Magic (cryptography)
Encyclopedia
Magic was an Allied cryptanalysis
project during World War II
. It involved the United States Army
's Signals Intelligence Section (SIS) and the United States Navy
's Communication Special Unit. http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Nt-Pa/Operation-Magic.html#ixzz1CxvXZOFg
PURPLE, like Enigma, began its communications with the same line of code but then became an unfathomable jumble. Codebreakers tried to break PURPLE communiques by hand but found they could not. Then the codebreakers realized that it was not a manual additive or substitution code like RED and BLUE, but a machine-generated code similar to Germany's Enigma cipher. Decoding was slow and much of the traffic was still hard to break. By the time the traffic was decoded and translated, the contents were often out of date.
A reverse-engineered machine created in 1939 by a team of technicians led by William Friedman and Frank Rowlett
could figure out some of the PURPLE code by replicating some of the settings of the Japanese Enigma machines. This sped up decoding and the addition of more translators on staff in 1942 made it easier and quicker to decipher the traffic intercepted.
. American cryptographers were able to build a machine that could decrypt these messages.
The PURPLE machine itself was first used by Japan in 1940. U.S. and British cryptographers had broken some PURPLE traffic well before the attack on Pearl Harbor
. However, the PURPLE machines were used only by the Foreign Office to carry diplomatic traffic to its embassies. The Japanese Navy used a completely different crypto-system
, known as JN-25
.
U.S. analysts discovered no hint in PURPLE of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; nor could they, as the Japanese were very careful not to discuss their plan in Foreign Office communications. In fact, no detailed information about the planned attack was even available to the Japanese Foreign Office, as that agency was regarded by the military, particularly its more nationalist members, as insufficiently "reliable". U.S. access to private Japanese diplomatic communications (even the most secret ones) was less useful than it might otherwise have been because policy in prewar Japan was controlled largely by military groups (e.g., in China
and Manchuria
), not by the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office itself deliberately withheld from its embassies and consulates much of the information it did have, so the ability to read PURPLE messages was less than definitive regarding Japanese tactical or strategic military intentions.
U.S. cryptographers had decrypted and translated the 14-part Japanese diplomatic message breaking off ongoing negotiations with the U.S. at 1 p.m. Washington time on 7 December 1941, even before the Japanese Embassy in Washington could do so. As a result of the deciphering and typing difficulties at the embassy, the note was delivered late to American Secretary of State
Cordell Hull
. When the two Japanese diplomats finally delivered the note, Hull had to pretend to be reading it for the first time, even though he already knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Throughout the war, the Allies routinely read both German and Japanese cryptography. The Japanese Ambassador to Germany, General Hiroshi Ōshima
, often sent priceless German military information to Tokyo. This information was routinely intercepted and read by Roosevelt, Churchill and Eisenhower. According to Lowman, "The Japanese considered the PURPLE system absolutely unbreakable.... Most went to their graves refusing to believe the [cipher] had been broken by analytic means.... They believed someone had betrayed their system."
) saw each message only briefly, as the courier stood by to take it back, and in isolation from other messages (no copies or notes being permitted). Before Pearl Harbor, they saw only those decrypts thought "important enough" by the distributing Army
or Navy
officers. Nonetheless, being able to read PURPLE messages gave the Allies
a great advantage in the war; for instance, the Japanese ambassador to Germany
, Baron Hiroshi Ōshima
, produced long reports for Tokyo
which were enciphered on the PURPLE machine. They included reports on personal discussions with Adolf Hitler
and a report on a tour of the invasion defenses in Northern France
(including the D-Day
invasion beaches). General Marshall
said that Ōshima was "our main basis of... information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe".
threatened to make Pearl Harbor a campaign issue, until General Marshall sent him a personal letter which said, in part:
Dewey promised not to raise the issue, and kept his word.
in connection with an attempt to decide who, if anyone, had allowed the disaster at Pearl Harbor to happen and who therefore should be blamed. During those hearings the Japanese learned, for the first time, the PURPLE cypher system had been broken. They had been continuing to use it, even after the War, with the encouragement of the American Occupation Government. Much confusion over who in Washington
or Hawaii
knew what and when, especially as "we were decrypting their messages," has led some to conclude "someone in Washington" knew about the Pearl Harbor
attack before it happened, and, since Pearl Harbor was not expecting to be attacked, the "failure to warn Hawaii one was coming must have been deliberate, since it could hardly have been mere oversight". However, PURPLE was a diplomatic, not a military code; thus, only inferences could be drawn from PURPLE as to specific Japanese military actions.
