Wikipedia say on their page on Adm Richardson, that some stuff from the Pearl Harbor period has yet to be released. I would like to know if this is true or not. Anyone who says one way or the other, pls sight your source. From Wiki on Richardson: Richardson is consequently a main focus of historical revisionists, who claim pre-war intelligence that heavily suggested Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy in early December was deliberately withheld from the military commanders at Pearl Harbor by the Roosevelt administration.[1] The CIA still refuses to release many of the JN-25 codes deciphered before Dec. 7, 1941, 2/3 of a Century later.
Wikipedia say on their page on Adm Richardson, that some stuff from the Pearl Harbor period has yet to be released. I would like to know if this is true or not. Anyone who says one way or the other, pls sight your source. From Wiki on Richardson: Richardson is consequently a main focus of historical revisionists, who claim pre-war intelligence that heavily suggested Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy in early December was deliberately withheld from the military commanders at Pearl Harbor by the Roosevelt administration.[1] The CIA still refuses to release many of the JN-25 codes deciphered before Dec. 7, 1941, 2/3 of a Century later. For a successful intercept you need one thing. A broadcast. Some people might think the Japanese were casual with security, but those are only the really silly people. BTW, DogFather, do you know how the Japanese ships communicated at Hittokapu Bay?
Regarding the release of decryption techniques: Would you post your Social Security Number to the web? Why not, you got it a long time ago, right? Oh, you're still using it, and even if you weren't people could still use it to learn things about you? The JN codes were broken by brute force methods, and revealing those methods would mean people would have better ideas about making tough-to-crack codes if they studied those methods. And believe me, people are working on better codes as we speak. So giving them "study material" is stupid. Even telling people which messages we decoded is a clue, because it tells them which messages we DIDN'T decode. Or couldn't, which is worse.
Regarding the release of decryption techniques: Would you post your Social Security Number to the web? Why not, you got it a long time ago, right? Oh, you're still using it, and even if you weren't people could still use it to learn things about you? The JN codes were broken by brute force methods, and revealing those methods would mean people would have better ideas about making tough-to-crack codes if they studied those methods. And believe me, people are working on better codes as we speak. So giving them "study material" is stupid. Even telling people which messages we decoded is a clue, because it tells them which messages we DIDN'T decode. Or couldn't, which is worse. Your ananology fails, because a "Social Security Number" represents me for life. A coded message, may only be relevent to a short period of time. It is just not the same thing. Ya sure there isn't something embarrassing, to the US or about FDR, that might be the reason, all that stuff is still classified. Code breaking back then, was very different. They had computers, but nothing like today's technology. I'm just not sure, our code breaking of that time, would be much of much value to breaking, today's encryption, or other current measures taken to secure communications.
Your ananology fails, because a "Social Security Number" represents me for life. A coded message, may only be relevent to a short period of time. It is just not the same thing. Ya sure there isn't something embarrassing, to the US or about FDR, that might be the reason, all that stuff is still classified. Code breaking back then, was very different. They had computers, but nothing like today's technology. I'm just not sure, our code breaking of that time, would be much of much value to breaking, today's encryption, or other current measures taken to secure communications. You missed (or ignored) most of my previous post. Get back to me when you've read it.
For a successful intercept you need one thing. A broadcast. Some people might think the Japanese were casual with security, but those are only the really silly people. BTW, DogFather, do you know how the Japanese ships communicated at Hittokapu Bay? I'm not sure what you mean here. My understanding is, our code breakers had a lot of material (intercepts) to work with. I'm looking at the bigger picture. Not just the FDR foreknowledge conspricy therory, of Roberts Stinnet's book. I have never quoted any info out of Stinnet's book. I have only read parts of Stinnet's book, posted by others. My understanding is that the Japanese fleet, kept radio silence, while they assembled in Hittokapu Bay, before steaming to their planned Pearl Harbor attack, launch location. So, they would have used visual signals, on the way to attack PH. IIRC, there is stuff the Brits still don't want known, way back to WW1.
Your analogy still fails. And I was pointing out that the cryppies didn't intercept any warnings about Pearl Harbor because none were broadcast. The Japanese weren't that silly. I asked you about Hittokapu Bay, not the trip en route to Territory of Hawaii.
The CIA still refuses to release many of the JN-25 codes deciphered before Dec. 7, 1941, 2/3 of a Century later. The problem with this is that no documents using the Jn-25 code were deciphered until late May 1942. We could read thier diplomatic messages, but none of those mentions anything about an impending attack.
