On November 27, 1941, President Roosevelt met with Army Chief-of-Staff George C. Marshall and Chief of Naval Operations Harold K. Stark to discuss the rising tensions in the western Pacific. They decided to alert senior officials and commanders in the Pacific of the imminent threat of war. The two service chiefs dispatched messages with such phrases as "This is to be considered a war warning", "move by Japan is expected within the next few days", and "hostile action possible at any moment".
Naturally the U.S. High Commissioner for the Philippines, Francis B. Sayre, was on the distribution list for these messages. When they arrived, he promptly called a meeting of the two senior officers in the Archipelago, Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, and Adm. Thomas Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet.
Hart proposed the immediate implementation of planned defensive measures. MacArthur demurred.
As Sayre later wrote, the general "paced back and forth, smoking a black cigar and assuring Admiral Hart and myself in reassuring terms that there would be no Japanese attack before Spring".
The Japanese struck nine days later