(SIS), several problems arose for the Americans: who would get the decrypts, which decrypts, how often, under what circumstances, and crucially (given interservice rivalries) who would do the delivering. Both the U.S. Navy and Army were insistent they alone handle all decrypted traffic delivery, especially to highly placed policy makers in the U.S. Eventually, after much toing and froing, a compromise was reached: the Army would be responsible for the decrypts on one day, and the Navy the next.
The distribution list eventually included some — but not all — military intelligence leaders in Washington and elsewhere, some — but, again, not all — civilian policy leaders in Washington. The eventual routine for distribution included the following steps:
In the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the material was handled awkwardly and inefficiently, and was distributed even more awkwardly. Nevertheless, the extraordinary experience of reading a foreign government's most closely held communications, sometimes even before the intended recipient, was astonishing. It was so astonishing, someone (possibly President Roosevelt) called it magic. The name stuck.
on March 18, which lead to the creation of the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA). This is often confused with the issue of internment, which was actually handled by the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and affected all citizens of countries at war with the United States in any location.
Internment of 'enemy aliens' by the U.S. government began two months prior to Executive Order 9066 on December 8, 1941, immediately after the attack at Pearl Harbor and included Germans, Italians, and Hungarians, not just the Japanese living on the U.S. West Coast. [see Stephen Fox's "The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans during World War II"]
David Lowman in his book MAGIC: the Untold Story reports that the primary justification for the Japanese-American relocations and internments was to protect against espionage and sabotage, because Magic could not be mentioned during the war. Those defending the relocation and evacuation programs, most notably author Michelle Malkin
, point to Magic intercepts as being justification for EO 9066. She argues that some Magic intercepts discuss the development of a spy ring among Japanese Americans by the Japanese consulates, which raised a suspicion that some of the Japanese American community was an espionage risk. However, while Malkin offers no examples of Japanese Americans actually acting as spies, it was unnecessary since the simple possibility that one could exist is enough probable cause.
The following is the actual text of several Magic intercepts translated into English before and during the war and declassified and made public in 1978 by the U.S. government (The Magic Background of Pearl Harbor:, Government Printing Office, 8 volumes)
Intercept dated January 30, 1941 and noted as translated 2-7-41
Numbered #44
FROM: Tokyo (Matsuoka)
TO: Washington (Koshi)
(In two parts—complete).
(Foreign Office secret).
(1) Establish an intelligence organ in the Embassy which will maintain liaison with private and semi-official intelligence organs (see my message to Washington #591 and #732 from New York to Tokyo, both of last year's series).
With regard to this, we are holding discussions with the various circles involved at the present time.
(2) The focal point of our investigations shall be the determination of the total strength of the U.S. Our investigations shall be divided into three general classifications: political, economic, and military, and definite course of action shall be mapped out.
(3) Make a survey of all persons or organizations which either openly or secretly oppose participation in the war.
(4) Make investigations of all antisemitism, communism, movements of Negroes, and labor movements.
(5) Utilization of U.S. citizens of foreign extraction (other than Japanese), aliens (other than Japanese), communists, Negroes, labor union members, and anti-Semites, in carrying out the investigations described in the preceding paragraph would undoubtedly bear the best results.
These men, moreover, should have access to governmental establishments, (laboratories?), governmental organizations of various characters, factories, and transportation facilities.
(6) Utilization of our "Second Generations" and our resident nationals. (In view of the fact that if there is any slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to considerable persecution, and the utmost caution must be exercised).
