<Begin Segment 18>

HM: Normally, in the afternoon, when they have the afternoon break, it is our lunch break, we would discuss the issues and then, further we'd determine which ones we would seek further information about. And then it would go into a kind of a summary format, and we would identify each of these areas and then we'd make -- at that time they used to have the photocopy machines -- not the ones we have now -- but they used to be using reflex paper, and we'd file that stuff and then the courier would run it to the Pentagon the following day. But because of the Sunday night situation, nothing was being asked for, and we were free to do as we pleased. And, one time I got into this conversation that I was in Minidoka, camp in Idaho, and this guy knew quite a bit about all the legal ramifications of World War II. He knew about Rosenburg case, he knew of a lot of this stuff. And of course he had been working there for quite a while. So one day, he gives me this list of dossier numbers, and he says, "Why don't you look these things up? They might be of interest to you." So I said, I asked him, "What is it for?" And he said, "When you look at the first file, you'll understand." So I went searching for these files, start looking at 'em and then, this is about the reports and the camps. Fascinating reports in fact. By the end of that first day that I was looking at the thing, here are guys that I knew about, names I recognized. I thought geez, this is damn interesting.

TI: And these were written by whom? By the administration, the WRA, or --

GH: No, this was by the informant system and the agent system that the CIC had under their control.

TI: Okay.

HM: Okay. Now I'll get to that next point...

TI: Okay.

HM: ...little bit later on because there's a connection right at the end of my army career. Anyway, I looked at this thing and I thought to myself, no wonder this block manager was never able to get out of camp. You know, they had fingered him and said he was suspect of doing this, suspect of doing that. Nothing that proved that he was doing some of these things, but he was suspect of it. Allegations were made and this was in the reports. And I, the more I looked in the thing, by the time I got to the end of the file numbers I thought, oh man this stuff, this thing is really interesting. And so during the remainder of the week I used to investigate all the other associated dossier numbers, because they would have agent names on it, agent numbers. And I thought man, we were really well-infiltrated as a, as a population. And then of course this one assignment he had was because his student friend was the son of Kimmel. One weekend when we had nothing to do he says, "Why don't we look at the Pearl Harbor court-martial file." And that's what we did. We looked under all the army testimony files. The depositions that they made prior to the testimony of these individuals to that court martial. And so anyway, he arranged a meeting with this guy's son, Kimmel's son. We met with him in Baltimore on the weekend and had a long discussion with him and told him what we had found out and been exposed to, but we can't get anything out for you.

TI: Because Kimmel's son wanted to clear his father's name.

HM: Yeah.

TI: And so he was trying to get in there --

HM: As far as I know, even up to several years ago he had a bill in Congress to repudiate the court-martial. And, but at that time it didn't get through Congress. I don't know what has gone on since that time. Anyway he was making a very strong effort to repudiate both General Short's court-martial, as well as Admiral Kimmel's.

TI: And the information that you're referring to is information that is classified that won't be opened up for some period of time?

HM: Yeah. It won't be opened up 'til 2044.

TI: And that's what, you say ninety-nine years after the...

HM: End of World War II. Like the Civil war, it ended in 19 -- 1865 I believe it was, well they didn't open it up 'til ninety-nine years after the fact. That's when we found out that Hooker and all his, his funny things that he was doing, the reason why hookers are called hookers today is because of his operations. But that kind of stuff didn't come out 'til long after the Civil War was ended.

TI: Now with the Freedom of Information Act, would some of this material be available?

HM: No because it pertains to National Security items. And if it's sensitive they, they would keep it classified in that manner. A lot of it has been declassified. A lot of it has been purged. In fact, during one exercise at the Central Records Facility they got so many files that they couldn't hold it all so they started purging all the old stuff and stuff that was irrelevant to National Security issues.

TI: I guess I want to go back to what you've, what you read about Minidoka. I mean how much can you tell me about in terms of that information.

HM: Well --

TI And clarify because it's not really clear to me when you said that the community was really well-infiltrated? How, what can you tell me about that a little bit more?

HM: Okay.

TI: I'm not real clear about that.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.