United States Congressional Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack

Originally authorized to issue a final report on January 3, 1946, Congress passed a series of resolutions extending the life of the committee to allow members more time to hear witnesses.

From November 1945 through May 1946, the committee heard testimony in the Senate Caucus Room from 44 people, including top level military commanders such as Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short, and former ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew and former secretary of state Cordell Hull.

[1] The membership of the committee was as follows: On August 28, 1945, President Truman issued an executive order directing several government departments and the joint chiefs of staff "to take such steps as are necessary to prevent release to the public" information related to a U.S. cryptanalysis program to crack Japanese coded transmissions.

James Tunnell of Delaware denounced Brewster and Ferguson's demands for greater access to material as a partisan plan to "dig up something" that could be used to "besmirch the reputation of the Nation's wartime Commander in Chief [Franklin Roosevelt]".

[1] Debates over procedure were driven, at least in part, by Republican concerns that Barkley's long-standing allegiance to President Roosevelt made him incapable of objectively pursuing the Pearl Harbor inquiry.

As one historian observed, "Barkley accepted his role of presidential flag carrier, but it took him years to regain confidence or to command the loyalty" of members of his own party.

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.

News media accounts often characterized the committee as politically divided, featuring headlines such as: "Angry Senators Debate on 'Records' of Pearl Harbor".

[3] This article incorporates material from the Senate archive on the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, a source in the public domain.