Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 04:08 PM 1/25/96 -0500, hallam@w3.org wrote:
>
>>Why is he our patron saint? He was a government official coming out
>>against invasion of privacy. Isn't that what we are all after, in the
>>end?
>
>There is a considerable difference between running a government and being an 
>individual. It is not merely ethical for one government to read another's 
mail, 
>it is a duty.
>
>By not taking adequate steps to inform itself of the Japaneese intentions 
the US 
>suffered the loss of a substantial part of the US fleet at Pearl Harbour. Had 
>sufficient resources been avaliable the naval codes could have been cracked 
in 
>time.  The closure of the Black chamber was a key reason why US espionage 
>efforts were inadequate at the start of WWII.

While this may be based on the "classic" view of the start of the direct 
involvement in WWII, I agree with the opinion of an old college professor 
that the US KNEW that the Japanese were going to attack, SOMEWHERE and 
SOMEWHEN (but not exactly), and in fact WANTED the attack to occur to 
justify getting into a war that we "should" have entered.  And  in 
hindsight, I do not necessarily disagree with such a goal, within the 
limited context of the circumstances at the time.  An extention of this 
interpretation is that much of the fleet was kept at Pearl to "lure" the 
Japanese into doing an attack that could be used to rally the public.  (they 
needed to have enough "bait" to justify an attack.)

Obviously, if that was the intention, then the big surprise was how 
EFFECTIVE the attack was going to be:  Far from just "rallying the public" 
it smashed our defenses.

The reason I mention this interpretation is that it entirely turns around 
your argument:  Our criticism should not be how little we knew of Japanese 
intentions, but how we incompetently delayed entering a war that "needed to 
be fought."

Naturally, however, considering the results of the attack, it would have 
been totally unthinkable to reveal to the public that the bigshots had 
actually DESIRED the attack; a far less incriminating version of the story 
is that some other people were merely negligent.

Now, I was born in 1958 and thus can't claim personal knowledge of the time, 
but it's truly amazing how UNPERCEPTIVE the public must have been in the 
late 40's and early '50s about "intelligence" realities.  Let me give you a 
specific example:  The classic movie, "The Man who Never Was," relates the 
(true) story of a counter-intelligence mission done by the British to (I 
think) mislead the Germans into believing that the attack on Sicily would be 
substantially LATER than it actually was.  The British took a man who had 
died of some natural disease (with the permission of his family, of course), 
dressed him up as if he were a courier and dumped his body (carried by 
submarine) off the coast of (then Fascist) Spain.  With the body were 
(sealed) phony documents that described the FALSE date.  (The idea was, the 
Germans would think that he was on an airplane that had crashed into the 
ocean...) ( He was given a false name, false address, and basically a false 
identity to complete the ruse.)

 By design, he was dumped at a point where ocean currents washed him ashore, 
where he was identified by papers.  Naturally, the British were notified by 
Spain, and the British played along and INSISTED that none of the documents 
with the 
body be unsealed and given to the Germans.  Naturally, however, the Spanish 
cooperated with the Germans, and allowed them to (secretly) unseal the 
documents undetectably.  However, the documents (still apparently sealed and 
unopened) were returned to the British so that (to the Germans) the British 
wouldn't be aware that their secrets had been compromised.


Follow me so far?


Well, in the movie (whose accuracy I don't know) the Germans didn't totally 
believe that the courier was "real", so they sent an operative (probably by 
parachute airdrop, or whatever) to check out the particulars of the story 
they "learned" from the fake background.   (Naturally, the British knew 
about this)  At that point, the British had to 
plant operatives, and support the phony story on the spot, "verifying" the 
information.  At that point, the German agent was able to transmit news that 
"the information is real!" to the Germans.


Now, here was was (to me!) the "funny" part of the movie: 

 The British let the German agent leave Britain.  This sounds logical, 
right?  Because if they were to PICK HIM UP as a spy, that would have 
alerted the Germans that his identity and mission were already known, which 
would only have been true if the story given the Germans initially had been 
a FAKE!

Yet, in the movie,  it was necessary to "explain" to the  (early 1950's) 
audience why they "let that German agent leave Britain"!!  I was laughing, 
practically falling off the edge of my seat, as I was watching that scene!

Clearly, ordinary people of that era weren't very perceptive about such 
things.  Had they (Americans) been told that, "We had to get into WWII to 
save the free world, so we let the Japanese sink half our Pacific fleet!" 
the public WOULD NOT have understood.

This is why I tend to believe that professor's interpretation:  While the 
exact time and location of the attack was not known, IT REALLY DIDN'T MATTER 
because they WANTED it to happen.  The "we couldn't decrypt their traffic in
time" 
(even if it was really true) was merely a convenient cover story for the 
truth.