June 21, 1984 - J-AAWR Hearings, Testimony of John J. McCloy

JAPANESE-AMERICAN AND ALEUTIAN WARTIME RELOCATION

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND
GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON

H.R. 3387, H.R. 4110, and H.R. 4322

JAPANESE-AMERICAN AND ALEUTIAN WARTIME RELOCATION

JUNE 20, 21, 27, AND SEPTEMBER 12, 1984

Serial No. 90

Printed for the use of the Committee on Judiciary

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1985

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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office
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64-273 O-86--1

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

PETER W. RODINO, JR., New Jersey, Chairman
JACK BROOKS, Texas		HAMILTON FISH, JR., Missouri
ROBERT W. KASTENMEIER, Wisconsin		CARLOS J. MOORHEAD, Florida
DON EDWARDS, California		HENRY J. HYDE, Georgia
JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan		THOMAS N. KINDNESS, Ohio
JOHN F. SEIBERLING, Ohio		HAROLD S. SAWYER, Tennessee
ROMANO L. MAZZOLI, Kentucky		DAN LUNGREN, Michigan
WILLIAM J. HUGHES, New Jersey		F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., New Mexico
SAM B. HALL, Texas		BILL McCOLLUM, Arkansas
MIKE SYNAR, Oklahoma		E. CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida
PATRICIA SCHROEDER, Colorado		GEORGE W. GEKAS,
DAN GLICKMAN, Kansas		MICHAEL DeWINE, Ohio
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
GEO. W. CROCKETT, JR., Michigan
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
BRUCE A. MORRISON, Connecticut
EDWARD F. FEIGHAN, Ohio
LAWRENCE J. SMITH, Florida
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
FREDERICK C. BOUCHER, Virginia
M. ELAINE MIELKE, General Counsel
GARNER J. CLINE, Staff Director
ALAN F. COFFEY, JR., Associate Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
SAM B. HALL, JR., Texas, Chairman
ROMANO L. MAZZOLI, Kentucky		THOMAS N. KINDNESS, Ohio
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts		BILL McCOLLUM, Florida
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California		E. CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida
FREDERICK C. BOUCHER, Virginia
WILLIAM P. SHATTUCK, Counsel
JANE S. POTTS, Assistant Counsel
STEVEN N. DOUGLAS, Assistant Counsel
DAVID L. KARMOL, Associate Counsel

NOTE: [Bracketed] text in original. This excerpt starts from page 412 of the record.

Mr. HALL. Our next witness is John J. McCloy. He really needs no introduction, but I would like to state that he was born in Philadelphia in 1895, educated at Amherst College, cum laude Harvard Law School. Military service, captain, field artillery, service at the front in France in World War I. He had a practice of law from 1921 to the present date.

His government service, from 1941 to 1945, he joined the War Department and 6 months later was named Assistant Secretary of War. >From 1949 to 1952 he was U.S. Military Governor and High Commissioner of Germany. From 1961 to 1968, he was Coordinator of the U.S. Disarmament Activities.

From 1947 to 1949 Mr. McCloy was president of the World Bank, and from 1953 through 1960 was chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Honors, among many others -- I will only give a few -- he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Medal, World War I; received the Medal of Freedom, Grand Cross, Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany; Grand Officer, Order of Merit from Italy; Grand Officer, Legion of Honor, France; and an honorary citizen of the Free University of Berlin.

Mr. McCloy, were are happy to have you here this morning to testify before this committee. You may proceed as you see fit.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN J. McCLOY,
FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR,
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION

Mr. McCLOY. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman.

I'm afraid I have to apologize a little bit. I'm a little hard of hearing and I left my hearing device at my hotel this morning. But if I could, I would just like to sort of informally spell out to you what happened on December 7, 1941, when I was the Assistant Secretary of War.

It turned out I was the chief, the highest civilian official, in the War Department on that day, so-called Pearl Harbor. I would just like to chat a little about that, to give you a picture of what the situation was. There are not many people alive today that were present as I was on that occasion when the first news of Pearl Harbor came in.

I had a General Staff aide, a Colonel Tate, a very good staff officer, a very fine officer, Regular Army, and he was my assistant. Unfortunately, for me at least, he left me to command troops. But I have been reading -- and I suppose this committee will be talking more about MAGIC a little later on. I would like to talk a little bit about it myself. MAGIC, I don't know how many people in the room know what it is. It was notorious at the time of the first investigation. It was disclosed that we had been reading the Japanese code practically all during the Japanese war. This was thanks to a lot of work that had been done in England, part of which we shared, and we were given, a number of us, were cleared for the so-called MAGIC, and there were very few. It involved our knowing what was going on in the Japanese mind in the course of that war. It was an invaluable asset.

I had been reading MAGIC to some extent because I had been cleared for it through Mr. Stimson, who was my chief, my senior during the war, a very noble, public-minded citizen, twice Secretary of War, once Secretary of State, and a number of other positions that he held. I had been reading, as I say, this MAGIC. I was perfectly convinced that on that morning, that Sunday morning, something was going to happen in the Pacific. The communications began to get hotter and hotter, hotter than a firecracker as we read it those days. I called off a meeting that I was to have with some close friends down in Middleburg. I told my wife at that time I couldn't come down because I thought I had to turn up at the War Department that morning because something seems to be very tense in the Pacific. So I came in that morning with these premonitions that something was going to occur in the Pacific that day.

The morning started off rather quietly. Somewhere around noon, as I now recall it, Colonel Tate come in to see me, my General Staff aide. He said, "Mr. McCloy, there's a rumor. I have just come up from War Plans Division---." I don't know whether it was coming up or coming from; it was the same floor. He said, "There's a rumor that the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor." I said, "Colonel, that can't be. I had a premonition that something was going to happen today, but I thought it was going to happen further west. I can't believe that they would dare attack this chief bastion of our defense in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor." I said, "Besides, we have radar stationed out on Oahu now." Thanks to the untiring efforts of Mr. Stimson, who had gone to England, we had been able to get radar in its latest development through this very famous scientist -- maybe you've heard of him. He's been written up a good many times. He was later knighted. Sir Watson Watt. Mr. Stimson came back with the gadgets that would tell us, that would look out to see to the north and all around the Island of Oahu, to give us full warning or very adequate warning, at least some substantial warning of any possible attack on Oahu.

He left me and went back to the War Plans Division. He came back in about 15 minutes and said, "Mr. McCloy, there's no question about it. We have been attacked at Pearl Harbor and our fleet, our surface fleet, has been sunk." He said, "The attack is still going on." I said, "Well, I just can't believe that." He said, "Well, it's true and we have to begin to think what we ought to be doing here." Because there were a number of people I immediately tried to reach, including the Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff, Bob Patterson, a very famous jurist, a circuit court of appeals man -- I think he was once offered the job of Justice of the Supreme Court. He was the Assistant Secretary of War who had specific, by law, supervision over our production and procurement policies.

I said, "Well, what do I do? What is incumbent upon us to do because I can't reach any of my seniors at this point?" At just that point in came the general officer in command of this capital. His name, believe it or not, was Ulysses S. Grant III. He came in, and he was accompanied by a G-2 General named Sherman Miles. Sherman, I think, either named after Tecumseh Sherman, the great Civil War general, or John Sherman, his brother, who was a very prominent Senator at that time. At any rate, I think he was also the son of Nelson A. Miles, a former Chief of Staff of the United States, who was known as the boy hero of Missionary Ridge, who at 23 stormed up Missionary Ridge, got the Medal of Honor, and was the youngest general, I guess, the Army has ever had.

Well, these people came in and said to me, "You, Mr. McCloy, are the senior official, civilian official, in the Department at this moment. But we want to report to you, to tell you what has happened. We know that you must have already been advised about it. But we have got to think about what our immediate steps should be."

Well, I said, "I've been thinking about it, and the only thing I can think of immediately is the protection of the President. I have the feeling that we ought to increase the Marine guard around the White House and in several very strategic areas in the capital in view of this news." I said, "I think we have to go over and call on Secretary Knox, who was in charge of the Navy -- he was then Secretary of the Navy. He had been a colonel in the Spanish-American War. So we all went over there to talk to the Secretary about it, and he received us.

I don't mean to be facetious, because this is serious testimony that I would like to give to this committee this morning, but as we came in, there was a man there named Thomason -- he wrote a best-seller called "Fix Bayonets." Some of you may have read it. He was decorated and was then a Lieutenant Colonel. He spoke with a southern accent. And as we came in, headed by Ulysses S. Grant III, Thomason said to Colonel Knox, "Look out, here comes the whole damned Union Army." Well, we went in, and the consensus of opinion was that we did have to substantially increase the Marine guards around the city. Colonel Knox made provision for that.

I wrote down the other day, knowing that I was going to testify here, and hoping somebody would ask me what did occur on that day. The stunning effect of the news that we had at that moment, that our entire Pacific surface fleet, our first line of defense on the Pacific, was sunk. It lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The questions, as I say, were what were the priorities.

