1945.09.10 “He’ll want to get to the bottom of it”
by Paul R Carmack (1895-1977)
11.5 x 15 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Paul Carmack was a staff cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor.
US Senate, concurrent resolution, submitted September 6 and agreed to on September 11.
“That there is hereby established a joint committee on the investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, to be composed of five members of the Senate... five members of the House… to make a full and complete investigation relating to the events and circumstances leading up to or following the attack made by Japanese armed forces upon Pearl Harbor…”
This committee was tasked with examining the circumstances surrounding the attack and determining any potential failures or shortcomings that contributed to it. The committee's work included public hearings, which began in November 1945, and involved reviewing extensive documentation and testimony from key figures involved in the events. The investigation scrutinized the intelligence gathered by the US military prior to the attack, including the interception and interpretation of Japanese communications, and the subsequent handling of this information.
Outcome Summary from the Final Report (June 20, 1946)
“The ultimate responsibility for the attack and its results rests upon Japan,” the final report concluded, and “the diplomatic policies and actions of the United States provided no justifiable provocation whatever for the attack by Japan on this Nation.” The eight members who signed the majority report found that “officers, both in Washington and Hawaii, were fully conscious of the danger from air attack.” The Hawaiian commands and the Intelligence and War Plans Divisions of the War and Navy Departments made “errors of judgment and not derelictions of duty.” Authors rejected the claim that President Roosevelt and top advisors “tricked, provoked, incited, cajoled, or coerced Japan” into attacking the United States in order to draw the nation into war.