(7) In the event of U.S. participation in the war, our intelligence set-up will be moved to Mexico, making that country the nerve center of our intelligence net. Therefore, will you bear this in mind and in anticipation of such an eventuality, set up facilities for a U.S.-Mexico international intelligence route. This net which will cover Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru will also be centered in Mexico.
(8) We shall cooperate with the German and Italian intelligence organs in the U.S. This phase has been discussed with the Germans and Italians in Tokyo, and it has been approved.
Please get the details from Secretary Terasaki upon his assuming his duties there.
Please send copies to those offices which were on the distribution list of No. 43.
In response to the ordered shift from propaganda efforts to espionage collection, the Japanese consulates throughout the western hemisphere reported their information normally through the use of diplomatic channels, but when time-sensitive through the use of MAGIC encoded messages. This provided vital clues to their progress directly to the U.S. President and his top advisers.
Intercepts in May 1941 from the consulates in Los Angeles and Seattle report that the Japanese were having success in obtaining information and cooperation from "second generation" Japanese Americans and others.
Magic intercept LA to Tokyo #067 - May 9, 1941
Intercept dated May 9, 1941 and translated 5-19-41
Numbered #067
FROM: Los Angeles (Nakauchi)
TO: Tokyo (Gaimudaijin)
(In 2 parts—complete).
Strictly Secret.
Re your message # 180 to Washington.
We are doing everything in our power to establish outside contacts in connection with our efforts to gather intelligence material. In this regard, we have decided to make use of white persons and Negroes, through Japanese persons whom we cannot trust completely. (It not only would be very difficult to hire U.S. (military?) experts for this work at present time, but the expenses would be exceedingly high.) We shall, furthermore, maintain close connections with the Japanese Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the newspapers.
With regard to airplane manufacturing plants and other military establishments in other parts, we plan to establish very close relations with various organizations and in strict secrecy have them keep these military establishments under close surveillance. Through such means, we hope to be able to obtain accurate and detailed intelligence reports. We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destinations of such shipments. The same steps have been taken with regards to traffic across the U.S.-Mexico border.
We shall maintain connection with our second generations who are at present in the (U.S.) Army, to keep us informed of various developments in the Army. We also have connections with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes.
With regard to the Navy, we are cooperating with our Naval Attache's office, and are submitting reports as accurately and speedily as possible.
We are having Nakazawa investigate and summarize information gathered through first hand and newspaper reports, with regard to military movements, labor disputes, communistic activities and other similar matters. With regard to anti-Jewish movements, we are having investigations made by both prominent Americans and Japanese who are connected with the movie industry which is centered in this area. We have already established connections with very influential Negroes to keep us informed with regard to the Negro movement.
Magic intercept Seattle to Tokyo #45 - May 11, 1941
Intercept dated May 11, 1941 and translated 6-9-41
Numbered # 45
FROM: Seattle (Sato)
TO: Tokyo
(3 parts—complete)
Re your # 180 to Washington
1. Political Contacts
We are collecting intelligences revolving around political questions, and also the questions of American participation in the war which has to do with the whole country and this local area.
2. Economic Contacts
We are using foreign company employees, as well as employees in our own companies here, for the collection of intelligence having to do with economics along the lines of the construction of ships, the number of airplanes produced and their various types, the production of copper, zinc and aluminum, the yield of tin for cans, and lumber. We are now exerting our best efforts toward the acquisition of such intelligences through competent Americans. From an American, whom we contacted recently, we have received a private report on machinists of German origin who are Communists and members of the labor organizations in the Bremerton Naval Yard and Boeing airplane factory. Second generation Japanese ----- ----- ----- [three words missing].
3. Military Contacts
We are securing intelligences concerning the concentration of warships within the Bremerton Naval Yard, information with regard to mercantile shipping and airplane manufacturing, movements of military forces, as well as that which concerns troop maneuvers.