When I got back from Secretary Knox' office, by that time we were able to locate some of my superiors, from Secretary Stimson down. I have a note in my diary -- I didn't keep a diary, I wasn't a great recorder. I had simple appointment notes in my so-called diary. They weren't narrative notes. I didn't have a long account of what happened on that day. I wish I had written it down, but I didn't. I was just too busy, because we were thinking then about the fact that we were suddenly at war. At that time Germany had not declared war against us, although it did within 24 or 48 hours. Suddenly we were faced with a two-ocean war, a two-ocean serious combat.

One of the things that one was always trying to avoid was, of course, getting involved in two sectors. Simply by reason of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a shocking event, and which in itself was enough to cause a certain sense of panic around the country. But it was not racial prejudice. It was fear. It was danger. It was the significance of this terrific attack which had been planned goodness knows how long before, that has produced the sinking of our fleet.

So we spent a lot of time trying to work out what the priorities were. First was the primary one I have already spoken about, the protection of the President.

We mentioned this morning MAGIC. I was cleared for MAGIC, and day after day and evening after evening I was reading from this thing. To say it wasn't a major factor, it was a very important factor in considering where we stood and what we had to do in order to avoid the consequences of this disastrous surprise attack which had so deeply damaged and maimed our first line of defense on the west coast.

The west coast, of course, was very much concerned about this at the time. Somebody spoke this morning about Chief Justice Warren. He was pleading, as the then attorney general of California, with the White House to do something. The thing that was concerning him most, and concerning most of us, was the second line of defense that we had to the first line of defense, which was now mired and sunk at Pearl Harbor, with these sensitive military installations on the west coast, the big bomber plants, the big shipping plants, the general installations along the line, around which at that time there was concentrated the Japanese-American descendant population to a very large degree. The whole concern at that stage was we must protect this second line of defense if we're going to win the war.

This was a matter of winning or losing the war at that point, because we suddenly found ourselves at a point of something like 5 to 1 or 4 to 1 in inferiority to the surface fleet of the Japanese.

Well, as I say, that evening I sat down with my seniors and my colleagues at that point to determine what the priorities were. We went on from that to try to figure out what they were and what should be done.

Every one of the Congressmen from the area we are talking about pleading at that point with the White House to do something. Every one of the Congressmen were at that time quite clear, that something had to be done in regard to this very threatening situation to our second line of defense.

Now, I have some notes here that I'm going to try to read from. I have tried to comply as best I knew how with the request that I had to present whatever statement I wished to make or whatever response I wanted to make to the invitation I was graciously give by this committee to appear.

I appeared here some months ago before the so-called Relocation Commission, and I was subjected to a good bit of questioning at that time. I fortunately had with me at that time Mr. Adrian Fisher, a very prominent lawyer in this city, and who had worked before that time to a large degree with Charles Faye [Fahy], the Solicitor General of the United States, who had prepared the cases that were called before the Supreme Court and which were won -- the fundamental point was won by the then Department of Justice, to the effect that what steps had been taken by the Presidential order was constitutional.

They have been criticized recently. There is a new doctrine that criticizes those decisions. Unfortunately, I don't think that the actual briefs were ever presented to the Relocation Commission. But I give you that as sort of a preliminary.

Now I would like to read from my notes and submit myself, if I might, to questions.

I was there that day, on December 7, 1941. I happened to have been the chief civilian officer of the Department on tap at that point.

I may have a little difficulty, because of my hearing, but on my summation, I first wrote down on one page a number of points in accordance with the instructions that I received, but I will go on with some other thoughts I have put down, if you will give me your indulgence. It's very short. Then I will submit myself to questions.

The time is now long overdue when the country should be afforded what it has not had up-to-date, namely, an honest, fair and objective account of the circumstances under which President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the steps taken by him to secure the safety and defense of the country following the massive, destructive, and disastrous surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the armed forces of Japan on December 7, 1941.

We have now heard from the "revisionists" and those who would have us believe that it was racial prejudice which induced the President's action to institute the relocation process in regard to certain segments of our Japanese descended residents in the military sensitive areas along our west coast and, thus, to counter the deep consequences of the Pearl Harbor disaster to our overall defense system.

It is important that our Government should defend itself against this grotesque charge that it was race prejudice and not realistic security precautions which induced President Roosevelt's order. The President was the man who made the decision and he was, I believe, the only man in the United States who could make it.

Mr. Roosevelt was not only the President but the commander in chief of our Armed Forces, so specified by the Constitution. He was impelled by no considerations other than the safety and security of the country, which indeed were very real.

It is also indisputable that the direct and proximate cause of the President's decision was the attack itself and nothing else. His decision was supported and endorsed, to be sure, by his security advisors, such as Secretary of War Col. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Col. Frank Knox, Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. George C. Marshall, Undersecretary of War and former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Patterson -- who was designated by law to be in charge of our munitions and war material production programs. There were many others who might be mentioned who had responsibility for the security of the country and who felt the action was necessary.

As to the MAGIC that the President saw, men on his staff were cleared for it, his counsel, and his chief advisors were, as were a number of the members of the Cabinet. Not so many, because this was a very, very well guarded secret. But there is no question that President Roosevelt, in my mind, knew all about MAGIC, the essence of MAGIC, and knew that we had this invaluable asset to deal with in the course of the war.

Well, as I say, there were many others who felt that that action was necessary, but they were men of statesmanship and quality, who would now have to be charged with this rather crass charge of racial prejudice. There wasn't a drop of racial prejudice in the body of Colonel Stimson. There wasn't a drop of racial prejudice, above all, in the President of the United States. I happen to be of an opposite party to the President of the United States at that time. He was an adroit politician, but he was one of our greatest leaders. He was thoroughly shocked when the news came through that his beloved Navy, or a large part of it, was at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, and that we were bared so far as our first line of defense was concerned to the second line of defense, which was the installations along the west coast.

It is incongruous to suggest that these men should now be labeled -- they were some of the finest statesmen this country has ever had to deal with. The head of it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man of great integrity, great compassion, a great sense of humanity, and he was shocked, as people have testified -- and everybody that saw him during those days were shocked by the stunning character of this disaster that we had.

I don't know when that attack was planned, how early before it was instituted. But we all know it was planned very well and long in advance. There was a great deal of anger and indignation about it at the time. The men who were talking to Secretary Hull, the then Secretary of State, pretending to talk about peace, must either have known at that time that the bombers were on their way to Pearl Harbor, or they must have been kept in ignorance of it. Whichever way you look at it, it was a real source of deception and a basis for indignation. But there wasn't an element, amongst the men I am mentioning here, of racial prejudice of the crass sort that the Commission is now attempting to denigrate these men to.

As I said, ipso facto of the type of attack itself, created a sense of fear, created a sense of panic, created a sense of real anger. But it did not create a sense of prejudice because it didn't exist in the body of these men -- they were noble statesmen, some of the finest statesmen that ever served the country. But we did have, as I said, evidence right from the "horse's mouth," right from Tokyo, not only admitting that they had a subversive agency operating along the west coast, but they boasted of it. Those communications in MAGIC went out from Tokyo straight to the chief embassies of the Japanese Empire, or the chief commands, and we were reading them.

You can imagine the baited breath as you read these things, because they were of such value to us. But they gave indication to us, in addition to the nature of the attack itself, which was sinister enough, but they gave indication of the fact that there was in existence, in place at that point, along the west coast, a subversive agency which was set up and which was being boasted of by the foreign office, that it was set in place in case there should be an attack on the United States. There was an ability on the part of the Japanese-American subversive agency to deal with it in terms of frustrating some of the efforts that might be made to offset the attack.

Hindsight is fine, and nobody, I suppose, at that time ever had an idea of what was ahead, or a good idea of what was ahead. But there was no doubt at that point of a real fear of who was going to win the war, because we were suddenly involved in this two-front war.

Bear in mind, at that time Midway hadn't been fought. As you remember, the Duke of Wellington said at the Battle of Waterloo "it was a damned close-run thing." Well, it was a damned close run-thing, military historians now point out. It wasn't a circumstance to the narrowness of the squeak that we had at Midway, when we were able to read the Japanese code and what was in the mind of the Japanese commanders at that time, that we were able to accomplish the so-called miracle of Midway. As I say, we were down 3 squadrons to 1.

If my memory serves me right, although I had been asked by the President to supervise to some degree the relocation move that was made on the west coast, although I had not initiated the action, I wasn't in the chain of command and I couldn't move a soldier from A to B, much less a civilian from A to B. You had to be in the chain of command in order to do that. But the President of the United States was.

