The Blowoff

The Pearl Harbor Committee's mild, punctilious Counsel William DeWitt Mitchell, who served ably and loyally under Republican Presidents Hoover and Coolidge, could no longer hide his impatience. In quiet anger, he announced that he and his assistants would quit their thankless jobs at year's end.

Said William Mitchell: "It has become increasingly apparent that some members of the committee have a different view than that entertained by counsel, either as to the scope of the inquiry or as to what is pertinent evidence. . . . There remain at least 60 witnesses to be examined. . . . At the rate of progress during the past month, it seems certain that several more months of hearings will be required. . . ."

Direct cause of the blowoff was Republican cross-examination of General of the Army George C. Marshall, which consumed seven days while a plane stood by to rush the General to his urgent job in China. Michigan's eager Senator Homer Ferguson, still looking for evidence that Franklin Roosevelt had war-mongered, took up 92 hours of Marshall's time.

As soon as Ferguson quit, the burden was taken up by Wisconsin's huge, garrulous Congressman Frank B. Keefe, bent on proving that somebody was highly unprepared for war in 1941. (Congressman Keefe had prepared for it by voting against Lend-Lease, against arming merchant ships, against extending the draft that August.)

At week's end the whole investigation seemed about to collapse in a roar of political ill temper. Chairman Alben W. Barkley, also out of patience with the Republican members, announced that he might quit too. So did Georgia's Democratic Senator Walter. George, who has seldom opened his mouth during the hearings.

The four Republican members (others: Maine's Senator Owen Brewster, California's Congressman Bert Gearhart) had hoped to ferret out some damaging facts about Franklin Roosevelt's prewar conduct. To date, they had failed, although they had helped to bring to light damaging evidence of Army and Navy confusion. Most of the material now going into the record, which had already reached 700,000 words, only spelled out verbose repetition.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.