With this as a basis, men are sent out into the field who will contact Lt. Comdr. OKADA, and such intelligences will be wired to you in accordance with past practice. KANEKO is in charge of this. Recently we have on two occasions made investigations on the spot of various military establishments and concentration points in various areas. For the future we have made arrangements to collect intelligences from second generation Japanese draftees on matters dealing with the troops, as well as troop speech and behavior. ----- ---- -----. [three words missing]
4. Contacts with Labor Unions
The local labor unions A.F. of L. and C.I.O. have considerable influence. The (Socialist?) Party maintains an office here (its political sphere of influence extends over twelve zones.) The C.I.O., especially, has been very active here. We have had a first generation Japanese, who is a member of the labor movement and a committee chairman, contact the organizer, and we have received a report, though it is but a resume, on the use of American members of the (Socialist ?) Party. ------ OKAMARU is in charge of this.
5. In order to contact Americans of foreign extraction and foreigners, in addition to third parties, for the collection of intelligences with regard to anti-participation organizations and the anti-Jewish movement, we are making use of a second generation Japanese lawyer.
This intelligence ---- ----- -----.
counter-espionage efforts, the TACHIBANA espionage case during summer 1941, FBI efforts against Japanese Yakuza
throughout the 1930s along the West Coast
(the TOKOYO and TOYO CLUBs) were all available only to the most senior leaders in the Roosevelt cabinet. Even J. Edgar Hoover
, Director of the FBI, was not privy to the existence of Magic intelligence.
regarding Japanese American internment
was not based on Magic intercepts, argue:
One theory is that Stimson wanted DeWitt to provide justifications that could be made public, because the Magic intercepts could not be made public.
The issue has been inflamed recently due to the release of Malkin's recent book, In Defense of Internment
, in which the Magic intercepts play a major role in the defense of her thesis.
naval victories in the battles of the Coral Sea
and Midway
, stopping the initial Japanese advances to the south and eliminating the bulk of Japanese naval air power. Later, broken JN-25 traffic also provided the schedule and routing of the plane Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto would be flying in during an inspection tour in the southwest Pacific, giving U.S Army Air Corps
pilots a chance to ambush the officer who had conceived the Pearl Harbor attack. And still later, access to Japanese Army messages from decrypts of Army communications traffic assisted in planning the island hopping campaign to the Philippines
and beyond.
Another source of information was the Japanese Military Attaché code (known as JMA to the Allies) introduced in 1941. This was a
fractionating transposition system based on two-letter code groups which stood for common words and phrases. The groups were written in a square grid according to an irregular pattern and read off vertically, similar to a disrupted columnar transposition. Then the letters were superenciphered using a pre-arranged table of alphabets. This system was broken by John Tiltman at Bletchley Park
in 1942.
smuggled out of Russia
in the early '90s by a KGB
archivist, says that the Soviets
independently broke into Japanese PURPLE traffic (as well as the Red predecessor machine), and that decrypted PURPLE messages contributed to the decision by Stalin to move troops from Far Eastern Asia to the area around Moscow
for the counterattack against Germany in December 1941 as the messages convinced the Soviet government that there would not be a Japanese attack.
, which published a series of stories just after Midway, starting on 7 June 1942, which claimed (correctly) that victory was due in large part to U.S. breaks into Japanese crypto systems (in this case, the JN-25 cypher, though which system(s) had been broken was not mentioned in the newspaper stories). The Tribune claimed the story was written by Stanley Johnston from his own knowledge (and Jane's
), but Ronald Lewin
points out that the story repeats the layout and errors of a signal from Admiral Nimitz which Johnston saw while on the transport Barnett. Nimitz was reprimanded by Admiral King for sending the dispatch to Task Force commanders on a channel available to nearly all ships.
However, neither the Japanese nor anyone who might have told them seem to have noticed either the Tribune coverage, or the stories based on the Tribune account published in other U.S. papers. Nor did they notice announcements made on the floor of the United States Congress
to the same effect. There were no changes in Japanese cryptography connected with those newspaper accounts or Congressional disclosures.