But after Midway I saw that we were able, in spite of the fact that we were three squadrons down, and we were in a position where there was a 4-or 5-to-1 inferiority, I didn't worry then about a relocation program. I knew we were going to win the war at that stage. I had the feeling from then on that we didn't need any relocation program. All we needed to do was to deter another sneak attack, another surprise attack. I don't think we were going to deter it by indicating we should apologize to anyone for the reasonable, natural -- the lawyers have words for it -- proximate cause, the foreseeability of the future. Anyone could have seen, if they had known about the attack on Pearl Harbor, they would have known that our next line of defense was the military installations along the west coast.

The fact that we could defeat them, as we did, made me take the position, individually -- it would indicate I hadn't instigated the position, nor was I the chief factor in it in any way, because the President of the United States was definitely sold -- I guess you would put it on the idea that the Army should supervise this thing because the Army seemed, to him, to be the only institution at that point that was logistically capable to deal with the situation and deal with the time element that was involved.

Here this fleet had disappeared, absolutely unscathed, to the north, and we didn't know where they were going to turn up again. There was a lot of conjecture about it. Bob Patterson, who might have had the right to do something about this -- because in the statute that appointed him as Undersecretary of War, there was provision that he did have supervision over procurement and production policy. As I say, Bob Patterson was a great jurist. The rumors were, at least -- I don't know whether this is true or not -- but the rumors were that, if he hadn't had this untoward airplane accident, he certainly, I think, would have had a very good chance of becoming a Supreme Court Justice. At any rate, he was a man of sterling character, the same type as Mr. Stimson, demanding that something be done. I have already mentioned about Chief Justice Warren. Chief Justice Warren later on -- I saw him. I sat on the Warren Commission with him for many months, as we debated the causes and background of the assassination of the President.

We talked about this thing. I never heard him say anything other than he regretted that the thing was necessary, that it seemed to be necessary, and there was no question about the fact, though, that he was a great liberal and a very compassionate man. He had no doubt that at that time the exigencies which faced us at that stage were such as to demand that we do something about the protection of the west coast.

Time, as I say, was of the essence. We had to move fast. There are a lot of words that since have been used. I notice this morning we had the word "incarcerated" and the barbed wire. Somebody had to get these people together, to sort them out and get them redistributed. They could go anywhere in the United States they wanted to, as long as it wasn't around the congested areas of these bomber plants and shipping places, the military installations on the west coast.

We had a lot of steps that were taken to try to bring amenities to these people. They certainly were sadly discomforted by the move, but there were a number of elements in there that did have uncertain loyalties. They later emerged in this Tule Lake episode, when there were all those stabbings, where there was all that renunciation of the loyalty to the United States for a long time.

I don't want to get into that. What I do want to do, to the utmost of my ability, is protect the reputation of the people who made the decision at a critical stage in our American military history, to take steps to offset the consequences of this disastrous attack.

Our relations today, in my judgment, Mr. Chairman, with the Japanese have never been better. I believe sincerely with the Senator -- I forget what his name is now, one of our two Senators who has always taken the position that this idea that we had something to apologize for, or that we ought to pay something in respect to what we did in reaction to this surprise attack, was unwise from the point of view of the Japanese and he was opposed to it. I think that was good sense, and I think it was perfectly reasonable to suppose the President of the United States should have taken the view that he did take.

I don't want to belabor -- I want to get on so you can ask me any questions you have in mind. But as I say, I have the strong feeling today, and a very happy feeling, in spite of this disastrous result, the disastrous surprise attack, that at least our two countries have been able to overcome this and form a partnership how, and where I believe our relations with the Japanese Government have never been better. I believe that we, in conjunction today, ought to be operating and bringing about a situation which would deter forever any thought of another surprise attack such as occurred on December 7, 1941. I think we ought to be able to eliminate from our thinking any further thoughts of relocation processes which were the natural proximate result of the attack.

As I have emphasized before, there was another thing in the recommendations that were made by the Relocation Commission, whose conduct of the hearings, in my judgment, were very -- what should I say? They shocked me. I have been before this Congress many times in hearings, but I have never been subjected to the indignities that I was at the hearings by this Relocation Commission. Every time I tried to say anything in favor of the United States or in favor of the Presidents of the United States, there were hisses and boos and stomping of feet, which was disgraceful. You had to be present to realize the sort of clack that was operating there, because there was a lot of money involved in this thing, a lot of hopes around, but it was, I think, a disgrace to the traditions of our legislative objectivity in our hearings, in the way those hearings were conducted.

I wasn't called on -- although everybody knew that I had been involved in this thing and had been asked by the President of the United States to help get the War Department in a position where it could put its system into effect and make these moves on the west coast for the safety and security of the country, I knew that everybody knew that I was involved in it. I wasn't called until the last minute, just before the hearings were about to close. All the testimony had been put together and there was a good bit of steam up at that stage.

But, to me, when we had once made it clear that we were no longer subjecting our second line of defense to the hazards of sabotage, I thought there was no longer any necessity for any relocation, and I said so. But I didn't have anything to do with either instituting it or concluding it. The people who were then in charge of it came to the conclusion that it was premature to stop it at that time.

Nobody ever brought to the attention of the Commission that the Canadians did exactly what we did on the west coast. Only they interned their people. We didn't intern them. We let them go any place they wanted to go. I think this was benign and proper -- a great inconvenience, to be sure, but they were permitted to go elsewhere. Their health was taken care of. We had the Federal Reserve, thanks to Mike Masaoka, who was called "Uncle Tom" in connection with this, he was always pointing out amenities that could be brought to bear to help alleviate the conditions of these people. The last time I was here he didn't dare talk to me because I was taking a position which was in favor of the United States. But I then said I didn't feel that we needed to continue with any relocation program, in spite of the fact that the Canadians, who had the same west coast problem on their hands, had done the same thing we did, or even more drastically than we did, and they didn't stop the program until well after we had stopped ours. That wasn't brought out.

There are many other things that were not brought out in connection with this. But my main concern is that this group, of which you gentlemen are going to have a great say as to its conclusions, should not stigmatize these men who were some of the noblest and finest men that ever served this Government. And to suggest they didn't have the political capacity -- I forget what the last charge was -- not only was it race prejudice, but they didn't have the political acumen. We had President Roosevelt, who was running the country, if he didn't have political acumen, I don't know who did. That these men should be stigmatized with this unworthy motive, when their only concern and deep concern, and their rational concern, was the danger that faced us at a critical period in our history, when we were faced with a two-front war.

Now, I tried to get Colonel Tate, who was my aide at that time, the general staff man, a very good man, I finally located his widow and I found that he was dead. My mother used to say, "Jack, I've lived too long." Well, at any rate, it seems to me that everybody I looked to -- the other day I tried to find Colonel Scoby. Colonel Scoby would have given his right arm to command that 442nd combat team. And who formed the 442nd combat team? I could't form it because I wasn't in the chain of command. But I went to General Marshall and said people are coming to me from Hawaii and from other places saying that they want to prove their loyalty or show their loyalty to the United States. I think we ought to have something set up. I urged him to set up the 442nd combat team and use them in the eastern theater. They were used, and some gentlemen here pointed out that was a very highly decorated unit. I believe I'm still a member, believe it or not, an honorary member of the 442nd combat team, because I was so vigorous in trying to get them to have the opportunity to show and demonstrate their loyalty.

You can see to some degree I'm somewhat emotional about this thing, because we were at a stage at that time when we had a real time element, we really had a threat that was facing us. These people that I'm speaking of, men like Colonel Stimson and, of course, General Marshall, Frank Knox, they were men who had been well versed. They had been given briefings of the most highly sophisticated character on the significance of what was happening in the Far East and the significance of what was happening in the western theater. They could judge perfectly well what the military situation was.

I don't believe there was a person on the Relocation Commission that had anything comparable to the military experience that they had had, and the sophistication that they had had as to the significance of the seriousness of that attack. So I don't want to get between the upper and nether millstones of attempting to adjust the sacrifices of segments of our population in wartime. Nor do I relish the threats I receive from all around, because I want to see the United States treated fairly. I'm not trying to talk in terms of whether these people were adequately compensated or not. They did receive, as everybody knows, a substantial sum. When witnesses were available and records were clear and fresh, when you multiply it by the inflation factor, it was, I don't know, $100 million.

I do want to say and avoid any implication that these men responsible for these decisions during a critical stage were moved by any other motive than the one that was the obvious one, namely, that the proximate cause of the President's order was the Japanese attack and its terrifying consequences to the security of the country when it occurred.

Let me see if I have any other points and then I'll throw myself open to questions.

Mr. HALL. You have covered an awful lot.

Mr. McCLOY. Well, I guess I have everything I want in there.

Mr. HALL. Your statement will be made a part of the record.

Mr. McCLOY. Then let me throw myself open to questions, if I may.

[The statement of Mr. McCloy follows:]

JAPANESE/AMERICAN RELOCATION COMMISSION HEARING
June 21, 1984
SUMMARY OF POINTS

John J. McCloy

1. It is long overdue that the Government should, itself, defend President Franklin D. Roosevelt's order to offset the consequences of the massive Japanese surprise attack on December 7, 1941 on Pearl Harbor.

