S. HRG. 98-1304

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION ON WARTIME INTERNMENT AND RELOCATION OF CITIZENS


HEARINGS

BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
POST OFFICE, AND GENERAL SERVICES
OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE

NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON

S. 2116

TO ACCEPT THE FINDINGS AND TO IMPLEMENT THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION ON WARTIME INTERNMENT AND RELOCATION OF CITIZENS

AUGUST 16, 1984 -- LOS ANGELES, CA
AUGUST 29, 1984 -- ANCHORAGE, AK

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1986
64-273 O

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402

64-273 O-86--1

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., Delaware, Chairman
CHARLES H. PERCY, Illinois
THOMAS F. EAGLETON, Missouri
TED STEVENS, Alaska
LAWTON CHILES, Florida
CHARLES McC. MATHIAS, JR., Maryland
SAM NUNN, Georgia
WILLIAM S. COHEN, Maine
JOHN GLENN, Ohio
DAVID DURENBERGER, Minnesota
JIM SASSER, Tennessee
WARREN B. RUDMAN, New Hampshire
CARL LEVIN, Michigan
JOHN C. DANFORTH, Missouri
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
DAVID PRYOR, Arkansas
WILLIAM L. ARMSTRONG, Colorado

JOHN M. DUNCAN, Staff Director
IRA S. SHAPIRO, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
TERRY JOLLY, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE, POST OFFICE, AND GENERAL SERVICES
TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman
CHARLES McC. MATHIAS, JR., Maryland
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
WILLIAM L. ARMSTRONG, Colorado
JIM SASSER, Tennessee
WAYNE A. SCHLEY, Staff Director
EDWIN S. JAYNE, Minority Staff Director
PAT PHILLIPS, Chief Clerk


NOTE: [Bracketed] text in original. This excerpt starts from page 310 of the record.

Senator STEVENS. Our next witness is David Lowman.

TESTIMONY OF DAVID LOWMAN, ACCOMPANIED BY RICHARD IMES

Mr. LOWMAN. My name is David Lowman. I am a career intelligence officer with the U.S. Government.

I was a consultant on the declassification of World War II intelligence, and I am the author of a number of historical articles based upon declassified intelligence.

The gentleman on my right is Mr. Richard Imes, a colleague who is here with me but will not be testifying today.

I want to thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to testify. The testimony I am going to give is a condensation of a larger and more detailed statement fully annotated and documented which I have turned in to the subcommittee, and which I ask to be made a matter of record.

At the outset, I would like to make it perfectly clear...

{This portion from the record is identical to Mr. Lowman's first statement (IA211a&b), which can be read here. The following continues on page 317 of the record.}

...Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement.

Senator STEVENS. Thank you.

You opened your statement with a comment that you did believe that there were people who were, even in view of the statements you presented, improperly interned. How would you suggest Congress differentiate between those which were properly interned under the concept that you have set forth, in terms of intelligence and the situation that existed at that time for our National Government, and those who still were interned without any just reason for doing that?

Mr. LOWMAN. Mr. Chairman, I will answer your question if you insist. Really, I would prefer not to take a position on whether Roosevelt's actions were justified, or whether reparations are due.

The thrust of my entire testimony is to straighten out the historical facts, and not rewrite history in this report. There is room enough for the Japanese community to achieve its legitimate aspirations and goals without rewriting history. My task here today has been really to call to the subcommittee's attention that fact that the history as shown in the Commission's report, insofar as intelligence is concerned, is a rewrite of history. It does not contain the actual facts at that time.

Senator STEVENS. I thank you very much. I appreciate your response to my question, too. Thank you, sir.

We will print your statement in full in the record. I apologize for not having the time to listen to it all.

Mr. LOWMAN. I would like if I may, to make a matter of the record, the larger report, the footnoted report, which I turned in, as well as three intelligence reports which were generated at that time.3

Senator STEVENS. We will be happy to have them, sir.

Mr. LOWMAN. I have given them to the subcommittee.

