Youngstown Vindicator (September 5, 1945)
Byrnes flays Pearl Harbor report on Hull
Says board goes beyond jurisdiction; GOP to call for probe
WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State James F. Byrnes Tuesday sharply rapped the Army’s Pearl Harbor inquiry board for is criticism of former Secretary Hull as Republicans made ready to reopen the sore subject in Congress.
Byrnes told a news conference that the Army board had gone beyond its jurisdiction in criticizing his predecessor’s policymaking and execution prior to the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941.
The board held that at a time when the Army and Navy were seeking more time to prepare Hull presented the Japanese with a document which they considered an ultimatum. Hull denied it was an ultimatum.
Will introduce resolution
Meanwhile, Sen. Homer Ferguson, R-Michigan, and Rep. Forest Harness, R-Indiana, not satisfied by President Truman’s release last week of the Army and Navy finding, said they would introduce resolutions calling for congressional investigations.
So far as he knew, Byrnes said, this was the first time in the history of the United States when a board of Army officers had undertaken to criticize civilian officials of the government.
He said he thought any comment on Secretary Hull’s conduct of foreign relations should properly be made by Congress.
It was not very wise, Byrnes said, to have an Army board, assigned to determine Army responsibility for Pearl Harbor, venture into the foreign relations field.