2. It is also time to put an end to the charge that President Roosevelt's order was inspired by race prejudice or any attitude or motive other than the overall security of the country at a critical time in its history.

3. The attack was the direct, proximate and only cause of the President's order.

4. The fact that the Relocation Commission never disclosed the existence of "MAGIC" is the clear indication of the unreliability of the Commission's so-called "Investigation."

5. The manner and conduct of the hearings of the Relocation Commission are both added proof of the utterly biased character of the investigation. They were a disgrace to the good traditions of our legislative investigative procedures.

6. It is never possible fully to equate the sacrifices imposed on all residents of a country as a result of war. The sacrifices of that segment of our Japanese/American population which was affected by the President's order issued to counteract the consequences of the Pearl Harbor attack were not as severe as those suffered by many others including citizens of the U.S. due directly to the attack.

7. Many American citizens were never adequately compensated for the sacrifices they were compelled to meet as a direct result of the war created by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

8. What is needed is to deter forever all thought of such future surprise attacks, much less encourage them by apologizing to anyone for President Roosevelt's quite reasonable and natural reaction to the possibility of further efforts to impair our next line of defense.

JAPANESE/AMERICAN RELOCATION COMMISSION HEARING
June 21, 1984

Remarks by John J. McCloy

The time is now long overdue when the country should be afforded what it has not had up-to-date, namely, an honest, fair and objective account of the circumstances under which President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the steps taken by him to help secure the safety and defense of the country following the massive and disastrous surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Armed Forces of Japan on December 7, 1941.

We have now heard from the "revisionists" and those who would have us believe that it was racial prejudice which induced the President's action to institute the relocation process in regard to certain segments of our Japanese descended residents in the military sensitive areas along our West Coast and thus to counter the deep consequences of the Pearl Harbor disaster to our overall defense system.

It is important that our Government should defend itself against this grotesque charge that it was race prejudice and not realistic security precautions which induced President Roosevelt's order. The President was the man who made the decision and he was, I believe, the only man in the United States who could make it. Mr. Roosevelt was not only the President but the Commander-In-Chief of our Armed Forces, so specified by the Constitution. He was impelled by no considerations other than the safety and security of the country. It is also indisputable that the direct and proximate cause of the President's decision was the attack itself and nothing else. His decision was supported and endorsed, to be sure, by his security advisors, such as Secretary of War Col. Henry L. Stimson; Secretary of the Navy Col. Frank Knox; Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George C. Marshall; Undersecretary of War and former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Patterson (who was designated by law to be in charge of our munitions and war material production programs). There were many others who might be mentioned who had responsibility for the security of the country and who felt the action was necessary. It was men and statesmen such as these who would have to be charged, in the last analysis, with race prejudice rather than a concern for the security of the country. It is utterly incongruous to suggest that they were.

It was a fact that the attack was supplemented (unknown to but a few at that time) by information giving the foregoing officials (as well as a few others) clear knowledge of the existence of subversive Japanese agencies designed to operate in this country to meet further attacks or subversions should any similar attack occur. The existence of such agencies was not only admitted by the Japanese Government but the Japanese Government actually boasted of it in their communications sent from Tokyo to some of their most important overseas embassies, agencies and commands. The information, obviously then a closely guarded secret, was available through "MAGIC," a system by which we were able to read intercepted Japanese coded messages before and during a large part of the war. The far reaching consequences of the Japanese attack, together with the knowledge obtained by "MAGIC," more than supplied all the information needed to justify fully President Roosevelt's action. The President and those advisors of his who were named above were all men of extended experience in the military and defense problems of the country and they were quite able to recognize and comprehend the full consequences of the disastrous Pearl Harbor attack.

Proof that the Commission did not conduct an investigation worthy of the name is demonstrated by the fact that it never identified the existence of
"MAGIC" as evidence of Japanese intent to subvert the security of the country through disloyal residents here in the event of an attack by Japan. This, of course, should have been presented at the outset of any objective investigation and though the existence of "MAGIC" was a closely guarded secret at the time of the attack, by the time the Commission's investigation the existence of "MAGIC" was almost notoriously known by all knowledgeable military and intelligence sources in this country and in Japan, as well.

One must have experienced the manner in which the investigation of the Commission was planned and conducted to gain any sense of the basic unreliability of its procedure. Any attempt to justify the President's action was greeted with boos and hisses in a manner disgraceful to any fair investigation or to our own legislative hearing traditions. Moreover, the sequence in which the testimony was taken is a clear indication of its unfairness, as there was no testimony favorable to the United States government until just before the hearings were to be closed. There was, of course, no lack of righteous indignation on the part of the President, Secretary Hull and those who were in support of the President's action taken after the attack. But, such indignation was based wholly upon the attack itself. There are many other flaws that can be brought against the testimony which was planned and presented by the Commission.

It is, of course, true that many of our Japanese descended population were loyal. But, it is also true that there were a good many others of our Japanese descended population whose loyalty was uncertain should a further attack occur. It was one of my objectives while I was in the War Dept. during the Japanese war to use such influence as I had to induce those in authority in the Army to permit our Japanese descended residents to display their loyalty to the country in the war into which we had been so suddenly plunged by the attack. After some effort, I was successful in persuading our military people to accept the services of Japanese descended members of our population who sought to give evidence of their loyalty to the country by fighting in the United States Army. This was made possible in the European sector of the war into which we had become engaged as a result of the attack. Accordingly, the 442nd Combat Team was formed and so used. It suffered bitter casualties at the same time that it became one of the most heavily decorated units of its size in the entire Army.

I would be happy to see a monument erected to the memory of those who served in that unit and so patriotically gave evidence of their loyalty to the country. And, I would have the monument not only honor the memory of the 442nd Combat Team but that of all those Japanese/Americans whose loyalty remained with the United States during the trying period when we were at war with Japan.

Our relations with the Japanese government have probably never been better than they are today. It is one of the major achievements of both countries that they have been able to create such good relations in spite of the ill-advised sneak attack. We have been able to enter into a partnership with Japan to maintain the peace and advance our good relations. Our combined efforts should now center on steps to deter any thought of future surprise attacks or having ever to think in terms of relocation programs. It would constitute a heavy set back to our good relations and intentions if it were to be declared that our government or the high class statesmen who then directed our defense programs had been motivated by race prejudice rather than by consideration for our Nation's safety.

These were statesmen of great stature, some of the finest men who have ever served the country. They knew and could judge the consequences of the loss of our Pacific fleet, the preponderant position of the Japanese surface Navy and the vital necessity of maintaining the continuous supply of our Armed Forces.

It is a fact, I believe, that the records show I was in favor of stopping the relocation program after the miracle victory of Midway occurred. Neither the President nor any other military advisor had the benefit of hindsight in relation to this victory of Midway when the original order was issued. It was really a very narrow squeak. I came to the conclusion that if we could defeat the Japanese at Midway after facing an adverse 5-to-1 ratio in our surface fleet that there was little need to worry about the ultimate outcome of the war. In the meantime, we had gained nearly a year's unimpaired production.

I had not, however, initiated the program any more than I could cancel it. Others, however, in the chain of command, felt even after Midway that our ultimate success was not assured and to abandon the program would be premature. This attitude also had nothing whatever to do with race prejudice. Whatever attitude I may have taken and whatever opinion I may have held after our Midway victory, it is incongruous to suggest that my seniors, in respect of responsibility for the security of the country, were motivated by race prejudice or that the country has anything whatever to apologize for in the action which was taken by President Roosevelt after the Japanese destruction of our Pacific Fleet by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

There is another major consideration which has to be kept in mind. It is never possible adequately to equate the sacrifices or, indeed, the sufferings which war compels. This is true in many cases of every war. But it is, of course, more strikingly so 40 yrs. after the war took place.

I do not suggest that our Japanese descended population was not seriously inconvenienced by the program or, indeed, that its welfare was not affected. But, there were many American citizens who were never adequately compensated for the sufferings or tragedies they were compelled to face due to the war.

Generally speaking, those whom the government sought to relocate for military reasons were in some respects advantaged by the move, while other elements of the population, only relatively few, were ever called on for military service. Provisions for damage claims were made when witnesses and records were fresh and available. Government officials from the Federal Reserve were designated to help protect their financial interests. Maintenance was taken care of by the government, their health was guarded and provision was made for the education of their children.

>From the outset, I sought to relieve the Army of the duty of participating in the relocation program. The Army had many responsibilities on its hands due to the two-front war it confronted as a result of the Japanese attack. But, the decision was made because the President, who made it, believed that the Army was the best agency to conduct the initial program particularly considering the time element which the attack had introduced.

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. McCloy, very much.

I must admit that your time has been extended somewhat because, as I view this entire matter, you are the last survivor of those people who were in the White House on December 7, 1941. I did want to have the benefit of your information and your testimony before this committee.