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lowman follows:]

3 The following documents submitted by the witness are on file with the subcommittee:
(1) Magic and the Japanese Relocation and Internment, by David D. Lowman. 45 pages.
(2) Memorandum of Brig. Gen. Mark J. Clark, U.S. Army, Feb. 12, 1942; subject: Enemy Aliens on the West Coast with attachment -- Army Information Bulletin, No. 6, dated January 21, 1942; subject: Japanese Espionage. 4 pages.
(3) Office of Naval Intelligence (14th Naval District) report and synopsis, dated Jan. 26, 1942; subject: Japanese Residents of the Territory of Hawaii, Loyalty of. 2 pages.
(4) Office of Naval Intelligence Report, dated Dec. 4, 1941; subject: Japanese Intelligence and Propaganda in the United States during 1941. 26 pages.


{The following is from page 339 of the record.}

SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENT
BY DAVID D. LOWMAN
ON
MAGIC AND THE JAPANESE
RELOCATION AND INTERNMENT

1 September 1984

During the hearings on S 2116 which were conducted in Los Angeles on 16 August 1984 by Senator Steven's subcommittee on Civil Service, Post Office and General Services, a Lt. Col. John Herzig, U.S. Army (Ret), testified that some of the statements which I made concerning Magic and certain intelligence reports were inaccurate and misleading. In the introduction of the report, Personal Justice Denied, put out by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Jack Herzig and Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga are given special thanks for their roles in compiling the report. I assume from this that Lt. Col. Herzig's particular interest in my testimony stems from that association.

The charges are easily countered, and I have done so. But the Commission (and its spokesman) would be well advised to accept the realities of the intelligence it "overlooked" and amend its report accordingly rather than to attack those who pointed out this oversight.

Initially, there was some question in my mind whether I should undertake to answer Lt. Col. Herzig's accusations since much of his testimony could be readily contradicted by a careful reading of my statement, and most of the remainder by checking my references.

How much time, for example, should I spend re-documenting the original Magic distribution list drawn up by General Marshall and Admiral Stark in January 1941, and then explaining that as time went on the list kept expanding both officially and unofficially?

Should I take the time to explain that the President's military aide, General Watson, who I am accused of omitting from the list, was part of the delivery system to the President and, of course, was privy to Magic as were all the people who delivered and decoded the messages and translated them?

I am called mistaken because I refer to certain Magic messages as espionage messages. Should I become entangled in semantic argument and write a reference paper, fully documented, pointing out that the Joint Congressional Committee, Gordon Prange, Roberta Wohlstetter, John Costello, and other historians also refer to these same cables as espionage messages?

Am I obliged to explain to Lt. Col. Herzig that while it is indeed cheaper to send a message by diplomatic pouch than by commercial cable, aircraft movements which, while they may be of marginal importance only, are even less so when delivered a week or more later, and therefore would be sent by cable?

In spite of the redundancy of re-citing my sources, I am assured by those who profess to know such things, that I must show some interest in rebutting Lt. Col. Herzig's charges.

Very well, calling attention to what I actually said and submitted to the Hall subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee in Wash., D.C. on 27 June 1984 will dispose of a number of charges.

First, I am quoted as saying that the evacuation and internment of people of Japanese ancestry was "warranted" and "justified" by the Magic messages, and that the messages "proved" disloyalty by some Japanese. Not so. What I said is that Roosevelt must have taken these messages into consideration when he made his evacuation decision and that in view of all the intelligence before him, he made an "understandable" decision. I have never claimed that Magic messages proved disloyalty by any individuals. I have said the messages indicated that large numbers of Japanese might be disloyal in view of the Japanese government's apparent success in establishing espionage nets on the West Coast utilizing resident Japanese. In any event, what counted was what Roosevelt and his key advisers perceived the situation to be, not what we debate it to be today.

For all kinds of ulterior motives I am accused of submitting only a portion of an ONI report dated 4 December 1941. My testimony states that the entire report was submitted to the subcommittee for record. It was duly accepted by the subcommittee and recorded in its entirety.

It is said that I quoted an unidentified Professor Jeffrey H. Dowart as my authority that Admirals Stark, Turner, and Wilkinson probably supported the official position which was evacuation. If the Lt. Col. will look at the bibliography of my submission, he will learn that Professor Dowart is the author of The U.S. Navy's Intelligence Dilemma 1919-1945, published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1983.

On page 8 Lt. Col. Herzig states, "The Commission in its four references to Cmdr. Ringle did not state, as Mr. Lowman charges, that he spoke for the Office of Naval Intelligence (Lowman, p. 26)." Read with comprehension, Colonel, and you will save all of us a lot of time and effort. What I said was: "Ringle was at the time a minor official and did not speak for ONI." Nowhere in my statement did I "charge" that the Commission said that Ringle spoke for ONI. Anything but. None of Ringle's proposals on evacuation were accepted by the Navy.

