Winds Execute Controversy

[Caustic Logic]

This point came up during another thread, but being a recent development in the evidence of a Pearl Harbor cover-up, deserves its own thread. This story is from late last year, and regards the much-discussed "winds" messages intended for Japanese consulates worldwide to tip them off that talks with one or another nation were off and warfare likely.

Further details can be found around, but the basic controversy has been whether or not US intel had intercepted the message 'east wind rain," meaning break with the US. It was reported by some that the warning was recieved around Dec 3, but the official story denied this. Talk of missing records, coercion, and coverup have surrounded the issue. (if curious enough to Google, include Safford and/or Briggs in searches)

Now the NSA (No Such Agency, thanks Joey Donuts) has decisively concluded no such message was transmitted, at all, prior to the attack - and obviously not intercepted by anyone, Japanese or otherwise.

UPI's story on it starts out:

Historians say they have concluded the United States had no advance notice Japan intended to attack Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, settling a long-debated issue.

AFAIK they have done no such thing. They have allegedly disproven one alleged piece of evidence and, IMO, not a very good or useful one anyway.

NYT's more detailed piece says:

In the history, “West Wind Clear,” published by the agency’s Center for Cryptologic History, the authors, Robert J. Hanyok and the late David Mowry, attribute accounts of the message being broadcast to the flawed or fabricated memory of some witnesses, perhaps to deflect culpability from other officials for the United States’ insufficient readiness for war.

I have some thoughts on this, but they're only half-formed and maybe dumb and this is already tl;dr territory. In short - I'm not sure I believe NSA here, but probably. It's not much of an alleged clue anyway. And there are interesting possibilities as to WHY the Japanese never sent the message, if they didn't, and also how a false lead had become so built up in the big debate, why so many have said it did happen. Odd stuff.

 

[Caustic Logic]

From a link provided by Joey Donuts earlier, regarding Japan's top spy in Honolulu:

Still he did not know of the attack un til he heard the first bombs fall at 0755 hours on the morning of the 7th. "I thought it probably a maneuver, but rose and switched on the shortwave" to get the 8 o'clock news from Radio Tokyo. Twice during the weather forecast, the announcer reported "East wind, rain." That was the code signal indicating an attack against U.S. territory.* Yoshikawa immediately began burning his code books and other intelligence materials. When Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived that day to pick him up for eventual repatriation, the only incriminating sign of his activities that they found was a sketch of Pearl Harbor.

According to the new report, these words were not transmitted. 'West wind clear," meaning problems with Great Britain, were broadcast hours after the PH attack, but nothing at the time he's talking here.

 

[fezzic]

According the The Codebreakers (abridged), the wind codes were promulgated by the Foreign Ministry as a backup means to notify outlying diplomatic posts of hostilities. This would not require the Ministry be aware of the Pearl Harbor operation because just about anyone could forsee the tense situation eventually erupting into war and the rupture of communications as a result.

The arrangement would use the plain language broadcast from Japan and prescribed HOW it would be included in the broadcast. Obviously, something like "East wind rain" (trouble with the US) might occur by accident in the ordinary course of a broadcast so it was specified that the message would be given in the middle and at the end of the broadcast AND that each sentence would be repeated twice.

One result when this arrangement was found in cryptanalyzed (Tsu code aka J-19) message and resulted in a lot of listening to the Japanese broadcasts. Chances are there would probably many possible executes detected though the prescribed delivery was not followed, hence the idea that maybe the start of the war was broadcast before the attack. I believe that this activity necessitated transcribing the broadcasts in order that any possible execute could be forwarded to HQ for further evaluation as to whether it was a valid execute.

Referring to TCB, apparently on Dec 7, during a broadcast that announced the attack on Pearl Harbor, the announcer made a strange weather report, essentially saying "west wind clear". The explanation in TCB was that possibly some diplomatic post had not complied with instructions to destroy their codes and inform Tokyo with a specified code word and this was to remind them that they were at war (so burn those codes!).

During the attack, the Honolulu police had broken into the Consulate because they detected a fire (thinking the place was going to burn down) and confiscated bags of torn documents (that were going to be burned). Apparently including the telegram file. It was from some of these documents that some arrangements for espionage were found. A German was ultimately convicted of espionage.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Thanks, Fezzic, for the TCB (abridged) excerpts, since I don't have that book yet.

According the The Codebreakers (abridged), the wind codes were promulgated by the Foreign Ministry as a backup means to notify outlying diplomatic posts of hostilities. This would not require the Ministry be aware of the Pearl Harbor operation because just about anyone could forsee the tense situation eventually erupting into war and the rupture of communications as a result.

Hence, it's not a good or detailed clue of what would happen where, and I'm baffled that so many cnspiracy theorists have allowed themselves to focus on the alleged 'cover-up' here. It would have added nothing to Pearl Harbor's awareness if it had been shared.