I would like to ask you one or two questions dealing with the MAGIC cables that have been mentioned here today by other witnesses and yourself.

Did you have access to these MAGIC cables during 1941?

Mr. McCLOY. Yes; I had access to them. I guess my access, Mr. Chairman, was through Mr. Stimson. Stimson always had access to them, and he used to pass them on to me after he had obtained the authority to get them to me, because he was anxious to have me aware of what was going on because my relationships with the Joint Chiefs of Staff were so close at that point.

Mr. HALL. For the purposes of the record, the MAGIC cables is merely a name for what we had done to break the Japanese intelligence code; is that correct?

Mr. McCLOY. Yes; it was a system. The British called it, I think, Enigma. I think I'm right on that.

Mr. HALL. Yes, sir; you are.

Mr. McCLOY. I believe that probably the Canadians had a MAGIC or an Enigma of their own out there, because the British were so active in this area. The thing was of such value.

Mr. HALL. Was the MAGIC code information that went from Embassy to Embassy---

Mr. McCLOY. It went from Tokyo -- I keep remembering there was so much of it going from Tokyo to Berlin. But it wasn't only Berlin. There were other important Embassies of Germany to which they were going, or to Japanese Embassies.

Mr. HALL. In the code that the United States had broken---

Mr. McCLOY. I'm not so sure who has the credit for that. I think sometimes we have been given a little more credit than perhaps was due us. There was this famous place that you have heard of, I suppose, Bletchley, in England, where they were doing a great job of breaking codes.

Mr. HALL. For the benefit of these hearings, we're going to take credit for it anyway.

Mr. McCLOY. OK. Well, we did a great job in breaking the codes, but it was a system and we didn't know what to call it. Mr. Stimson would say, "Did you see MAGIC yesterday?" Well, I would say yes or no, depending upon whether I had or not. But I can tell you, it disclosed, as I say, not only -- General Clark, who just died the other day, who had the benefit of the use of the 442nd combat team, with the extraordinary record that they made in the western theater, he referred to the fact that -- he had to admit that he had opposed originally the formation of the 442nd combat team and its use in the western theater. He said he was wrong about that. He referred to the great record of the 442nd combat team. But generally speaking, there was that dual allegiance affair and there was all this business of the pressure that came up at Tule Lake, where the stabbings and violence took place. They brought back Colonel Bendetsen, who was working in the Normandy preparations at that time, they brought him back at the time of those disturbances at Tule Lake. There were a great many people who were denouncing {renouncing} their loyalty to the United States -- up until Midway. It changed after Midway.

Mr. HALL. Did the MAGIC cables help shape the decisions of those who ordered the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast?

Mr. McCLOY. Oh, I haven't the slightest doubt about it.

Mr. HALL. Why do you not have a doubt about that?

Mr. McCLOY. Because some of the MAGIC -- if you do the research, you will find there was a statement not only of the admission that the Japanese had in place a subversive agency manned by sympathetic figures along the west coast, but that would be able to frustrate any attempt to meet the consequences of another such attack. It's explicit as can be. It's unbelievable what we had, and we didn't dare breathe it to a soul. You didn't dare breathe it to your wife. If it hadn't been for that, we might have had an attenuation of the war that would have been very, very serious.

Mr. HALL. Do you know whether or not General DeWitt or J. Edgar Hoover had access to the MAGIC code?

Mr. McCLOY. I don't know. I guess I don't know whether DeWitt had it or not. No, I don't think DeWitt had it. I would guess that DeWitt did not have it.

DeWitt was a general on the west coast, who had quite a record in World War I. He was in command of the west coast defenses. I think he was one of those who opposed, as did others, the abandonment of the relocation program, even after the miracle victory at Midway.

Mr. HALL. With reference to Midway, you stated that, in your opinion, when the naval battle at Midway was won by the U.S. Naval Forces, that from that point on there was really no necessity to keep these people incarcerated or where they were relocated---

Mr. McCLOY. I don't say that, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't in charge of it. I couldn't call it on or call it off.

Mr. HALL. I understand that. But it is your opinion that---

Mr. McCLOY. It was my opinion at that time, that I knew if we could defeat the Japanese, with the inferiority we had suffered as a result of the sinkings at Pearl Harbor, that we didn't need to worry about who was going to win the war. If we could overcome three squadrons there, I didn't feel -- besides, this is the important thing you must keep in mind. We had had in the meantime 1 year's production of heavy bombers. It was the heavy bombers that turned the day at Midway. We had that amount of production under our belts.

Mr. HALL. I understand. I realize that you were not in a position to make that decision to release these people.

Mr. McCLOY. Right.

Mr. HALL. But if you felt, in the hierarchy of the Roosevelt administration, that after Midway we were going to win this war, I wonder why they continued to keep 120,000 people relocated until 1946?

Mr. McCLOY. I don't know. You would have to ask the people that were in charge of the thing at that time. But their position was that we were at war, there was a good bit of resistance when you were trying to relocate these people in the localities in the interior, they weren't too happy about it. They were pretty mad over the Pearl Harbor affair, and the feeling was it was a little premature.

Let me remind you, Mr. Chairman, that at that time there were about 5 to 7 million Japanese still under arms, and we hadn't landed on the main islands at that point. Everybody was afraid of a last ditch fight, that we might have the same sort of casualties that we had at Okinawa if we had to go ashore at Honshu. It might be a little too soon, too premature to say abandon the whole thing.

I had the feeling -- I was so relieved and confident, after the superiority which the Japanese had, which we had after Midway, that we probably could abandon it. It was my opinion, let me put it that way. But those in charge of it felt it was still premature.

They did, shortly after, abandon it, and they abandoned it long before the Canadians did, who had a similar problem on the west coast.

Mr. HALL. That's all the questions I have. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kindness.

Mr. KINDNESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. McCloy, for your testimony.

I seem to recall the Redskins were playing that day---

Mr. McCLOY. Can you speak up a little?

Mr. KINDNESS. I say, I seem to recall that the Washington Redskins were playing that day, and I learned the news of Pearl Harbor by way of a radio announcement of the news interrupting the Redskins football game. I can't remember who they were playing that day.

Mr. McCLOY. You know, the footballers have a name for Pearl Harbor -- you know, when somebody is tackled after the whistle blows. This wasn't a great victory. It was a great surprise attack. It had some of the aspects of a sort of "cheap shot" victory because it was such a surprise to us at the time.

The important thing at that point was, we had had under our belt a production, an unimpaired production at that point. I wasn't at the football game at that time. I was in the War Department that day.

Mr. KINDNESS. The point has been made clear in your testimony that you believe the MAGIC information was a factor, a considerable factor, in the decision to have the exclusions of Japanese-Americans from the west coast---

Mr. McCLOY. Something had to be done about moving that threatening disloyalty, the uncertain loyalty among certain ones. Mind you, there were many,many Japanese that were loyal to the United States. I am proud of the role that I played in the 442nd combat team, for example.

Mr. KINDNESS. But what I would like to follow on with is, was there a point in time at which the information received through MAGIC indicated that there was the need for continuing the exclusion, or was MAGIC information helpful in your decision that the exclusions ought to end?

Mr. McCLOY. I suppose it was a combination. As I look back on it, the reason that I thought we could abandon the relocation program when we did was the result of Midway, was the result of the fact that we had so much of a production momentum going, that they couldn't lick us. But before that, after Pearl Harbor, when we had that dual situation, I was afraid that we might have to lost the war because our first line of attack was gone.

Mr. KINDNESS. Do you recall any information from MAGIC that had to do with the internal security situation in the United States on the West Coast, that related to Japanese-Americans around that time?

Mr. McCLOY. I think the only thing was that somewhere in MAGIC there was a statement going out from Tokyo to the command posts and embassies that the Japanese had entrained a subversive agency operating that would frustrate or interfere with any attempt that we might make to obviate the consequences of another such attack. That's all spelled out. Maybe they were boasting, I don't know.

Mr. KINDNESS. And then later on was there anything to counter that?

Mr. McCLOY. Later on, the march of events in the Japanese war was so clear, we had gone all the way from Pearl Harbor to the very gates of Tokyo, after all, it was rather ridiculous to talk about relocation at the pace at which the war was then going.

Mr. KINDNESS. I mean, in MAGIC, was there anything to counter that information?

Mr. McCLOY. I can't remember. This is 40 years ago or more. I'm an old man. It's amazing that I have as much of a recollection as I do. I just remember that I lost all interest in relocation after we had gotten that production of heavy bomber underway, and that we did have something more than a second line of defense there.

Mr. KINDNESS. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. HALL. I recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. McCloy, I appreciate the concern you have shown. I think the concern you have shown for the people you worked with is admirable.

Mr. McCLOY. Who did I work with?

Mr. FRANK. The people you worked with back at that time, President Roosevelt and the others.

Mr. McCLOY. Oh, yes, I see. Thank you.