Let me deal with a variety of other charges given in Lt. Col Herzig's testimony before the Steven's Subcommittee on 16 August 1984.

(1) Herzig, P. 10. "Not one of the secondary sources Mr. Lowman has used establishes any connection between Magic and the Japanese relocation and internment."

Not true. See Costello, The Pacific War, p. 613. "It is possible to speculate that Roosevelt's decision to intern the Nisei population in midwestern camps was based on the evidence that these Magic diplomatic intercepts gave of Terasaki's extensive network of informants..."

(2) Herzig, p. 9. Quoting from Forest C. Pogue: "The relevance of Mr. Lowman's particular reference and his noting that General Marshall 'was an old and close friend of DeWitts' hardly bears on the central issue of loyalty of Japanese Americans."

The left-out part of Pogue's statement by Herzig is that in the past Marshall had relied heavily on DeWitt. The relevancy is Marshall's view of evacuation.

(3) Herzig, P. 12. "Nowhere in Wohlstetter's book is reference made to espionage, sabotage, fifth column activity or other subversive acts by Japanese Americans."

See Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor Warning and Decision, page 211, section titled "Espionage Messages" (yes, she uses the term "espionage"). Ms. Wohlstetter's sole interest is the attack on Pearl Harbor, and although she does mention espionage messages coming from the West Coast, it is only in connection with the Pearl Harbor attack. If her subject were the Japanese evacuation, I think it is fair to assume that she would mention those espionage messages associated with that event. As a major historian, she obviously was aware of the espionage messages and their content.

(4) Herzig, P. 7. "Dr. Trask appeared before the House subcommittee, this time as Chief Historian, U.S. Army Center of Military History. When asked by Chairman Sam Hall about Magic, this official stated that he had no reason to believe that the contents of Magic had an impact on the decision to expel persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast."

Lt. Col. Herzig was present during Trask's testimony and heard Chairman Hall attempt to pursue Trask's statement, whereupon Trask stated that he had little or no information on Magic and could not testify on the subject. How convenient to leave out this part.

(5) Herzig, P. 7. "In 104 pages of testimony, Mr. McCloy made no mention of Magic in connection with the exclusion and detention of Nikkei. Neither did he present any statement to support Mr. Lowman's claim that information from Magic provided evidence that the security of the U.S. from acts of espionage, sabotage, treason, sedition or subversion was threatened by Japanese Americans and, therefore, that their removal was warranted."

I have already pointed out the erroneous use of the word "warranted." During the Hall Subcommittee hearings on 21 June 1984, John S. McCloy testified that Secretary of War Stimson had cleared him for Magic. This statement is used by Herzig to illustrate my supposed lack of knowledge on Magic distribution since McCloy was not included by me on the original distribution list (and he was not on it), but the rest of McCloy's testimony is ignored. McCloy also stated unequivocally that Roosevelt read the Magic messages and that they were a factor in Roosevelt's decision. Lt. Col. Herzig was present during this testimony. {"Magic" mentioned over 20 times by McCloy in his testimony.}

(6) Herzig, P. 15. "The record shows that the Commission was aware of MAGIC but that there was no connection between MAGIC and the decision concerning the loyalty of Japanese Americans."

See N.Y. Times article of 27 May 1983, page 18, bearing the title, "1941 CABLES BOASTED OF JAPANESE AMERICAN SPYING," stating: "The Commission Chairman, Joan Z. Bernstein, the Commission Consul Angus MacBeth, and the Rev. Robert Drinan, a Commission member, said they had not been aware of the decoded cables."

Lt. Col. Herzig's line-by-line scrutiny should, however, not go unrewarded. In two of his charges he is technically correct.

(1) Herzig, P. 8, footnote 3: "There was no Director of Military Intelligence. Mr. Lowman was probably referring to the Assistant Chief for Intelligence (G-2) War Department."

Correct. Additional titles used were Chief, Military Intelligence Division, and Director of Military Intelligence for the Army, all the same man, Sherman Miles. I said Director of Military Intelligence, leaving off "for the Army." My mistake. (Lewin, in The American Magic, makes the same mistake, so at least I am in good company.)

