Henry Clausen
Encyclopedia
Henry Christian Clausen was the author of the Clausen Report, an 800-page report on the Army Board’s Pearl Harbor
Investigation. He traveled over 55,000 miles over seven months in 1945, and interviewed nearly a hundred personnel, Army, Navy, British and civilian, as a Special Investigator for the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson
carrying out an investigation ordered by Congress of the Secretary of War.
Clausen, a lawyer and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney from San Francisco, and a "civilian at heart" had joined up "for the duration" of the war, being discharged in August 1945. He was not a Reserve officer. He had been the Trial Judge Advocate for the Army at the (well publicized) court martial of Army inspectors for fraudulent inspections of aircraft engines at the Lockland, Ohio factory of Wright Aeronautical.
He was a Republican like Stimson, who Clausen regarded as "a man of truly heroic stature". Clausen wrote about Congressman's Gearhart’s attack on him during the Congressional Hearing that "I was a Republican myself, and a fiscal conservative, too". He appeared before the Congressional Hearing, and was asked to show Congressman Murphy his Summary exhibit of Far Eastern documents, as Congressmen Ferguson and Gearhart who were in the "Kimmel camp" had held onto the two copies sent to the Committee to prevent other members seeing them.
He decided to write his book Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement in 1991 (published in 1992), to correct the history of Pearl Harbor and to debunk conspiracy theories based on perjured testimony and self-serving misinformation rampant on the 50th anniversary of the attack. In it he observed that none of the notable authors on Pearl Harbor that he read (Lord, Toland, Prange and Layton) has access to the files or had interviewed the range of people that he did.
and Hull
, but ‘fatally flawed’ from crucial but withheld evidence and perjured testimony. The Board had only learned of Magic
's existence a week before it finished, and was initially not allowed access to the Navy Hewitt report until an appeal was made to Navy Secretary Forrestal
. The three generals on the Board had all been relieved of commands by Marshall, hence were prejudiced against him. But they were available, so were put on the list of available officers for the Board by Marshall.
After discussing the Board report(s) with General Cramer (the Judge Advocate General) and with Major (later Lt. Col) Clausen (who had been Assistant Recorder to the Army Board), Stimson appointed Clausen as his Special Investigator to retake evidence and follow unexplored leads. Clausen and Colonel Hughes decided to ask:
Clausen had an authorising letter from Stimson informing witnesses he had the necessary clearances to require their cooperation, but he was often lied to until he produced copies of about 40 top secret ‘Magic’ decrypts, to prove he had the proper clearance. Previously they had been required to lie under oath to protect the secret of 'Magic'. He wore the decrypts in a self-destructing bomb pouch to satisfy security concerns.
) about midnight (Washington time). No action was taken then; both Dusenbury and Commander Kramer, the translator, went home, and as much as nine vital hours (certainly three) were lost. The next morning Colonel Bratton
arrived later on Sunday morning than he initially claimed during testimony and, Clausen concluded, invented a story about not being able to get in touch with Marshall which "nearly destroyed" Marshall.
Marshall got assurances that the final warning on December 7 would be received by everyone before 1 pm Washington time; he had to send Colonels Bratton and Bundy back to the message center twice to get this confirmation. But when Colonel French, in charge of the message center, learned that the War Department's radio system could not contact Pearl Harbor, he decided to send their message by RCA commercial radio – without telling Marshall of the delay.
Clausen criticises others; Dusenbury, Fielder, Bicknell, Layton, Turner, Mayfield, Bratton, Rochefort, Gerow, and Kramer. And Roosevelt
, for often vacillating, and for making a number of telephone calls after reading the Japanese message, but not one to Marshall. He does not think that a Winds Execute message was received, though there were several false leads given in testimony to the various investigators, and the FCC did intercept an IJN execute order with respect to England after Pearl Harbor.
told him that he "had to barter like a rug merchant throughout the war to get the intelligence I have needed from the Navy." MacArthur also said that he got "ample and complete information" from the War Department prior to 7 December. MacArthur, like Clausen, was a Freemason (as was his subordinate Willoughby; and Truman). Clausen was asked to assist the local Freemasons in Manila, and was able to send them replacement Masonic item.