Mr. FRANK. You know, the gang.

Mr. McCLOY. OK. Mind you, I wasn't in Mr. Roosevelt's party.

Mr. FRANK. I understand that. You were in Mr. Stimson's and Mr. Warren's.

Mr. McCLOY. I was never a partisan politician anyway. Whenever the Government asked me to do something, if it was in my capacity, I tried to do it.

Mr. FRANK. Well, I'm a partisan politician, but that won't be a difference between us today.

The point I wanted to make, I hope I can get across to you that there are many of us who disagree very profoundly with the decision that was made about relocation, who don't think that that means these were bad people. I think one of the important things to understand is, good and decent people in certain circumstances can make mistakes and even unfortunate decisions. So while I understand you will disagree on that point, I hope you will also---

Mr. McCLOY. No, no; there may have been differences of viewpoint. But all of the opinion from the west coast then, I don't think it was inspired by racial prejudice but was inspired by a feeling that this was a very serious attack and there was real fear.

Mr. FRANK. Let me get to that, because I do think from your own words, Mr. McCloy, these were elected politicians. Mr. Roosevelt, while in my judgment a great statesman, was not immune from political considerations.

Mr. McCLOY. He was no traitor.

Mr. FRANK. No, no traitor. I would never have suggested that he was a traitor.

Mr. McCLOY. Let me interrupt. I don't mean to suggest that to you. But a claim was made up in my area a couple of months ago that Mr. Roosevelt had induced the attack on Pearl Harbor---

Mr. FRANK. Right, I read that, and it's nonsense.

Mr. McCLOY. And then General what's his name---

Mr. FRANK. I understand. But I think we have to accept---

Mr. McCLOY. He was no traitor.

Mr. FRANK. But the fact that people sometimes make inaccurate accusations is no reason for us not to try and make statements that may be accurate.

Let me do this in order. The first point I want to say is you have said several times in your statements that you see a disproportion, in effect, in us considering compensation for those who were relocated, when no one is talking about compensation for those who lost their lives at the Pearl Harbor attack. But the difference to us seems quite profound. In the one case, we're talking about actions of a foreign government, and in another the actions of our own Government. We are not saying what our own Government did to its citizens in the early forties was worse than what the foreign government did to our citizens. Clearly, the terrible attack on Pearl Harbor was, by moral and every other standard, by far the worst of those actions. No one suggests, at least I don't suggest, that the relocation approached an immoral act as to what happened to Pearl Harbor.

But that was a foreign government. I don't sit on the Japanese Diet. I sit in the U.S. House of Representatives. I think it is a mistake to say that you should not have the American Government look to what it did because a foreign government did worse. I have to say, Mr. McCloy---

Mr. McCLOY. No, no. I don't say that.

Mr. FRANK. Then why do you compare -- why do you say we didn't compensate the victims of Pearl Harbor so why should we compensate these people? We are talking about the actions of entirely different governments, our own versus a government which was at that time our enemy.

Mr. McCLOY. I say the proximate result of the attack on Pearl Harbor impelled the President of the United States to make the decision, in all good conscience, with all the sense of compassion and sense of civil rights that he had. I believe they did the best they could. He deplored it, as my chief, Mr. Stimson, deplored it. He said" "I'm sorry that this seems to be necessary."

I am not trying to compare. Certainly I don't want to get in between the upper and nether millstone as to who should get this. It was the proximate cause.

Mr. FRANK. My simple point is that you have in some of your statements said one reason not to do this is that we haven't compensated the victims of Pearl Harbor. I think that can lead to some misunderstanding because of the suggestion -- and I know you don't mean it -- but I think there may have been an inference that people mistakenly drew, that somehow there was a responsibility on the part of the Japanese-Americans for Pearl Harbor.

Let me just add further, your own statements to Eric Severeid, and the article you wrote to the New York Times -- and I apologize for my diction, sir. It's a lifelong --

Mr. McCLOY. You apologize for what?

Mr. FRANK. My diction. [Laughter.]

At this point, the difficulty is not your hearing. It is my diction. It is a lifelong affliction that has baffled men far younger than yourself, so don't take it personally. [Laughter.]

Mr. McCLOY. OK.

Mr. FRANK. You, yourself, alluded to that fact -- and we talked about Mr. Warren, who I believe said he thought he was in error -- there was a great deal of anti-Japanese prejudice in California. There is reference here, in your own statement to Eric Severeid, to the yellow-menace concept that pretty well pervaded the thinking on the west coast.

Mr. McCLOY. That was the old -- I was talking about the Stoddard thing, a long time ago. There was a yellow peril, but I said that had long disappeared. It was well on the way out.

Mr. FRANK. You don't think there was some prejudice---

Mr. McCLOY. If there was, the record -- I was talking about the old days when we had that yellow-peril business and the William Randolph Hearst affair. The situation had greatly changed and we were well on our way toward a good relationship---

Mr. FRANK. I think it's better, but I think many of us feel there was still some. Let me say what I think the prejudice involved.

Suppose there had been cables intercepted which said that the Japanese, or the Italian Government, or the German Government had succeeded in recruiting several thousand agents in the Greater Boston area who would be prepared to cooperate in espionage and sabotage. I don't think anyone would have thought that that would have allowed us to round up everybody in the Boston area. That is the problem we have.

The indication that there might have been -- even talking that at face value, which people had to do at the time -- the indication that there might have been some small percentage in a given population of people prepared to be disloyal, for that to then be the basis for rounding everybody up solely on their common racial ancestry, that is the concept that many of us find to be very frightening. We do feel it would not have been applied to a similar geographic group or some other group.

Mr. McCLOY. Well, I think you would be surprised to find what groups we did apply it to. At the time of World War II we applied it to some of the Germans that were down in South America. They were brought up here to -- what was it, Crystal City -- interned in Crystal City and Ellis Island---

Mr. FRANK. We're these American citizens?

Mr. McCLOY. No; they were Germans. They were Germans, but---

Mr. FRANK. But we're talking about Americans, Mr. McCloy.

Mr. McCLOY. Let me try to explain what it is, because I just heard about it the other day.

These countries in South America asked us to take care of some of the people that they were suspicious of. They were brought up here and interned, I think at a place called Crystal City. This was a suggestion or an indication that maybe they were prepared to intern, as they did in that case, some individuals on the basis of their national background.

Mr. FRANK. I appreciate that. But there is, it seems to me, a critical difference, because we are talking about how our Government treated its own American citizens. I don't want to prolong it and I am going to end with this, because you have been very generous with your time.

But I think the point we want to get across is not that we think Franklin Roosevelt, or Judge Patterson, or others were racially prejudiced in a personal way. On the other hand, I think many of us feel the decision to take that action, based solely on a racial criterion for the people involved, was, in fact, objectively a kind of prejudicial action, and that while we understand the fear -- and I'm not saying that these were bad or vicious people; they are people I greatly admire -- I think one of the lessons we should learn is that in times of war, and because there are racial feelings in all of us, we have to guard against even the best people taking actions that don't conform to our democratic traditions.

Taking everyone in a particular racial category, without evidence, and subjecting them to some form of dislocation, assuming them to be guilty and putting on them the burden of then proving their innocence, is the thing that bothers us. We are saying we really don't want that to happen again, and that we want in the future, if we should be in some sort of situation like this, to say that that's not the way to work and that protections which take into account more individual liberties and the rights of citizenship ought to be in place. I think that is the burden of what many of us feel.

Mr. McCLOY. May I respond to that?

Mr. FRANK. Certainly.

Mr. McCLOY. I'm not saying that you're wrong on that. All that I'm saying is there's another point of view. You had a situation down on the gulf with the Hispanics. Do you want to say that 50 years hence there shouldn't be a movement of somebody if there's congestion around some of the installations there? I think you have got to let the people at the time determine what their security interests are. I don't think you can say we must never, never, never have a relocation again. I think you must never, never have another surprise attack. I think we ought to make it clear that we don't do anything here that doesn't deter another---

Mr. FRANK. I have to respond, Mr. McCloy. As to 50 years, if I take as good care of myself as you have, maybe I'll be able to participate in that decision and will look forward to it at the time. You're a great example to us all.

I would say this. First, I have to disagree in the suggestion that we weaken the deterrence of a surprise attack by saying we will respect the civil liberties of individuals. I don't think that to intern large numbers or to relocate, to detain and relocate large numbers of people away from their homes, American citizens, really will be a calculation. I don't think the Soviet Union much cares about that.

Second, specifically with regard to the Hispanic population in the Southern United States, I do not want to say that if there should be some kind of attack -- although right now, obviously, the Hispanic population of the Southern United States is more likely to want to attack those countries than cooperate with them and attack the United States -- but if we should be in that situation, yes, I want to say that we will protect our installations with as much police power as it takes, that we will fortify the installations if necessary, we will give very severe security checks to anyone who works there, and we will act on evidence that any individuals are likely to commit sabotage.