Alvin Kernan was an aviation ordnanceman on board the aircraft carriers and the during the war. During that time, he was awarded the Navy Cross
. In his book, Crossing the Line, he states that when the carrier returned to Pearl Harbor to resupply before the Battle of Midway
, the crew knew that the Japanese code had been broken and that U.S. naval forces were preparing to engage the Japanese fleet at Midway. He insists that he "...exactly remembers the occasion on which I was told, with full details about ships and dates..." despite the later insistence that the breaking of the code was kept secret.
U.S. Navy Commander I.J. Galantin
, who retired as an Admiral, refers several times to Magic in his book about his Pacific theater war patrols as captain of the U.S. submarine . However, Galantin refers to Magic as "Ultra" which was actually the name given to the breaking of the German code. Upon receiving one message from Pacific Fleet command, directing him off normal station to intercept Japanese vessels due to a Magic message, Galantin writes. "I had written my night orders carefully. I made no reference to Ultra and stressed only the need to be very alert for targets in this fruitful area." Galantin had previously mentioned in his book that all submarine captains were aware of "Ultra" (Magic).
In addition, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall
discovered early in the War that Magic documents were being widely read at the White House, and that "...at one time over 500 people were reading messages we had intercepted from the Japanese.... Everyone seemed to be reading them".
's novel Cryptonomicon
includes a fictionalized version of Magic, with the Japanese cryptosystem being named "Indigo" rather than "PURPLE".
The W.E.B. Griffin series The Corps is a fictionalized account of United States Navy
and Marine Corps
intelligence operations in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Many of the main characters in the novels, both fictional and historical, have access to and use intelligence from Magic.
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
project during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It involved the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
's Signals Intelligence Section (SIS) and the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
's Communication Special Unit. http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Nt-Pa/Operation-Magic.html#ixzz1CxvXZOFg
Codebreaking
Magic was set up to combine the US government's cryptologic capabilities in one organization dubbed the Research Bureau. Intelligence officers from the Army and Navy (and later civilian experts and technicians) were all under one roof. Although they worked on a series of codes and cyphers, their most important successes involved RED, BLUE, and PURPLE.RED
In 1923, a US Navy officer acquired a stolen copy of the Secret Operating Code codebook used by the Japanese Navy during World War I. Photographs of the codebook were given to the cryptanalysts at the Research Desk and the processed code was kept in red-colored folders (to indicate its Top Secret classification). This code was called "RED".BLUE
In 1930, the Japanese government created a more complex code that was codenamed BLUE, although RED was still being used for low-level communications. It was quickly broken by the Research Desk by 1932. US Military Intelligence COMINT listening stations began monitoring command-to-fleet, ship-to-ship, and land-based communications.PURPLE
After Japan's ally Germany declared war in the fall of 1939, the German government began sending technical assistance to upgrade their communications and cryptography capabilities. One part was to send them modified Enigma machines to secure Japan's high-level communications with Germany. The new code, codenamed PURPLE (from the color you get when you mix red and blue), was baffling.PURPLE, like Enigma, began its communications with the same line of code but then became an unfathomable jumble. Codebreakers tried to break PURPLE communiques by hand but found they could not. Then the codebreakers realized that it was not a manual additive or substitution code like RED and BLUE, but a machine-generated code similar to Germany's Enigma cipher. Decoding was slow and much of the traffic was still hard to break. By the time the traffic was decoded and translated, the contents were often out of date.
A reverse-engineered machine created in 1939 by a team of technicians led by William Friedman and Frank Rowlett
Frank Rowlett
Frank Byron Rowlett was an American cryptologist.Rowlett was born in Rose Hill, Virginia and attended Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, where he was a member of the Beta Lambda Zeta fraternity. In 1929 he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry...
could figure out some of the PURPLE code by replicating some of the settings of the Japanese Enigma machines. This sped up decoding and the addition of more translators on staff in 1942 made it easier and quicker to decipher the traffic intercepted.
PURPLE traffic
The Japanese Foreign Office used a cipher machine to encrypt its diplomatic messages. The machine was called "PURPLE" by U.S. cryptographers. A message was typed into the machine, which enciphered and sent it to an identical machine. The receiving machine could decipher the message only if set to the correct settings, or keysKey (cryptography)
In cryptography, a key is a piece of information that determines the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm or cipher. Without a key, the algorithm would produce no useful result. In encryption, a key specifies the particular transformation of plaintext into ciphertext, or vice versa...