(2) Herzig, P. 6. "In describing this memo, Mr. Lowman claims that General Clark states '...that G-2 has a copy' when in fact the document clearly reads, 'I am sure that G-2 of the Western Defense Command has all this information.' Gen. Clark did not say that WDC has a copy."

The criticism is correct. I assumed that an intelligence report concerning the WDC area would be sent to the WDC, and this thinking was reinforced by General Clark saying he was sure the WDC had the information (report?). (And I'll bet they did have it.)

Insofar as the Magic cables themselves are concerned, I am not going to get into a cable-by-cable debate. Lt. Col. Herzig has some unique interpretations of the meanings of some of the messages. I simply took them at their face value. I supposed that when a Japanese consulate on the West Coast after having been instructed to recruit local Japanese for espionage reported to Tokyo that:
"We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro area and San Diego area, who will keep watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destination of such shipments,"
and
"We also have connections with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes,"
that this meant that local Japanese had been recruited. But Lt. Col. Herzig on P. 11 says no, taken in full context the message does not say what was done, but what the consulate hopes will happen. Again, what matters is what Roosevelt and his advisers thought the messages meant in the context of that time. The messages themselves are the best evidence of what they say and what they mean. If the reader desires to pursue this subject further, he should read the messages and make his own judgment.

Much of Lt. Col. Herzig's testimony is a re-statement of positions taken by the Commission's report that there was no intelligence available to President Roosevelt and his key advisers, when E. O. 9066 was signed, which would indicate that there was an espionage problem with resident Japanese on the West Coast. To support this he cites testimony given before the Commission by an impressive array of witnesses. As Lt. Col. Herzig states, Magic cables were not referred to by any of them during these hearings. That is the problem. If the Commission had interviewed people concerned with this area of intelligence or had researched the Joint Congressional study or any of several histories or talked to historians specializing in this field, it would have discovered that there were Magic cables and intelligence reports stating that West Coast Japanese were involved in espionage. The fact that the Commission's witnesses didn't mention Magic is used as evidence to attack my credibility. But I didn't invent the Magic cables or the intelligence reports involved. I'm not the one attempting to re-write history.

My only role in this matter is to call attention to intelligence available to the President which would indicate that he did have legitimate cause for concern about the loyalty of large numbers of Japanese living on the West Coast in 1942, information which was not provided by the Commission which was charged to investigate this issue.

It was, after all, the U.S. Government which made the Magic messages available to the public, and the Joint Congressional Committee, not I, which said:
"Through the exploitation of intercepted and decoded messages between Japan and her diplomatic establishments, the so-called Magic, a wealth of intelligence concerning the purposes of the Japanese was available in Washington." (P. 179, Report of the JCC).

"Magic... contributed enormously to the defeat of the enemy, greatly shortened the war, and saved many thousands of lives." (P. 232, Report of the JCC).

"Washington authorities learned that Japanese spies and agents, directed by the Japanese Government, were collecting and transmitting to Tokyo an immense amount of exact and detailed information respecting the military and naval installations..." (P. 525, Report of the JCC).

"With extraordinary skill, zeal and watchfulness the intelligence services of the Army Signal Corps of the Navy Office of Naval Communications broke Japanese codes and intercepted messages between the Japanese Government and its spies and agents and ambassadors in all parts of the world and supplied the high authorities in Washington with reliable secret information respecting Japanese designs, decisions, and operations at home, in the United States, and in other countries." (P. 514, Report of the JCC).
Nor was it I who issued intelligence reports just prior to and just after Pearl Harbor stating that there were espionage nets utilizing local Japanese on the West Coast. It was ONI on 4 December 1941 which said Japanese intelligence activities during 1941 had culminated in "an intelligence machine geared for war," in operation, and utilizing West Coast Japanese. It was an ONI report on 26 January 1942 which concluded there was a likelihood "that Japanese residents, previously believed loyal to the United States, may aid Japan if further Japanese attacks appear successful." And it was an Army intelligence report on 21 January 1942 which concluded that "their espionage net containing Japanese aliens, first and second generation Japanese and other nationals, is now thoroughly organized and working underground."

All the above is at odds with the Commission's report. It is this material with which the Commission must cope, not me. Rather than attacking me for calling the attention of Congress to this "overlooked" intelligence, the Commission ought to be expending its energy adjusting its report to accommodate for the realities of this intelligence. The legitimate desires of all those concerned with the issue of Japanese evacuation and internment must be achieved within the limits of historical accuracy.
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