But no, we will not round up all of the Cubans or all of the Salvadorans and relocate them. That, we think in hindsight, was not a good idea, not necessary, and in fact contributes to people thinking of other American citizens in racial categories, which is something we want to get away from.

Mr. McCLOY. You act in moderation, and there is no question we tried to act in moderation then. But it didn't seem as if at that point, with the exigencies of the time, it seemed as if there was a real danger, a real time element, so that we could get along with our second line of defense, our first having been defeated. That's all I'm trying to say.

You have got to be reasonable about it. I think it is difficult to sit at this time and say what you ought to be doing 50 years hence, when they may have a new weapon that comes along that makes obsolete some of the suggestions that we're talking about today. I do believe it was unfortunate and to be deplored, but don't, for goodness sake, apologize to anybody for what these people did on the grounds that they were moved by racial considerations. They weren't.

Mr. FRANK. My last statement, Mr. McCloy, I will not impute to them racial prejudice. But I think it can be very good in a democratic system to say yes, we apologize, that we think, in all good faith, that an error was made. I think that is a reasonable statement.

I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KINDNESS. Would the gentleman yield first?

Mr. FRANK. Yes; I yield to my friend from Ohio.

Mr. KINDNESS. A point of clarification.

During the course of this exchange the word "us" and the word "we" was used several times in expressing an opinion. I would just like to make it clear on the record that not all members of the subcommittee hold the same opinions as were expressed.

Mr. FRANK. Oh, I would be glad to stipulate that neither on this occasion, nor on many others that I can think of, have I been speaking for the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. McCLOY. I don't know. It is so easy to be misunderstood. The other day somebody was saying that Mr. Roosevelt had sort of induced the attack on Pearl Harbor. For goodness sake, don't give any suggestions to anybody that Mr. Roosevelt, who was a very adroit politician, he wasn't a traitor. I think the Columbia professor, whatever his name, demolished that suggestion the other day. I think that is carrying revisionism a little too far.

Mr. HALL. Well, we will make it a part of this record that we don't think President Roosevelt induced that war.

Mr. McCLOY. OK. He didn't attack Pearl Harbor.

Mr. HALL. I yield to the gentleman from California, Mr. Berman.

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Because I agree with the gentleman from Ohio, that one of the problems of this period of time was the tendency to apply group terms and group reactions to concerns about individual acts of disloyalty, I would like to specifically and individually associate myself with the comments of the gentleman from Massachusetts.

There are a couple of things that you said that have me somewhat confused. You differentiated the way the United States approached the problem from the way Canada approached it. I am not as learned or well-versed in this period of time and what happened as I should be. But I had a sense that we, in fact, did detain huge numbers of Japanese-Americans for a very long period of time in these camps---

Mr. McCLOY. In Canada?

Mr. BERMAN. No, in the United States. You had mentioned, in effect, that these camps -- Let me put it in a different way.

Could anyone who had been detained in these relocation camps have been freed if they had indicated a willingness to relocate in a part of the United States other than the west coast?

Mr. McCLOY. Oh, there is no question about that.

Mr. BERMAN. From what point?

Mr. McCLOY. Well, they had specified sensitive areas that they worked out together---

Mr. BERMAN. Which were their homes.

Mr. McCLOY [continuing]. With our Department of Justice working on it. They worked it out and they designated various areas from which they would be -- they could move from that area to any place else in the United States that they wanted to, and did.

I know of a large community -- I used to live in Philadelphia. A big community came out to Philadelphia and got jobs there. And their way was paid out there. It may be they were too liberal in defining what the sensitive areas were in light of hindsight, but there was a very substantial relocation made.

Mr. BERMAN. I am told that about 35,000 of the 112,000 people in those camps did agree to relocate in the nonsensitive areas, and that a vast majority remained in the camps for the duration of the war.

Mr. McCLOY. There was big talk whether it was right to do it en blanc, or whether we ought not try to work out a system of separating, so to speak -- if I don't use the right words -- the "sheep" from the "goats," trying to determine who was loyal and who wasn't loyal. That's what caused the trouble at Tule Lake. That put the cat amongst the pigeons, trying to determine which ones were loyal and which weren't, and they began having all those stabbings and all of the repercussions that finally resulted in their called Colonel Bendetsen back to help straighten it out, because it was in such confusion at Tule Lake.

I think the general concept that we had originally -- let's move them all and get them relocated as fast as we can -- was better than trying to sit down and determine which one was loyal and which one wasn't loyal in such a quantity. It was thought, with the number of people involved, were viable, because the number of Japanese-Americans compared to the number of German-Americans and Italian-Americans was much, much less. It was more possible to deal with the situation.

There was a debate that went on that I didn't have anything to do with. But my main concern is that you do not apologize to anybody for what these reasonable men did. They were reasonable men in a critical stage of our history. They were just as noble and fine men as you would find anywhere, and there wasn't a shred of racial prejudice in them that induced that decision. There wasn't a shred of it in Franklin Roosevelt.

Mr. BERMAN. I guess the only point I would make is, reasonable men, not motivated by racial prejudice, could make an unreasonable decision. The notion that our political leaders have consistently made only correct decisions -- I mean, this doesn't hold up.

Mr. McCLOY. You've got to give the men who were making those decisions the benefit of their fairness and judgment. They were dealing with the problem. They had what Mr. Churchill used to call the bloody dilemmas before them. They had a time element that they had to act in. Don't presume from this hindsight that these people were stupid people or mean people or badly motivated. They weren't. They were some of the finest examples of public servants that this country has ever produced.

Mr. BERMAN. I agree with that, and still come to a different conclusion. But why were these policies of detention and exclusion not applied to the Italian-Americans and the German-Americans?

Mr. McCLOY. Well, in the first place, the Germans at that point hadn't attacked us. But the Japanese attacked us. They really attacked us to the point where they invaded the country.

Now, people complain and some people say this was a pattern by which the Japanese started the war. I don't know. I was born then but I wasn't conscious enough to know whether there was a surprise attack in the Russian-Japanese affair or not. All I say is, for goodness sake, let's do what we can together at this point to deter any thought of any more surprise attacks and starting, in this nuclear age, another war. I don't think it does to suggest we should apologize for the reasonable things that these men of stature and statesmanship did.

Mr. BERMAN. Another question. Apparently the Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii were, for the most part, not rounded up and put into these camps. What was the distinction between Hawaii and the west coast?

Mr. McCLOY. I guess your question is why didn't they do something on Hawaii similar to what they did here? Is that the question?

Mr. BERMAN. I'm trying to understand the basis for the distinction.

Mr. McCLOY. Well, there was martial law there, and General Evans said he didn't think he needed--- In the first place, he didn't have the installations that they had along the west coast, and the place had been reinforced by troops. The ability to attack an invasion force would have been much easier and there wasn't the same sabotage threat.

The other point was that they did put into effect martial law in Hawaii to the degree that we didn't want to do over here with the major amount of populations related to it, in the case of Italy and in the case of Germany.

Mr. BERMAN. You mentioned Tule Lake before. I had been under the assumption that there was no effort by the Government to determine the loyalty of the individuals who had been picked up.

Am I wrong about that? Was there an effort to determine the loyalty of them?

Mr. McCLOY. Yes, there was an effort made, apparently, after the Army had given up -- I mean, after the civil agencies had gotten in. Dillon Myer, who is now also dead, after he had taken over he tried to differentiate between the loyal and the disloyal, and that caused a rumpus at Tule Lake that created a lot of violence. The actually went to the extent of bringing Colonel Bendetsen back from Normandy to try to straighten it out. There was some stabbings and there was an unpleasant situation.

What they tried to do -- and they said it was wrong -- it was too divisive an effort. The best way to have done it was to do it across the board, the out-and-out relocation process that the Army had put into effect before Dillon Myer got there.

Mr. BERMAN. So those efforts were then abandoned?

Mr. McCLOY. They were abandoned, yes.

Mr. BERMAN. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HALL. Mr. McCloy, on behalf of this subcommittee, I would like to thank you very much for being here today. I know it is an imposition. You are much older than we are, but you have have done a remarkable job in recalling things that happened 40 years ago. That will conclude your part. We thank you so very much and we wish you the best.

Mr. McCLOY. Thank you very much. I appreciate having the opportunity to be here.

Mr. HALL. We have a vote that is coming up, probably two votes. I am going to come back at 1 o'clock. The subcommittee will stand in recess until that time.

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed for lunch, to reconvene at 1 p.m. the same day.]

Letter to Hon. Barney Frank from Mr. John J. McCloy

JOHN J. McCLOY
ONE CHASE MANHATTAN PLAZA
NEW YORK, N. Y. 1005

August 2, 1984

Dear Mr. Frank:

In correcting my testimony which I gave before your Sub-committee recently, I read over my interchanges with you as they were recorded.

