Again, I cannot see how you can observe nothing and call it evidence. It is semantics, really, since it makes no difference for the equations, but it makes ~E a positive observation of something and E a negative observation, which is, to me, silly.

These are Q and R, respectively. They are not negations of each other. Do you agree?

Yes. Though, again, I'd rather R be "There is a 5th column" to keep it from being confusing.

With Q there was no evidence that the fifth column was coordinating a timed attack, yet Warren's strongest evidence for it was that there was no evidence for it.

Pearl harbor types of evidence are black swans. You can't just pull them out of the air and add them to your reasoning when you have no solid justification for it. There are a billion other black swans he could have used - what if the Japanese are actually all vampires and had designs on draining the Americans dry? You've got no evidence they aren't, so clearly they are just biding their time!

The former is slightly more reasonable, since something similar had happened recently (though in an entirely different context), but it is no more justified as evidence than the evidence in the vampire scenario.

You must look for other evidence that suggests the 5th column was planning an attack, the fact that you have not been attacked yet is not in any way evidence that they are planning an attack. It is only really evidence that, if they were planning something, they hadn't done it yet. That's all you can get from that - just a guess.

To that end, Warren had no evidence that an American chapter of the 5th Column even existed. There was secret evidence to that effect, but he was not privy to it. He was making the whole thing up because he was afraid.

It was completely unjustified.

Besides, it doesn't make sense. Timed attacks are designed to catch you off guard. After Pearl Harbor, people were always on guard. It wouldn't have had the same effect; a much more effective strategy would have been smaller, guerrilla-type sabotages from within, which they also had zero evidence of.