR THURMOND: Manning.

MR. M. KIMMEL: I'd like just to ask a simple question and maybe we can get some dialogue going here. This -- you opened with your comments and we, of course, have had quite a bit of time to make ours. I'm just wondering whether any of this is, if you pardon my choice of words, sinking in, and whether or not we have in fact raised sufficient questions in your own mind to give this, as the Senator asked, fair and impartial treatment once we leave this room. It's taken us 54 years to get here and the last thing we want to see is you go your way, we go ours, and we start shuffling paper again and don't get any consensus of finality out of this meeting. I think that would be absolutely a horrendous mistake. So I'd like to hear some response if we can, Senator, from these distinguished members of the Department.

SENATOR THURMOND: Well, that's up to them as to whether they want to make any statement. They may want to ask some questions. Is there any question you would like to ask, Dr. Deutch?

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure that we have questions but I think it's important for me to make a couple of remarks and I would like to do that.

A SPEAKER: Speak up, please.

SECRETARY DEUTCH: I'm sorry.

A SPEAKER: Can you talk into the mike?

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Admiral Kimmel must have been an enormously noble person to have lived through this whole experience and he certainly must have been a very special person to have attracted the kind of loyalty and dedication on this. It's not only an issue of honor and what's important for the Country to do but he must have been a very special person indeed.

Ultimately this judgment that has been faced by a lot of people; it's not just this set of concrete Federal bureaucrats, there's lots of others who have looked at it in the past, ultimately these -- the officials who have been serving the Government have been asked to make a judgment on this matter and I guess as I try here to briefly summarize that judgment, it's really a judgment which I guess Admiral Holloway summarized for me better. It's a balancing here between two very important principles for the military of this Country as I understand it. One is accountability and the other is fairness; fairness in light of things like not receiving the Magic intelligence, fairness because he didn't have available the planes to carry out the patrols. So what is required here is a judgment which was first faced, I guess, by Justice Roberts and then faced by Admiral Ernie King, the only one of these principles who I've personally met was Admiral King when I was a little boy, and by Secretary Forrestal, and it's the judgment that you are asking us to make again today, to look over again the balance here between fairness and accountability. It's a fair thing to ask of us.

I pledged earlier on behalf of Bill Perry, on behalf of John Dalton, on behalf of myself and the Department, we are going to go and we're going to review this and we will give you our judgment as have other officials who have looked at it. It does require in this case not just a statement by the Secretary of the Navy or the Deputy Secretary of Defense. This is something which has to be done by the President and so it will take some time. But we will review it as we pledged fairly and carefully and with an open mind and without prejudice because we, I think, stand for the same things about this country. We all stand for the same things. We are not here to defend a bureaucracy. We are not here to defend foolish decisions of the past. We are here to try and do the right thing and we will do so.

SENATOR THURMOND: We appreciate that statement you made. Mr. Secretary, would you care to make a statement?

SECRETARY DALTON: Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate your having this forum and giving us the opportunity to hear from the historians and the members of the Kimmel family and the distinguished Flag Officers who have served in our Navy.

I think you want the right thing done on this issue as do we and we have carefully listened to your views. Obviously, I can't say that I got everything down. I look forward to the record that you will provide, I'm sure, with respect to these statements and some of you referred to other information that you had and we certainly will give a careful review of the information and our goal is to do the right thing and I think the issues that have been expressed with respect to fairness and accountability are, indeed, the two things that need to be resolved.

SENATOR THURMOND: Did you have anything further to say?

MR. HONIGMAN: Just to echo Secretary Deutch and Secretary Dalton, I've been very impressed with the thoughtful comments today and I, too, will consider them very much in the spirit in which they were offered and look forward to the written transcript. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR THURMOND: Now, any material that you need in this, I hope you'll get in touch with the Committee here --

A SPEAKER: Yes, sir.

SENATOR THURMOND: -- so we can furnish anything further that you may need.

MR. COSTELLO: One point if I may make and it does come up because because I'm a British citizen --

SENATOR THURMOND: This is Mr. Costello.

MR. COSTELLO: -- and because I am having difficulty getting the British Government to declassify material relevant to the Pearl Harbor intelligence issue because it's subject to the UK-USA Intelligence Agreement, which is unrecognized and unspoken but known about by anybody in the business. Could we have an assurance, Senator, from the Secretaries present that they will request the British Government to provide them the information which I was told two weeks ago I couldn't have because it was subject to this agreement? It is germane in my judgment. It does exist in the archives of the British Foreign Office, and it should be in the public record of this but it is listed as wanting and it has surfaced in other forms in the Naval Intelligence Reports that were given by the British, and I would think that it would be appropriate, given that it is 50-odd years or more now, that there is no reason if the American Government is agreeable that this stuff should not be put in the public domain. It is important in my judgment to understanding the whole of the Pearl Harbor story.

SENATOR THURMOND: I'm sure these gentlemen want to get all the information they can and possibly they might make a request, the Defense Department might make a request to the British Government to make anything available that would help you.