. American cryptographers were able to build a machine that could decrypt these messages.
The PURPLE machine itself was first used by Japan in 1940. U.S. and British cryptographers had broken some PURPLE traffic well before the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. However, the PURPLE machines were used only by the Foreign Office to carry diplomatic traffic to its embassies. The Japanese Navy used a completely different crypto-system
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
, known as JN-25
JN-25
The vulnerability of Japanese naval codes and ciphers was crucial to the conduct of World War II, and had an important influence on foreign relations between Japan and the west in the years leading up to the war as well...
.
U.S. analysts discovered no hint in PURPLE of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; nor could they, as the Japanese were very careful not to discuss their plan in Foreign Office communications. In fact, no detailed information about the planned attack was even available to the Japanese Foreign Office, as that agency was regarded by the military, particularly its more nationalist members, as insufficiently "reliable". U.S. access to private Japanese diplomatic communications (even the most secret ones) was less useful than it might otherwise have been because policy in prewar Japan was controlled largely by military groups (e.g., in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
), not by the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office itself deliberately withheld from its embassies and consulates much of the information it did have, so the ability to read PURPLE messages was less than definitive regarding Japanese tactical or strategic military intentions.
U.S. cryptographers had decrypted and translated the 14-part Japanese diplomatic message breaking off ongoing negotiations with the U.S. at 1 p.m. Washington time on 7 December 1941, even before the Japanese Embassy in Washington could do so. As a result of the deciphering and typing difficulties at the embassy, the note was delivered late to American Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
. When the two Japanese diplomats finally delivered the note, Hull had to pretend to be reading it for the first time, even though he already knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Throughout the war, the Allies routinely read both German and Japanese cryptography. The Japanese Ambassador to Germany, General Hiroshi Ōshima
Hiroshi Ōshima
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany before and during World War II — and unknowingly a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General George C...
, often sent priceless German military information to Tokyo. This information was routinely intercepted and read by Roosevelt, Churchill and Eisenhower. According to Lowman, "The Japanese considered the PURPLE system absolutely unbreakable.... Most went to their graves refusing to believe the [cipher] had been broken by analytic means.... They believed someone had betrayed their system."
Distribution prior to Pearl Harbor
Even so, the diplomatic information was of even more limited value to the U.S. because of the manner of its dissemination within the U.S. government. "Magic" was distributed in such a way that many policy-makers who had need of the information in it knew nothing of it, and those to whom it actually was distributed (at least before Pearl HarborAttack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
) saw each message only briefly, as the courier stood by to take it back, and in isolation from other messages (no copies or notes being permitted). Before Pearl Harbor, they saw only those decrypts thought "important enough" by the distributing Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
or Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
officers. Nonetheless, being able to read PURPLE messages gave the Allies
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
a great advantage in the war; for instance, the Japanese ambassador to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Baron Hiroshi Ōshima
Hiroshi Ōshima
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany before and during World War II — and unknowingly a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General George C...
, produced long reports for Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
which were enciphered on the PURPLE machine. They included reports on personal discussions with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and a report on a tour of the invasion defenses in Northern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(including the D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
invasion beaches). General Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
said that Ōshima was "our main basis of... information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe".
Dewey and Marshall
During the 1944 election, Thomas DeweyThomas Dewey
Thomas Edmund Dewey was the 47th Governor of New York . In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft...
threatened to make Pearl Harbor a campaign issue, until General Marshall sent him a personal letter which said, in part:
- To explain the critical nature of this set-up, which would be wiped out in an instant if the least suspicion were aroused regarding it, the Battle of Coral Sea was based on deciphered messages and therefore our few ships were in the right place at the right time. Further, we were able to concentrate our limited forces to meet their naval advance on Midway when otherwise we almost certainly would have been some 3000 miles out of place. We had full information on the strength of their forces.
Dewey promised not to raise the issue, and kept his word.