The arrangement would use the plain language broadcast from Japan and prescribed HOW it would be included in the broadcast. Obviously, something like "East wind rain" (trouble with the US) might occur by accident in the ordinary course of a broadcast so it was specified that the message would be given in the middle and at the end of the broadcast AND that each sentence would be repeated twice.

Cool point, thanks. I wondered why such a dumb code that could be said by accident. In fact, I just read that US intel did THINK they got the execute message at one point, but it was just something similar said, and presumably not following this pattern you laid out. [Layton et al 265-66]

One result when this arrangement was found in cryptanalyzed (Tsu code aka J-19) message and resulted in a lot of listening to the Japanese broadcasts. Chances are there would probably many possible executes detected though the prescribed delivery was not followed, hence the idea that maybe the start of the war was broadcast before the attack. I believe that this activity necessitated transcribing the broadcasts in order that any possible execute could be forwarded to HQ for further evaluation as to whether it was a valid execute.

Referring to TCB, apparently on Dec 7, during a broadcast that announced the attack on Pearl Harbor, the announcer made a strange weather report, essentially saying "west wind clear". The explanation in TCB was that possibly some diplomatic post had not complied with instructions to destroy their codes and inform Tokyo with a specified code word and this was to remind them that they were at war (so burn those codes!).

"the idea that maybe the start of the war was broadcast before the attack" - possibly, but this is just an idea - no one has found the evidence for an earlier transmission. Sounds like deduction here. I'm thinking it was sort of a distraction, to keep people waiting - set up an expectation - “we’ll be saying “X” just before we go to war with your contry,” and those whose job it is to catch clues listen and wait, not noticing the striking force sailing up behind them.

The first message was called "winds set-up,” after all - it would make sense to never fulfill that expectation. A set-up - that's one thought, anyway.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

I am of the opinion, that even if the U.S. navy had detailed plans of the attack, they would have discounted them through a combination of institutional racism and cognitive inertia.

Much like 9/11

 

[Caustic Logic]

I am of the opinion, that even if the U.S. navy had detailed plans of the attack, they would have discounted them through a combination of institutional racism and cognitive inertia.

Much like 9/11

I feel compelled to respond to this just because I started the thread. You may be right, who knows?

I was hoping this would generate more interest, as one of those rare bits of actual news about a 70-year old event that's been talked to death... oh, wait.

 

[Caustic Logic]

First, Mr. Packer, I meant no disrespect to either you or your fine horse Leeann. I'd actually like more people to weigh in here with their thoughts - all this quiet is almost making me feel like I must be correct, or at least boring.

I found a link to the original NSA article "West Wind Clear" in downloadable PDF form. It's a monster of cool stuff, lots of detail and history of the controversy, the codes, and other side stuff, and topped off with original documents, decrypts, etc., mostly or all unseen before. Definitely worth a read, but I haven't done more than a quick scan.

It seems to news here is not as new as I thought - and almost everyone has already discounted the Winds code story.

Robert Stinnett calls it “the now discredited “Winds Code” and described how it revelation during the investigations ”created a media sensation" and the media/public "lost interest in the less fantastic naval intercepts."
George Victor: “for sixty years, the controversy distracted attention from warnings that specified Pearl Harbor as Japan’s target.”
Layton in only certain that “no warning that a winds alert had been received was ever sent to us at Pearl Harbor.” He sides with Safford quite a bit, the main proponent of WE interception, and only says the issue "has been fiercely debated ever since.”

What is interesting is that if this was intended as a distraction "set-up" by Japan, as I speculated above, the US effort to catch that signal played right into the plan. Layton explains this word system "was now regarded as the trigger by which Japan would communicate its final decision for peace or war.” Being such a great and useful clue, everyone was put to work full-time, sucking up major attention – every phrase of similar sound was sent in and eventually “bales of falsely identified winds alerts were relayed to Washington for analysis.”

From West Wind Clear:

the Americans believed they held at least one key that might tip off when the Japanese might initiate hostilities. The next step was to organize and stage a monitoring effort to intercept the Winds execute message. But in the next ten days leading up to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, American cryptologists would find that the Japanese sent out additional instructions that weaved a more complicated warning system. Inevitably, there were errors in identifying Winds Execute messages, while precious cryptologic resources, especially radio intercept operators, radio receivers, and linguists, were tied up collecting and processing plaintext broadcasts that might contain the coded Winds phrases or words.

The fever seems to have gotten hottest around Dec 5, when almost everyone believed they had the code, but it turned out to be a false alarm, not following the right pattern. Even before it was ruled out tho, and believed real, Stark, Turner, and Ingersoll decided not to send it to Pearl Harbor.