TheCodeBreakers
I nodded toward the' door. The Ambassadors turned without a
word and walked out, their heads down.
The warlords' hopes of shaving the warning time to the closest
possible margin had quite literally gone up in the smoke of attack, and
Japan had 'started hostilities without giving prior notification. Later, this
failure to declare war would be made part of the charges on which the
Japanese war criminals were tried—and convicted, some of them paying
with their lives. Togo would try to exonerate himself by throwing the
blame on the embassy personnel for neglecting to decipher the cables
promptly and to type the ultimatum at once. Perhaps some lawyer's
talking point might have been salvaged if the ambassadors had grabbed
Okumura's original copy, no matter how messy, and taken it to Hull at 1
p.m., or if they had taken the first few pages of the fair copy at 1 p.m.
and directed the embassy staff to rush the other pages over as
completed
annaabi.ee 