In doing so, I felt I may not have adequately met the point that you were making. As I gather now, you stated that one might well agree that those who made or endorsed the decisions which were taken within the United States to meet the consequences of the Pearl Harbor attack were not motivated by any race prejudice, war hysteria or other base motives. They might, however, be charged now with having made a "mistake" when the President's order for relocation was issued, as it was an injustice to some of our loyal Japanese descended resident population.

I would not wish to let it appear that I evaded your point for I feel strongly that no "mistake" was made when the President did issue his order to meet the consequences of the attack. In view of the rather close contacts I had with the White House at the time, I believe I gained a clear idea of what, from a security point of view, the President had in mind as necessary or advisable for the U.S. to do in order to overcome the disastrous consequences of the attack.

In the first place:

1. The size and enormity of the attack itself pointed to the wisdom of the President's order. The attack had been no hastily conceived "in and out" raid. It was a massive and naval and air offensive, planned long in advance by Japan to start and win a war against the United States. It was designed to accomplish the destruction of our first line of defense in the Pacific. It was, at the same time, mounted to achieve an insuperable initial advantage in the war while the casualties and discouragements of a prolonged and far removed war would convince the U.S. that further pursuit of victory against Japan was futile.

2. The attack had impaired, if not seriously incapacitated, our first line of defense and it posed a threat to our second line which consisted, for example, of the large airplane and shipping plants in our West Coast areas where our main Japanese descended population was also congested. One may assume that the attack may not have been generated or assisted in any way by Japanese/American residents of the U.S., but it required bold, drastic and effective steps in the United States to avoid the possible loss of the war due to a lack of will to see it through. This required action affecting both American citizens and the residents of Japanese descent, of whose loyalty we could not be assured in view of their natural attachment to their mother country.

3. With the revelations of "MAGIC," to say nothing of the violence displayed later at Tule Lake, the renunciations of allegiance to the U.S. (up until Midway), it was made clear we could not have been sure of the loyalty of a number of our Japanese descended population. We were also warned that Japan was organizing subversive agencies in this country to frustrate attempts to defend against further attacks. This was not a matter of conjecture but a fact communicated by the government in Tokyo to its important embassies and commands abroad, i.e. a fact which the President, in time of war, had to keep in mind in his responsibility for the security of the country. Word has gone out now from the lobbyists to "laugh off" the revelations of "MAGIC," but President Roosevelt could not laugh them off in time of war (and after Pearl Harbor), nor could he foresee the Miracle at Midway.

The best designed means of dealing with this warning of subversion in the U.S. was to dislocate the communications of the potentially disloyal by removing them from any vulnerable areas. The fact that there was, for example, apparently no major attempt at sabotage of our bomber and shipping plants along the West Coast was scarcely proof that there was no disloyal elements among our Japanese descended population situated there. The President's order may well have left little or no opportunity for sabotage.

4. The United States, itself, imposed on its own citizens and residents a draft for military service and it had strongly urged them into voluntary military service. These steps subjected all eligibles to the risks and casualties of war whereas the dislocated segment of the Japanese descended population who were relocated were never subjected to anything like the war risks of combat to which many American citizens were exposed and from which many heavily suffered.

I learn that I was on record as having been willing to have the whole wartime relocation program abandoned after the miracle victory at Midway. But, I had not originated the program and I had no authority to cancel it. Those who felt it was premature to cancel it even after Midway must have had in mind the fact that more than five million Japanese soldiers, at least, were still under arms, capable of putting up heavy last ditch fighting over the very difficult terrain the home islands presented.

While I realize that many express their disapproval of the nature of the Japanese surprise attack and give lip service to this sentiment, one can hardly suggest that we are creating a serious deterrent to the repetition of it if we give out a broad apology for taking the natural and reasonable response that President Roosevelt made to it, and, if at the same time, we pay the relocatees and/or their descendants great unproven, untaxed sums in addition to the very substantial amounts, judged by today's value, those relocated heretofore received when evidence and witnesses were readily available.

I firmly believe, as I understand Senator Hayakawa himself does, that the interests of both the U.S. and Japan would not be well served by either an apology or the judgment of a large lump sum for additional so-called "redress" damages.

I also believe there is an excellent opportunity for a much more statesmanlike and constructive solution to the problem. A monument or some appropriate fund could be erected or created to the memory of those who did display their loyalty to this country during the very trying period of the Japanese war. If it were a fund, its proceeds could be devoted to a suitable exchange or cultural program. The Congress might also expressly deplore the fact that it ever became necessary or advisable to institute a relocation program in the U.S. as a defense measure to counteract the consequences of the December 7, 1941 attack.

As an American citizen, I would be glad to contribute to such a monument or fund. It could be sited appropriately either at Pearl Harbor, the nation's capital or possibly at some site in Europe where the 442nd Combat Team actually fought and suffered losses.

I believe that with my testimony and this letter I have done as much as is within my power to set the record straight on this important and apparently misunderstood episode in our nation's history. To that end, I would be grateful if you would include and publish this letter as part of the proceedings of your Sub-committee, and I request that you do so.

Sincerely,
(signed John J. McCloy)

/tr

The Honorable Barney Frank
1317 Longworth House Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

JOHN J. McCLOY
ONE CHASE MANHATTAN PLAZA
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10005

Senator Charles E. Grassley
Subcommittee to the Senate Judiciary Committee
in charge of Administrative Practice & Procedure
Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20310

July 20, 1983

Dear Senator:

I understand that the subcommittee, of which you are Chairman, is to meet on July 27 in Washington on matters in which I am deeply interested as a citizen of the United States and as the former Assistant Secretary of War during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration when the Japanese war was taking place.

I was in the War Department on the "Day of Infamy" on December 7, 1941, and I believe I was the highest senior civilian official there at the time of the attack. I have testified before the commission which was appointed by President Carter to look into the circumstances surrounding the steps which were taken by our government following the attack to offset the consequences of the loss of almost our entire Pacific Battle Fleet and its installations on that day.

Only as this commission was about to close its hearings, was I called upon to appear before it in regard to the relocation program which had been ordered by President Roosevelt. By that time, a great head of steam had been built up by news accounts of the hearings largely inspired by the lobbyists. From my personal experience, at the hearings of the commission, I believe its conduct was an horrendous affront to our tradition for fair and objective hearings. It constituted a serious affront to that tradition. Whenever I sought in the slightest degree to justify the action of the United States which was ordered by President Roosevelt, my testimony was met with hisses and boos such as I have never, over an experience extending back to World War I, been heretofore subjected to. Others had similar experiences.

I do not have the means or the resources to call witnesses or produce evidence in support of the action taken by the President of the United States and his advisers, but I was there at the time and it became clear from the outset of my testimony that the commission was not at all disposed to conduct an objective investigation of the circumstances which induced the President of the United States to issue the order which he did, and as to the significance and purpose of which he was fully aware. The commission was, in effect, one erected to build up a case against the propriety of such an order and the manner in which it had been carried out. No current officials of the government, so far as I have heard, were ever called on to produce evidence in support of the action which the President and his advisers took in their good judgment as to what the consequences of the attack demanded. Nor were any called to produce any information from the records of the government as to the motivation for the order.

Bland statements have been repeated by the commission to the effect that not a single case of proven sabotage or disloyalty had been produced either before or after the attack which would justify the propriety of the relocation. The fact of the matter is that this evidence was not sought. Anything which could be educed to show the reasonableness of the precautions taken by the President produced these demonstrations or were later called "irrelevant" by the Chair. Comparisons between the manner in which the ethnic Japanese/Americans were treated in contrast to the manner in which Japanese ethnics were treated in the rest of the world, including Canada, were also declared irrelevant. The fact that the members of the Pacific Fleet, who were on their ships at the time of the attack and whose bodies are still entombed in their vessels at the bottom of the Harbor, were never adequately compensated for their suffering and death, was also called "irrelevant." The extensive amenities made available to the relocatees in the camps and elsewhere were also deemed "irrelevant."

I may not be in a position now to cite chapter and verse this long after the event, but given the same amount of money that this commission had to make its case, and with the paid staffs at its disposal, I could readily have produced supporting evidence of the threats which then faced the nation. I could go on and on giving evidence of what I consider to have been the wholly one-sided nature of the commission's hearings. It would have presumably been quite as simple for an objective examiner of the commission to have dug up again the so-called "MAGIC" revelations as it was for Mr. Mohr, a reporter on the NEW YORK TIMES to do so.

It is little wonder that this information caused consternation among the commission as well as in the editorial offices of Mohr's paper, and the feeble attempts now being made by the commission itself to discount his research is quite revealing. The truth is really that this commission simply does not know whether there were any acts of sabotage or frustrated acts of sabotage committed on the West Coast.

I have been asked whether I would be prepared to testify before your committee. I, of course, would be. I cannot be there on July 27 or 28 as I have a long standing commitment with my family but I can certainly find a date convenient to your committee and myself shortly thereafter.

Very truly yours,

(signed John J. McCloy)

/tr

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