Combating Japanese Espionage with MAGIC
The use of espionage by the Japanese government against the United States was prevalent just before World War II and immediately following the United States entry into the war. In fact, the intelligence derived from Japanese espionage helped prepare the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. However, unbeknownst to Japanese diplomats, the United States was decrypting their communications through a secret program called MAGIC. This program would eventually document the vast espionage activity conducted by the Japanese government.
History of MAGIC
The Cipher Bureau
In May of 1919, the first civilian intelligence agency in the United States was created, called the Cipher Bureau. The Cipher Bureau was headed by the former Chief of the Army cryptographic section of Military Intelligence (MI-8), Herbert O. Yardley. The primary mission of the Cipher Bureau was the decryption of foreign diplomatic communications. Although the Cipher Bureau had many undocumented successes, their most famous success came during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922 (NSA, 2012). The Cipher Bureau was able to decrypt the communications of the Japanese delegation to the conference. This information gave the United States a tangible advantage at the negotiation table against the Japanese, regarding naval limitations. Unfortunately, in 1929 the Cipher Bureau would be decommissioned as the new Secretary of State did not agree with the practice of Communication Intelligence (COMINT) during peacetime. This new Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, would go on to publicly rationalize his decision to close down the Cipher Bureau by saying, "Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail (NSA, 2012)....
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Works Cited
National Counterintelligence Center (NCC). 2010. Chapter 2: Magic. Volume 2: A Counterintelligence Reader – Counterintelligence in World War II.
NSA. 2009. Pearl Harbor Review - Red and Purple. National Security Agency/Central Security Service. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/pearl_harbor_review/red_purple.shtml (accessed 26 January 2014).
NSA. 2009. Pearl Harbor Review - Signal Intelligence Service. National Security Agency/Central Security Service. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/pearl_harbor_review/sis.shtml (accessed 26 January 2014).
NSA. 2012. Pearl Harbor Review - The Black Chamber. National Security Agency/Central Security Service. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/pearl_harbor_review/black_chamber.shtml (accessed 26 January 2014).
Prior to the dispatch of September 24, the information which the Japanese sought and obtained about Pearl Harbor followed the general pattern of their interest in American Fleet movements in other localities. One might suspect this type of conventional espionage. With the dispatch of September 24, 1941, and those which followed, there was a significant and ominous change in the character of the information which the Japanese Government sought and obtained. The espionage then directed was of an unusual character outside the realm of reasonable suspicion. It was no longer merely directed to ascertaining the general whereabouts of ships of the fleet. It was directed to the presence of particular ships in particular areas; to such minute detail as what ships were double-docked at the same wharf….These Japanese instructions and reports pointed to an attack by Japan upon the ships in Pearl Harbor. The information sought and obtained, with such painstaking detail had no other conceivable usefulness from a military
Previous to the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, tensions had been forming between the USA and Japan in the Pacific. The US had cut most supplies to Japan with the fear of Japanese expansion. The conflict that had been escalating between Japan and China since 1937 had the US treating Japan with great cautiousness. They had been monitoring Japanese Americans in anticipation of a surprise attack. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor still shocked and outraged the American nation and affected the American psyche.
Zimm, Alan D. Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions / Alan D. Zimm ; Graphics by Matt Baughman. Philadelphia, [Pa.: Casemate, 2011. Print.
