while not really cryptography related, i'd suggest a reading of the chapter
prologue to pearl harbor of herbert bix's hirohito and the making of
modern japan before taking seriously anything other than the finding that
the
japanese may have broken one (or more) american cipher.
comments on japanese surprise at the (long-standing) american insistence
on withdrawal from china seem akin to japanese hopes in mid-1945 that
somehow the soviets could be persuaded to intervene on their behalf
to avoid surrendering... (on this subject, richard frank's downfall has
some interesting analysis of what the americans were learning from the
various japanese ciphers in 1945, including the diplomatic and military
systems.)
-paul
--On Friday, 07 December, 2001 11:09 -0500 R. A. Hettinga
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2D120701codes
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-120701codes.story
Japan Broke U.S. Code Before Pearl Harbor, Researcher Finds
Asia: Discovery is based on papers unearthed in Tokyo. They show attack
may have been prompted by belief that Washington had decided on war. By
VALERIE REITMAN
Times Staff Writer
December 7 2001
TOKYO -- Toshihiro Minohara made a startling discovery while digging
through the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., last summer.
While researching secret codes used prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor
60 years ago, the young Japanese American professor stumbled upon a
document, declassified by the CIA about five years ago, that proved that
Tokyo had succeeded in breaking the U.S. and British diplomatic codes. A
few microfilmed documents, showing the Japanese translations of the
telegrams, were attached.
Minohara knew he was on to something important: For decades it was widely
believed that Japan, then a developing country with a fierce rivalry
between its army and navy, hadn't been up to measure when it came to
code-breaking, particularly the documents of the Americans.
We are so . . . arrogant, said Donald Goldstein, a professor at the
University of Pittsburgh and co-author of At Dawn We Slept: The Untold
Story of Pearl Harbor. It's very possible they could have broken our
code, so why shouldn't they have?
Research in Tokyo Confirms Findings
Further research by a colleague in Japan confirmed the findings--and may
shed light on the mind-set that caused Japan's last holdouts for peace to
opt for war just weeks before the attack, Minohara said this week.
When Minohara sent fellow Kobe University teacher Satoshi Hattori to check
Japan's diplomatic archives in Tokyo, he wasn't optimistic: Most
top-secret documents were burned after being read in wartime Japan. Those
that remained were confiscated by the U.S. during the occupation that
followed Japan's 1945 defeat; they are now housed in U.S. archives.
But Hattori unearthed a folder marked Special Documents, containing 34
communiques that would have been easy to overlook--and apparently have
been by other Japanese researchers numerous times. They are simple typed
pages, written primarily in English, of U.S. and British diplomatic
discussions and telegrams, many from U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull
to various U.S. ambassadors.
The contents of the documents have long been known to historians the world
over, and some even pop up on the Internet. But their appearance in the
Japanese archives reveals that Tokyo knew what was going on in Washington
in the weeks before Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
killing more than 2,000 people.
Minohara says his findings may shed light on why the few doves in the
Japanese Cabinet--in particular, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo--dropped
their opposition to war.
Japan Stunned by Hard-Line U.S. Edict
The U.S., alarmed by the march of Japan's Imperial Army through Asia, had
imposed an oil embargo on the nation and told it to get out of China,
among other things. Togo had sent a conciliatory rebuttal, known as the
Five Points Plan, offering some concessions and seeking to continue
discussions.
Japan knew from the decoded cables that the U.S. had been seriously
considering some of the compromises. But on Nov. 26, 1941, the Americans
stunned Japan with a hard-line edict essentially ordering Tokyo's troops
to get out of China and Indochina or face the consequences. This
apparently convinced even Togo that the U.S. had decided on war.
Many historians have speculated that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was
looking for an excuse to get into the war in Europe; they posit that he
knew Japan would attack but thought the target might be American forces in
the Philippines or instead perhaps Malaya, then a British colony, which
would prompt the U.S. to come to the aid of its ally.
The newly revealed documents raise an interesting question, Minohara says.
Had the American side accepted the compromises it was considering--lifting
the oil
