Word: starke
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Confused? A hastily gathered staff meeting decided that the Jap note meant war, that a warning should go immediately to Hawaii, the Philippines, the West Coast, the Canal. General Marshall called Admiral Harold R. ("Betty") Stark, then Chief of Naval Operations. "Betty" Stark thought by some obscure reasoning that further warnings would "only confuse" field commanders...
Others who would help piece the story together: General George Marshall, Lieut. General Leonard T. Gerow, chief of the war plans division; Admiral Harold R. Stark, then Chief of Naval Operations; Admiral William F. Halsey, who was leading a task force toward Pearl Harbor when the Japs struck; Grace Tully, personal secretary to Franklin Roosevelt and guardian of his personal papers; Secretaries Hull, Welles and Grew and Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who in his 1944 campaign had abjured all reference to the cracking of the Jap code, on the suggestion of the U.S. Army...
Last week this wretched, sleazy city was stark and rude, its colors mud-brown, grime-grey and the red of rusted iron roofing on shacks where bombed-out thousands lived. The wind, as characteristic of Tokyo as of Chicago, touched the rubble heaps, whined along the empty streets, but never quite carried away the ancient stench of fish and sewage...
...Stark had failed to give Kimmel all the information at hand on Jap intentions. Stark had even written Kimmel (in a personal letter) on Oct. 17: "I do not believe the Japs are going to sail into us." Stark's messages had "directed Kirnmel's attention toward the Far East" as the most probable Jap target if they should attack, rather than toward Hawaii; this was the conviction also generally held in Washington...
Whatever the mannerly Navy court thought, Forrestal and King were sternly convinced, and ruled that both Kimmel and Stark were guilty of "faults of omission" and unfit to hold "any position in the U.S. Navy which requires the exercise of superior judgment." Both officers' careers were thus ignominiously ended...