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).
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.
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.
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading to the United States entrance into World War II. A couple months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that all persons of Japanese decent must be secluded. The Japanese were sent to internment camps outside of the pacific military zone, due to the fear Americans had of Japanese espionage. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a major shock for America, and it created extreme fear and paranoia that the Japanese-Americans would help Japan win the war. There was a widespread stigma of anti-Japanese attitudes and racism; therefore, the government concluded it was easier to seclude them from the rest of America. The
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.
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
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.
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.
“AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” This is the message sent out by radioman Kyle Boyer at 7:58 a.m. Sunday December 7, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. The empire of Japan had attacked the United States’ Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. For months the US Intelligence community, as well as others around the world, had been intercepting and decoding transmissions from mainland Japan to their diplomats and spies in the US. We had cracked their Purple Code, and knew exactly what military intelligence was being transmitted back and forth. The Dutch also cracked Purple and informed our government of the Japanese plan and were shocked to hear reports that we were taken by surprised. Even more disturbing, months before the attack a British double agent, Dusko Popov, codenamed Tricycle, turned over to the F.B.I. detailed plans of the Japanese air raid, which he had obtained from the Germans. The government had the information, and did nothing with it.
Zimm, Alan D. Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions / Alan D. Zimm ; Graphics by Matt Baughman. Philadelphia, [Pa.: Casemate, 2011. Print.
Over the year and a half between Pearl Harbor and Midway the United States made headway with various technological and military advantages. One of the most important of which was the code breaking efforts of Commander Joseph J. Rochefort Jr. “Most of the U.S’s information [on Japan] came from Rochefort. R...
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
Introduction – Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to attack because of the obstruction of defense and warning.
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.
‘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)