Postwar debates
The break into the PURPLE system, and into Japanese messages generally, was the subject of acrimonious hearings in Congress post-World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in connection with an attempt to decide who, if anyone, had allowed the disaster at Pearl Harbor to happen and who therefore should be blamed. During those hearings the Japanese learned, for the first time, the PURPLE cypher system had been broken. They had been continuing to use it, even after the War, with the encouragement of the American Occupation Government. Much confusion over who in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
or Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
knew what and when, especially as "we were decrypting their messages," has led some to conclude "someone in Washington" knew about the Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
attack before it happened, and, since Pearl Harbor was not expecting to be attacked, the "failure to warn Hawaii one was coming must have been deliberate, since it could hardly have been mere oversight". However, PURPLE was a diplomatic, not a military code; thus, only inferences could be drawn from PURPLE as to specific Japanese military actions.
History
When PURPLE was broken by the U.S. Army's Signals Intelligence ServiceSignals Intelligence Service
The Signals Intelligence Service was the United States Army codebreaking division, headquartered at Arlington Hall. It was a part of the Signal Corps so secret that outside the office of the Chief Signal officer, it did not officially exist. William Friedman began the division with three "junior...
(SIS), several problems arose for the Americans: who would get the decrypts, which decrypts, how often, under what circumstances, and crucially (given interservice rivalries) who would do the delivering. Both the U.S. Navy and Army were insistent they alone handle all decrypted traffic delivery, especially to highly placed policy makers in the U.S. Eventually, after much toing and froing, a compromise was reached: the Army would be responsible for the decrypts on one day, and the Navy the next.
The distribution list eventually included some — but not all — military intelligence leaders in Washington and elsewhere, some — but, again, not all — civilian policy leaders in Washington. The eventual routine for distribution included the following steps:
- the duty officer (Army or Navy, depending on the day) would decide which decrypts were significant or interesting enough to distribute
- they would be collected, locked into a briefcase, and turned over to a relatively junior officer (not always cleared to read the decrypts) who would 'make the rounds' to the appropriate offices.
- no copies of any decrypts were left with anyone on the list. The recipient would be allowed to read the translated decrypt, in the presence of the distributing officer, and was required to return it immediately upon finishing. Before the beginning of the second week in DecemberAttack on Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
1941, that was the last time anyone on the list saw that particular decrypt.
Decryption process
There were several prior steps needed before any decrypt was ready for distribution:- Interception. The Japanese Foreign Office used both wireless transmission and cables to communicate with its off shore units. Wireless transmission was intercepted (if possible) at any of several listening stations (HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, GuamGuamGuam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, Bainbridge IslandBainbridge Island, WashingtonBainbridge Island is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States, and the name of the island in Puget Sound on which the city is situated...
in Washington state, Dutch Harbor on an Alaska islandDutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. ArmyDutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears are the two military installations built next to each other in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, by the United States in response to the growing war threat with Japan. A 1938 Navy board recommended the construction which began in July 1940. The first army...
etc.) and the raw cypher groups were forwarded to Washington, DC. Eventually, there were decryption stations (including a copy of the Army's PURPLE machine) in the Philippines as well. Cable traffic was (for many years before late 1941) collected at cable company offices by a military officer who made copies and started them to Washington. Cable traffic in Hawaii was not intercepted due to legal concerns until David Sarnoff of RCA agreed to allow it during a visit to Hawaii the first week of December 1941. At one point, intercepts were being mailed to (Army or Navy) Intelligence from the field. - Deciphering. The raw intercept was deciphered by either the Army or the Navy (depending on the day). Deciphering was usually successful as the cipher had been broken.
- Translation. Having obtained the plain text, in Latin letters, it was translated. Because the Navy had more Japanese-speaking officers, much of the burden of translation fell onto the Navy. And because Japanese is a difficult language, with meaning highly dependent upon context, effective translation required not only fluent Japanese, but considerable knowledge of the context within which the message was sent.
