Military Security

The U.S. defeat at Pearl Harbor, already twice investigated and shortly to be reviewed once more, this time by a Congressional committee, was still a live political and military issue. Last week, in an article by John Chamberlain, one of its editors, LIFE added a new note to the political side. Said Chamberlain:

P: Through the Jap code (which the U.S. had in its pocket before Pearl Harbor), President Franklin Roosevelt and the Washington high command knew, hours before the attack, that Japan was breaking off negotiations, that this meant a surprise attack somewhere in the Pacific.

P: By the time the 1944 Presidential campaign had rolled around, G.O.P. Candidate Thomas Dewey knew what his opponent had known in December, 1941.

P: Out of patriotism, Dewey kept silence on that vital fact in his campaign.

"Dewey was in a position," wrote Chamberlain, "to charge that the President had 'betrayed' the interests of the U.S. in failing either to forestall or mitigate an attack for which we were . .. not yet ready. The political impact of such a charge . . . might well have landed Dewey in the White House."

From the Chief. Why had not Governor Dewey used the information? The LIFE story (confirmed by Governor Dewey, G.O.P. Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. and Elliott V. Bell, a Dewey adviser) said that the information had come to him in a letter from Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall.

The letter disclosed the breaking of the code--"Hut it was of the highest importance, said Marshall, that the Japanese be kept from realizing it." Possession of the code secret gave the U.S. an enormous advantage, saved many U.S. lives.

The letter had posed a dilemma to Candidate Dewey--"was Roosevelt using his chief of staff as a means of forestalling charges and inquiry?" After thinking it out, Dewey decided to follow George Marshall, "whom he regards as an utterly truthful and honorable man." What might have been political dynamite was never touched off.

Into Today. Republican Congressmen were quick to demand that the joint Senate-House committee investigating the Pearl Harbor defeat have a look at the letter. Governor Dewey said his copy would remain in his safe at Albany. He referred all questions about it to General Marshall.

Quick to praise Dewey's 1944 decision was the G.O.P. press. Said the New York Herald Tribune: "He [Dewey] abstained from using the information . . . and lost the election by a margin that could easily have been wiped out by the Pearl Harbor revelations, and established himself as a true, self-sacrificing patriot."

But there Were other might-have-beens. The New Dealing New York Post's Washington columnists, Charles Van Devander and William O. Player Jr., pointed to one: "Would he [Dewey] have gained any political advantage by telling all he knew? If he had done so he would have invited denunciation by General Marshall and Admiral King, whom Dewey was praising throughout the campaign and promising to retain in office if he were elected. . . . We'd say that Dewey was right on political as well as patriotic grounds; and that if he'd thrown that dynamite bomb it would have done more damage to him than . . . to F.D.R."

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