SECRETARY DEUTCH: Mr. Chairman, we'll consider it. I don't want to give an assurance on it but we'll consider whether such information would actually be of help to us and we will act on it if it would.

SENATOR THURMOND: Of course all any of us could want is the truth and if there's any information available anywhere that would help them, I'm sure they'd be glad to get it. Is there --

MR. E. KIMMEL: Mr. Chairman, I had --

SENATOR THURMOND: How is that?

MR. E. KIMMEL: Mr. Chairman, I had one further point that's always been of interest to me. In 1947 when the Officer Personnel Act of 1947 was implemented, the Navy sent over the name of every Flag Officer who had heretofore served at that time in World War II to the President to be advanced to the highest rank that officer held while on active duty. And the Navy did not send Admiral Kimmel's name. I have tried and tried under Freedom of Information Act and everything else to find out about documents and things that explain that. I have no information.

Then, interestingly enough, in April of 1954, the then Chief of Personnel sent a memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy via the Chief of Naval Operations about Admiral Kimmel and recommended that he be advanced in accordance with the provisions of the Officer Personnel Act of 1947. Again, I have put Freedom of Information Act requests on the Navy Department and I've gotten nothing in connection with this. Nobody seems to know that there was a Secretary of the Navy and a Chief of Naval Operations and that anybody did anything with this memorandum which, incidentally, was written by Admiral Holloway's father, J. L. Holloway, Jr. And if the Navy or the Department of Defense has any information on that, I would certainly like to get it. Thank you.

SENATOR THURMOND: Does anyone else have anything to say now?

MR. T. KIMMEL, JR.: I would just like to congratulate Secretary Deutch on his nomination and wish him the best of luck with his new Pearl Harbor mission.

(Laughter.)

SENATOR THURMOND: Does anyone else have anything to say?

MR. M. KIMMEL: Senator, I think all of us would like to thank you for your interest in this affair. You are a remarkable representative of the people of South Carolina and being the South Carolina resident that I am, we are very proud of what you do here in Washington and for getting involved in a very ticklish and sticky issue and have stuck in there with us for 10 years. And I think it's very fair to say that even though Mr. Hanify talks about the sunset arriving around the table for a number of people, there's another generation coming up behind and we're not going to give up on this. What is right, is right, and should be done. This is the 50th anniversary year of the end of World War II. We have forgiven everybody for everything that ever was associated with that conflict. Why, in the name of God, can we not put this thing to rest? It is the fair and right and just thing to do and we will pursue this until it is done.

Thank you, Senator, for everything that you have done for us.

SENATOR THURMOND: I just want to say that once I was a Judge, highest Trial Court in South Carolina, a Circuit Judge, and my goal was to render justice. And that ought to be the goal of everyone, I think, in any position is to see that justice is done. Seek the truth and render justice whether people like it or not. That's the logical, honest thing to do.

Now I'll make a statement and that will close it. Despite the various views on what we have discussed, I believe all concerned will agree on one point. If the issue surrounding Admiral Kimmel and General Short was not important, so many prominent citizens, writers, historians, and senior military officials would not have made efforts to comment about the differences surrounding this matter. There is reason to closely examine any issue where such strong convictions by so many prominent and responsible individuals possess. This controversy has importance and deserves resolution. It is my experience that issues having such controversy cannot be ignored. They only worsen over time. Therefore, I believe the matter concerning Admiral Kimmel and General Short should be fairly resolved.

Let me express my appreciation for the attendance of those from the Department of Defense, the Kimmel family, the distinguished military officers, and the capable writers and historians. We appreciate all of you being here. We thank you for your contribution and may honesty and fairness prevail with this matter, pure, downright honesty. What is honest? What is justice? That's all we've got to do and nobody can condemn anyone if they make a judgment that's based on honesty and justice and that's all we ask can be done here. I thank all of you for coming and thank you very much for your contribution.

(Meeting adjourned.)

I, Patricia A. LaMonica, the assigned transcriber, do hereby certify that on June 26, 1995, I caused to be prepared a transcript of a hearing on the Posthumous Restoration of the Rank of Admiral for Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Members of the Kimmel Family, and that the attached transcript is an accurate representation of that hearing, Tape Number 042795SW.KIM, Index Number 04275SW.PRL. I understand that I am subject to punishment for any willful material misrepresentation of fact contained herein.

Date: July 5, 1995
(Signed)
Patricia A. LaMonica, A.O.C. #326
L.B.S., Inc.

I, Edward A. Beach (son of Captain Edward L. Beach, above) do certify that on August 25, 1995, I prepared this document for presentation to the World Wide Web as accurately as possible. In doing so, I have had to reformat the text from its original WordStar 2000 format into an HTML format. At the same time, I have elimited page numbers, line numbers, and an index of the speakers (which would have been incompatible with most WWW browsers). A few obvious typographical errors have also been corrected. In no other substantive ways have I altered the document, to the best of my knowledge. Ms. LaMonica's printed version remains the objective standard in case of any uncertainties.

Date: August 25, 1995
Edward A. Beach
Department of Philosophy and Religion
University of Evansville