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

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At 04:22 PM 1/26/96 +0100, Asgaard wrote:
>Jim Bell wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>Alan Horowitz added:
>
>>I've read that FDR had a humint source warning of a Japanese strike on 
>>Pearl Harbor. I also recall reading that J Edgar Hoover received a report 
>>of a diplomatic conversation detailing the planned attack, but sat on it.
>
>And this is from a post I sent to the list last summer:
>***************************************************************
>I just read 'Infamy' by John Toland (1982), containing 'proof'
>- very convincing, in my opinion - of the Pearl Harbour cover-up.
>The US president, selected members of his cabinette and a
>few admirals and generals knew - from Magic and the 'winds'
>execute, radio traffic analysis, diplomatic sources, double
>agents - exactly when and where the Japaneese were going to
>attack, but didn't warn Hawaii, fearing that too efficient
>counter-measures by the Oahu military might make the attack
>abort and so not convince the isolationists. The unexpected 
>tactical capabilities of the Japaneese armada then made a
>cover-up all the more important.
>*****************************************************************
>The unfortunate cipher expert Captain Safford spent most of
>his post-war life trying to uphold the honour of his fellow
>cryptanalysts, putting the blame on generals and politicians,
>but in vain.

It's interesting that we even HEARD about Coventry, but of course that was a 
British decision, a civilian target in an attack during an era where there 
were already plenty of attacks on civilian targets, and the British 
UNDERSTOOD why Coventry had to die.  (But I don't know WHEN "we" (the 
general public) first heard about Coventry.  Anybody know?

(For the historically-impaired:  Coventry was/is an English town (small 
city?) perhaps most famous from the Lady Godiva legend...but I digress...    
 British found out, I guess through Ultra, that it was going to be bombed.  
Telling the inhabitants would have saved many lives, but (possibly) alerted 
the Germans that Enigma had been broken.  British made the correct choice:  
Let the city get bombed without (much?) warning.  The value of keeping the 
broken-ness of Ultra a secret far outweighed the value of Coventry.)

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jim bell writes:
> (For the historically-impaired:  Coventry was/is an English town (small 
> city?) perhaps most famous from the Lady Godiva legend...but I digress...    
>  British found out, I guess through Ultra, that it was going to be bombed.  
> Telling the inhabitants would have saved many lives, but (possibly) alerted 
> the Germans that Enigma had been broken.  British made the correct choice:  
> Let the city get bombed without (much?) warning.  The value of keeping the 
> broken-ness of Ultra a secret far outweighed the value of Coventry.)

The current claim is that, in fact, there was no advance warning about
Coventry and that the claims that there was are unsubstantiated.

Perry

On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> jim bell writes:
> > (For the historically-impaired:  Coventry was/is an English town (small 
> > city?) perhaps most famous from the Lady Godiva legend...but I digress...
> >  British found out, I guess through Ultra, that it was going to be bombed.  
> > Telling the inhabitants would have saved many lives, but (possibly) alerted 
> > the Germans that Enigma had been broken.  British made the correct choice:  
> > Let the city get bombed without (much?) warning.  The value of keeping the 
> > broken-ness of Ultra a secret far outweighed the value of Coventry.)
> 
> The current claim is that, in fact, there was no advance warning about
> Coventry and that the claims that there was are unsubstantiated.

Yeah, far be it from me to debunk an urban legend, but that's what I read 
too.

It is true that there is often more going on than meets the eye, but it is
no less true that it's usually not what you imagine. 

Sure the Brits might have received credible reports that Coventry was 
going to be bombed, and sure the US might have received credible reports 
that Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed. But they also received credible 
reports to the contrary, and decisions were made.

Try working for a newspaper or a hospital some time. You'll hear all sorts
of crazy stories, only a few of which are true. It's hardly obvious which
those are. I'm sure the TLAs get even crazier stuff.

I do not believe that the CIA that failed to find Aldrich Ames and was 
cut out of Iran/Contra as unreliable is not capable of half the things it 
has been accused of. There have been a lot of well-documented and 
acknowledged cases like Operation Success (Guatemala), but the rest is 
just speculation, or worse, an Oliver Stone movie.

-rich

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On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> wrote:

> jim bell writes:
> > (For the historically-impaired:  Coventry was/is an English town (small 
> > city?) perhaps most famous from the Lady Godiva legend...but I digress...    
> >  British found out, I guess through Ultra, that it was going to be bombed.  
> > Telling the inhabitants would have saved many lives, but (possibly) alerted 
> > the Germans that Enigma had been broken.  British made the correct choice:  
> > Let the city get bombed without (much?) warning.  The value of keeping the 
> > broken-ness of Ultra a secret far outweighed the value of Coventry.)

> The current claim is that, in fact, there was no advance warning about
> Coventry and that the claims that there was are unsubstantiated.

Correct; here's my two Simoleons' worth toward exorcising the "Churchill
Anguished Over Coventry Bombing" meme:

    The first international conference of cryptologists took place in
    Germany in November of 1978.  The backroom boys of World War II --
    Allied communications intelligence experts and Axis communications
    security specialists -- met under scholarly sponsorship to try to
    determine the effect of codebreaking on the war. [...] Dr. Forrest
    Pogue, author of the standard biography of General George C. Marshall,
    U.S. Army chief of staff, said that [...] 15 to 20 years is the time
    lag for facts to catch up with fiction.  That's how long it will take
    for the false story that Winston Churchill allowed Coventry to be
    destroyed to save the secret of ULTRA "to stop being used to keep
    sophomores awake in the classroom."

  David Kahn, "The ULTRA Conference," Cryptologia, January 1979

Alan Westrope     PGP public key:  http://www.nyx.net/~awestrop
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