From Mikebatzel's post #8; Originally Posted by Dog_Father The CIA still refuses to release many of the JN-25 codes deciphered before Dec. 7, 1941, 2/3 of a Century later. The problem with this is that no documents using the Jn-25 code were deciphered until late May 1942. We could read thier diplomatic messages, but none of those mentions anything about an impending attack. I think you may be wrong here re the date. The earliest readings of complete IJN JN-25 messages was late March 1942 [Elphick, see below]. During the inter-war years several of the leading members of the British government's Code and Cipher School became expert at breaking Japanese codes and ciphers. They were; John Tiltman, an infantry officer who won the Military Cross in the trenches of WW1. Eric Nave, a Royal Australian Navy officer seconded to work with the British. Hugh Foss, one of the true British code-breaking eccentrics. They were breaking Japanese naval, military and diplomatic codes and ciphers long before the equivalent American code-breaking operation saw similar success. Nave was reading all of the early Japanese naval codes in the late 1920s. British code-breakers lead by Foss were the first to break a Japanese diplomatic ma chine cipher in 1934. And it was Tiltman who first broke JN25 a few weeks after it was introduced in 1939. The Americans, working independently, later came to make their own breaks into the Japanese codes and ciphers. But they were hampered by their lack of experience, the occasional refusal of the government to accept the necessity of their work [one inter-war Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, later declared that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"], and an intense rivalry between US Army and US Navy code-breakers. It was not until Rowlwtt's breaking of Purple, at a time when all the British machine cipher experts were concentrating their energies on the German Enigma machine, that American code-breaking operation really came into its own. [Ref; THE EMPEROR'S CODES by Michael Smith. Bantam Press 2000 p5.] Smith co-authored ODD MAN OUT with Peter Elphick, the story of the NZ born Irish spy Patrick Heenan who spied for the IJA in their invasion of Malaya. The events above are confirmed in A MAN OF INTELLIGENCE by Ian Pfennigwerth, which is a biography of Eric Nave, the Australian code-breaker However Peter Elphick, in his FAR EASTERN FILE The Intelligence War in the Far East 1930-1945, reports that the British claim is exaggerated somewhat and that both British and US teams had been independently trying to break JN-25 [of which there were at least four variants designated a, b, c, and d.] Elphick writes; Captain William Purnell, Hart's Chief of Staff [Adm.Thomas C.Hart was joint commander with Lt.Gen.Douglas MacArthur of Philippines Defense Forces] made several visits to Singapore during this period [late 1940] taking with him intelligence specialists. During one such visit, says Leutze [Hart's biographer] American cryptanalysts were provided by the British with complete information on the makeup of the Japanese Navy's code system that carried the heaviest volume, its idiosyncracies etc, and the keys they had thus far broken down. That passage seems to imply that the British in 1941 had JN-25........at its fingertips, but that is certainly an exaggeration. The passage needs to be compared with the statement made by commander Rudolph J.Fabian USN, at the Hewitt Enquiry into Pearl Harbor in 1945. As a lieutenant, Fabian had been in charge of the naval cryptanalytic group on Corregidor Island, and in his sworn testimony stated that his unit had, in late 1941, been working on the Japanese naval system known as JN-25, which was the system containing the greatest volume of Japanese despatches. 'They were only in the initial stages of breaking the code and were exchanging values, both code and cypher recoveries, with the British in Singapore, but we had not yet developed either to the point where we could read enemy intercepts.' The American contribution to the decrypting of JN-25 was vastly improved by the assignment of the brilliant Lt.Commander Joseph Rochefort to work on it within days of the onslaught on Pearl Harbor. His office in Hawaii added considerably to the work already done and continuing by Fabian's unit on Corregidor, the US naval section in Washington OP-20-G and by FECB, the British Far Eastern Combined Bureau which was variously centred at Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo and Kilindini [Kenya] Under this concentrated focus, JN-25 became almost an open book in a very short time. Biggles, Prime
If you want a proper answer why not contact the Museum of Cryptology which I am led to believe exists in the Washington DC area. If unclassified they will let you know one way or another.
Photo of Lt.Commander C.G.Richardson USN US People--Rosendahl, Charles E. (1892-1977) FRUMEL Personnel & History [Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne] RAN/USN Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne - FRUMEL LCDR Gill M.Richardson is last name Col.1 Hi Dog Father, Can you be a little more specific about Adm Richardson? Code traffic at this time in the Pacific is of some interest to me. I have some good histories of Pearl Harbour 07/12/41, the foremath and the aftermath. Are you familiar with a book titled THREE DAYS TO PEARL by Peter J.Shepherd [Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2000]? I have this book but not read it yet. Shepherd was an RAF pilot stationed in Northern Malaya [Sungei Patani] who claims to have learned while on a secret mission to China of the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor three days prior to their ocurrence. You write; "............some stuff from the Pearl Harbor period has yet to be released." What government or armed services section has the final say on release of "stuff" like this? The American historian, John Costello, laments also on the apparently unreasonable concern for historical reputations by clandestine authority. I read that he had discovered that some records had a 70 year withholding period. If the release date is measured from the date a document is generated then that time expires in 2011. Perhaps another barrage of books has been semi-completed in expectation of Earth-shattering revelation sometime in the first half of 2012. Costello, in his DAYS OF INFAMY Pocket Books Dec.1995, on p.335 Epilogue, mentions Vice Admiral David C.Richardson, "a distinguished intelligence specialist who had served at Pearl Harbor until 1941". Can I presume that a discussion is imminent or in progress concerning the US navy intelligence office [OP-20-G?]receipt of a higashi no kaze ame or east winds rain message decrypt prior to 07/12/41? Or is there some other aspect of the so-called Pearl Harbor conspiracy receiving attention? I hope we can generate some expert contributions to this topic. Biggles Prime
Can I presume that a discussion is imminent or in progress concerning the US navy intelligence office [OP-20-G?]receipt of a higashi no kaze ame or east winds rain message decrypt prior to 07/12/41? Or is there some other aspect of the so-called Pearl Harbor conspiracy receiving attention? FYI, "east wind rain" would not have needed decryption, it was to be broadcast in plain language. And the Winds system was never implemented because communications with the Japanese embassies was not broken prior to war starting. So it was never heard as a code signal (meaning that it was never properly broadcast in the format needed to trigger further events) and thus we could not have heard it.
