Akira Kawasaki wrote: >Military documents obtained through "Freedom of Information Act" invoked by >Stinnet shows that United States >had broken both diplomatic and military codes used by Japan by 1939-1940.
That was not released from the F.O.I.A. It was common knowledge decades before that act was passed. It was described in books published in the 1960s. > Roosevelt knew every move Japan was making. > He knew that their navy was on the way. No, he did not. First, they never broadcast their intentions in any code -- no navy does. Second, the I.J.N. code was not "broken" completely. Note that it was a code, with thousands of random numbers substituting for words, and there were several different versions. whereas the diplomatic "code" was a cypher. When you crack a cypher, you can read the entire message. In 1941 and 1942, U.S. intelligence could read 10 or 15% of the I.J.N. codes, but every time the code books changed (such as just before Midway) they were back to square zero. Most of their analysis was based on frequency, direction, identifying operators, and cracking some key words. (Later in the war, they used IBM punch card equipment to read more.) > There was no radio silence as asserted. There was radio silence before Pearl Harbor! The radios were mechanically disabled to prevent an accidental transmission. The regular operators were back in Tokyo sending fake messages or none at all. The U.S. listeners could identify the individual operators by their touch, and they know which operator was assigned to which ship, so they had every reason to think the fleet was at home. > Pearl Harbor was not a surprise . . . It was the biggest surprise in U.S. military history. > It is also safe to assume that United States knew about Japan scrambling to > come to surrender negotiations > through then neutral Russia much prior to dropping of the Atomic Bomb. Sure they did. Heck, Time magazine published articles about it. There was a huge debate in the U.S. for a month as to whether to accept a surrender with only the Emperor's role preserved. The Japanese also sent messages via Russia and neutral third parties. The Japanese tried to keep the negotiations secret, but the U.S. broadcast the exchanges, printed millions of copies of the letters and air dropped them on Japan. It stirred up a hornet's nest of opposition from the hard-core militarists. - Jed