Prior to this event, America was still divided over whether or not to participate. Even as the Rape of Nanking, one of the most infamous war crimes committed by the Japanese, became known to the public, Americans were reluctant to intervene in foreign affairs (Document D). After the United States placed an oil embargo on Japan for invading Manchuria, the desperate Japanese shocked the nation by bombing Pearl Harbor on the “day that will live in infamy” on December 7, 1941. This was the final act that instigated the American entrance into the war on December 8, 1941. Although previous incidents could be considered negligible, the bombing of Pearl Harbor directly affected the Americans and created a full consensus to intervene in the war. However, this decision was seemed inevitable; America was already so economically and politically influential in the world stage that America would have to get involved in this global crisis sooner or later (Document C). The great economic and political influence America had, accompanied by the growing financial support to Allies hinted towards support for the more democratic countries, but after the aggressive Japanese attack, America was finally unified and internationally proclaimed its decision to abandon isolationism for full
Year’s prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor the United States Government intercepted and decoded secret messages from the Japanese Islands and the Japanese Government. During that time the relationship with the Japanese Government and the rest of the world, especially the United States, was extremely tenuous. To avoid a war, which had begun to loom in the waters of the Pacific, off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands, a territory of the United States, Great Britain, the United States and other countries of the world called for all trade to the Japanese Islands be halted and assets to be frozen, which ultimately caused a near collapse of the Japanese economy. In the early Fall of 1941 the U.S. Government, knowing a possible war approached, secretly requested that those Japanese immigrants and the large population of Japanese- Americans (those born in the United States) be questioned as to their loyalty. “The President of the United States ordered a special intelligence finding investigation to be conducted” (Armor and Wright, 13-14).
158-59. 8 Hamilton Fish, p. 139. 9 Bruce R. Bartlett, Cover-up: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, (New York: Arlington House, 1978), pp. 56-87. 10 Arthur Meier Schlesinger, p. 54.
Prange, Gordon W., Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.
25.Griffin, David Ray The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé 2008, Olive Branch Press
Allen, Thomas B. Remember Pearl Harbor: American and Japanese Survivors Tell Their Stories. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001. Print.
At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time (12:55 p.m. EST) on December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, launching one of the deadliest attacks in American history. The assault, which lasted less than two hours, claimed the lives of more than 2,400 people, wounded 1,000 more and damaged or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Almost half of the casualties at Pearl Harbor occurred on the naval battleship USS Arizona, which was hit four times by Japanese bombers. As we commemorate the anniversary of this “date which will live in infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it on December 8, 1941, explore five little-known facts about USS Arizona and the attack that plunged America into war.
The American Revolution saw the rise of the American spy, and the father of these spies was George Washington, commander in Chief of the Continental Army. The siege of New York demonstrated the importance and dire need for intelligence to General Washington. Unfortunately, the difficulty, at least initially, lies with finding people willing and able to serve in this manner. Upon recognizing the necessity for a network of subterfuge, Washington created the Culper spy ring. Housed in New York City under the command of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, its purpose was more than merely gaining intelligence.
However, they didn’t know where or how the attack would occur. The surprise attack turned out to be a launch on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This angered Americans to the extent that the US declared war on Japan the next day. Even though the US favored neutrality, the United States was forced to enter war. The progressive violent actions of the Japanese government against the US economic interests are what ultimately triggered the United States’s declaration to enter the war.
This paper will compare Gordon W. Prange's book "At Dawn We Slept - The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor" with the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" directed by Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, and Toshio Masuda. While the film provides little background to the attack, its focal point is on the Pearl Harbor assault and the inquiry of why it was not prevented, or at least foreseen in adequate time to decrease damage. Prange's book examines the assault on Pearl Harbor from both the Japanese and American viewpoints to gain a global view of the situation and the vast provision undertaken by Japanese intelligence. The film and book present the Japanese side, the American side, the events that lead up to the attack, and the aftermath.
The United States government knew well of Japan’s intent to attack Pearl Harbor well before the occurred. The attack may have been a surprise to Pearl Harbor, but it sure wasn’t to Franklin D. Roosevelt and few select top armed forces advisors of his. An investigation after the attack revealed that the intercepting station received at least forty-three different decoded messages that had clues to the attack. The president had at least four intelligence officers under direct orders from Roosevelt. They had decoded the Japanese code and had been monitoring their communications before the attack. They knew all about news of the planned attack. In 48 hours before the attack, LTC Clifford M. Andrew, was told to burn forty file cabinets of top secret information on Pearl Harbor so no investigation could seek out the truth which was labeled top secret and destroyed.
‘Even within the US intelligence community, however, some confusion and disagreement about counterintelligence persists. For example, it is often misunderstood as another name for security’. (Wasemiller, A. C.,1969)