The arrangements in Washington prior to Pearl Harbor were inefficient and indicative of a peacetime mentality, e.g. the odd/even days arrangement for sharing cryptographic work between the Army and Navy. The Navy was sending intercepts by teletype, while the Army was using air mail before Dec 6. But the Navy only had Commander Kramer to distribute the material (with no relief for him) while the Army had both Colonels Bratton & Duensbury. Clausen says that the breach of Magic security in the White House was that Magic documents were found in the desk of Roosevelt’s military aide Maj. Gen Edwin M. 'Pa' Watson; not "in a wastebasket" as is often claimed.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
Investigation. He traveled over 55,000 miles over seven months in 1945, and interviewed nearly a hundred personnel, Army, Navy, British and civilian, as a Special Investigator for the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson
Henry L. Stimson
Henry Lewis Stimson was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican Party politician and spokesman on foreign policy. He twice served as Secretary of War 1911–1913 under Republican William Howard Taft and 1940–1945, under Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the latter role he was a leading hawk...
carrying out an investigation ordered by Congress of the Secretary of War.
Clausen, a lawyer and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney from San Francisco, and a "civilian at heart" had joined up "for the duration" of the war, being discharged in August 1945. He was not a Reserve officer. He had been the Trial Judge Advocate for the Army at the (well publicized) court martial of Army inspectors for fraudulent inspections of aircraft engines at the Lockland, Ohio factory of Wright Aeronautical.
He was a Republican like Stimson, who Clausen regarded as "a man of truly heroic stature". Clausen wrote about Congressman's Gearhart’s attack on him during the Congressional Hearing that "I was a Republican myself, and a fiscal conservative, too". He appeared before the Congressional Hearing, and was asked to show Congressman Murphy his Summary exhibit of Far Eastern documents, as Congressmen Ferguson and Gearhart who were in the "Kimmel camp" had held onto the two copies sent to the Committee to prevent other members seeing them.
He decided to write his book Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement in 1991 (published in 1992), to correct the history of Pearl Harbor and to debunk conspiracy theories based on perjured testimony and self-serving misinformation rampant on the 50th anniversary of the attack. In it he observed that none of the notable authors on Pearl Harbor that he read (Lord, Toland, Prange and Layton) has access to the files or had interviewed the range of people that he did.
The Army Board Report and the Clausen Report
Stimson got the Army Pearl Harbor Board report (actually two reports, with a second Top Secret section on codebreaking) on Pearl Harbor with its criticism of MarshallGeorge Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
and Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
, but ‘fatally flawed’ from crucial but withheld evidence and perjured testimony. The Board had only learned of Magic
Magic (cryptography)
Magic was an Allied cryptanalysis project during World War II. It involved the United States Army's Signals Intelligence Section and the United States Navy's Communication Special Unit. -Codebreaking:...
's existence a week before it finished, and was initially not allowed access to the Navy Hewitt report until an appeal was made to Navy Secretary Forrestal
James Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense....
. The three generals on the Board had all been relieved of commands by Marshall, hence were prejudiced against him. But they were available, so were put on the list of available officers for the Board by Marshall.
After discussing the Board report(s) with General Cramer (the Judge Advocate General) and with Major (later Lt. Col) Clausen (who had been Assistant Recorder to the Army Board), Stimson appointed Clausen as his Special Investigator to retake evidence and follow unexplored leads. Clausen and Colonel Hughes decided to ask:
- What had Pearl Harbor 'known' about Japanese intentions before the attack?
- What had Pearl Harbor 'done' with this information before the attack?
- What had Washington 'known' about Japanese intentions before the attack?
- What had Washington 'done' with this information before the attack?
Clausen had an authorising letter from Stimson informing witnesses he had the necessary clearances to require their cooperation, but he was often lied to until he produced copies of about 40 top secret ‘Magic’ decrypts, to prove he had the proper clearance. Previously they had been required to lie under oath to protect the secret of 'Magic'. He wore the decrypts in a self-destructing bomb pouch to satisfy security concerns.
The Fourteen-part Telegram and The War Warning
Colonel Dusenbury, of the US Army SIS, testified that he received the fourteenth part (which said diplomatic relations would be broken) from the Navy (OP-20-GOP-20-G
OP-20-G or "Office of Chief Of Naval Operations , 20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications, G Section / Communications Security", was the US Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group during World War II. Its mission was to intercept, decrypt, and analyze naval communications...
) about midnight (Washington time). No action was taken then; both Dusenbury and Commander Kramer, the translator, went home, and as much as nine vital hours (certainly three) were lost. The next morning Colonel Bratton
Rufus S. Bratton
Colonel Rufus S. Bratton was Chief of the Far Eastern Section of the Intelligence Branch of the Military Intelligence Division in the War Department in December 1941, when the United States entered World War II....
arrived later on Sunday morning than he initially claimed during testimony and, Clausen concluded, invented a story about not being able to get in touch with Marshall which "nearly destroyed" Marshall.
Marshall got assurances that the final warning on December 7 would be received by everyone before 1 pm Washington time; he had to send Colonels Bratton and Bundy back to the message center twice to get this confirmation. But when Colonel French, in charge of the message center, learned that the War Department's radio system could not contact Pearl Harbor, he decided to send their message by RCA commercial radio – without telling Marshall of the delay.
The Pearl Harbor Commanders
According to Clausen,- Lt. Gen. W. C. ShortWalter ShortWalter Campbell Short was a Major General in the United States Army and the U.S. military Commander responsible for the defense of U.S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.-Early life:He was born in 1880 in Fillmore, Illinois...
didn’t want the command in Hawaii and failed to study what his task entailed. He failed to follow Washington’s orders to liase closely with the Navy, to conduct reconnaissance, or to get the radar equipment he had out of training mode (for several months), and he failed to alert his forces against attack as ordered. - Adm. H. E. KimmelHusband E. KimmelHusband Edward Kimmel was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy. He served as Commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of the attack, he was removed from office and was reduced to his permanent two-star rank of rear admiral...
withheld vital intelligence (e.g. the two messages about the destruction of codes and code machines by the Japanese, because he did not consider them as "being of vital importance") from his Army counterpart Short. Kimmel was inflexible in his convictions and expressions and would not liase with the Army about its state of readiness.
Clausen criticises others; Dusenbury, Fielder, Bicknell, Layton, Turner, Mayfield, Bratton, Rochefort, Gerow, and Kramer. And Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, for often vacillating, and for making a number of telephone calls after reading the Japanese message, but not one to Marshall. He does not think that a Winds Execute message was received, though there were several false leads given in testimony to the various investigators, and the FCC did intercept an IJN execute order with respect to England after Pearl Harbor.
Final Judgment
Clausen saw the cause of being caught unprepared during the Pearl Harbor attack, as due both to having two separate commands at Pearl Harbor (Navy & Army), and to having two separate Intelligence organizations in Washington and elsewhere (Navy and Army), and so welcomed the combination of the Navy and Army efforts by Truman (eventually this came to be called NSA). MacArthurDouglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
told him that he "had to barter like a rug merchant throughout the war to get the intelligence I have needed from the Navy." MacArthur also said that he got "ample and complete information" from the War Department prior to 7 December. MacArthur, like Clausen, was a Freemason (as was his subordinate Willoughby; and Truman). Clausen was asked to assist the local Freemasons in Manila, and was able to send them replacement Masonic item.
The arrangements in Washington prior to Pearl Harbor were inefficient and indicative of a peacetime mentality, e.g. the odd/even days arrangement for sharing cryptographic work between the Army and Navy. The Navy was sending intercepts by teletype, while the Army was using air mail before Dec 6. But the Navy only had Commander Kramer to distribute the material (with no relief for him) while the Army had both Colonels Bratton & Duensbury. Clausen says that the breach of Magic security in the White House was that Magic documents were found in the desk of Roosevelt’s military aide Maj. Gen Edwin M. 'Pa' Watson; not "in a wastebasket" as is often claimed.