- Evaluation. The translated decrypt had to be evaluated for its intelligence content. For example, is the ostensible content of the message meaningful? If it is, for instance, part of a power contest within the Foreign Office or some other part of the Japanese government, its meaning and implications would be quite different from a simple informational or instructional message to an Embassy. Or, might it be another message in a series whose meaning, taken together, is more than the meaning of any individual message. Thus, the fourteenth message to an Embassy instructing that Embassy to instruct Japanese merchant ships calling at that country to return to home waters before, say, the end of November would be more significant than a single such message meant for a single ship or port. Only after having evaluated a translated decrypt for its intelligence value could anyone decide whether it deserved to be distributed.
In the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the material was handled awkwardly and inefficiently, and was distributed even more awkwardly. Nevertheless, the extraordinary experience of reading a foreign government's most closely held communications, sometimes even before the intended recipient, was astonishing. It was so astonishing, someone (possibly President Roosevelt) called it magic. The name stuck.
Executive Order 9066
One aspect of Magic remains controversial to this day — the amount of involvement the intercepts played in the issuing of United States Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, and subsequent Executive Order 9102Executive Order 9102
Executive Order 9102 was a United States presidential executive order ordering the creation of the War Relocation Authority which was the U.S. civilian agency responsible for the penetration, relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II...
on March 18, which lead to the creation of the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA). This is often confused with the issue of internment, which was actually handled by the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and affected all citizens of countries at war with the United States in any location.
Internment of 'enemy aliens' by the U.S. government began two months prior to Executive Order 9066 on December 8, 1941, immediately after the attack at Pearl Harbor and included Germans, Italians, and Hungarians, not just the Japanese living on the U.S. West Coast. [see Stephen Fox's "The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans during World War II"]
David Lowman in his book MAGIC: the Untold Story reports that the primary justification for the Japanese-American relocations and internments was to protect against espionage and sabotage, because Magic could not be mentioned during the war. Those defending the relocation and evacuation programs, most notably author Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and national radio programs...
, point to Magic intercepts as being justification for EO 9066. She argues that some Magic intercepts discuss the development of a spy ring among Japanese Americans by the Japanese consulates, which raised a suspicion that some of the Japanese American community was an espionage risk. However, while Malkin offers no examples of Japanese Americans actually acting as spies, it was unnecessary since the simple possibility that one could exist is enough probable cause.
The following is the actual text of several Magic intercepts translated into English before and during the war and declassified and made public in 1978 by the U.S. government (The Magic Background of Pearl Harbor:, Government Printing Office, 8 volumes)
Tokyo to Washington
Magic intercept Tokyo to Washington #44 – Jan 30, 1941Intercept dated January 30, 1941 and noted as translated 2-7-41
Numbered #44
FROM: Tokyo (Matsuoka)
TO: Washington (Koshi)
(In two parts—complete).
(Foreign Office secret).
(1) Establish an intelligence organ in the Embassy which will maintain liaison with private and semi-official intelligence organs (see my message to Washington #591 and #732 from New York to Tokyo, both of last year's series).
With regard to this, we are holding discussions with the various circles involved at the present time.
(2) The focal point of our investigations shall be the determination of the total strength of the U.S. Our investigations shall be divided into three general classifications: political, economic, and military, and definite course of action shall be mapped out.
(3) Make a survey of all persons or organizations which either openly or secretly oppose participation in the war.
(4) Make investigations of all antisemitism, communism, movements of Negroes, and labor movements.
(5) Utilization of U.S. citizens of foreign extraction (other than Japanese), aliens (other than Japanese), communists, Negroes, labor union members, and anti-Semites, in carrying out the investigations described in the preceding paragraph would undoubtedly bear the best results.
These men, moreover, should have access to governmental establishments, (laboratories?), governmental organizations of various characters, factories, and transportation facilities.
(6) Utilization of our "Second Generations" and our resident nationals. (In view of the fact that if there is any slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to considerable persecution, and the utmost caution must be exercised).
(7) In the event of U.S. participation in the war, our intelligence set-up will be moved to Mexico, making that country the nerve center of our intelligence net. Therefore, will you bear this in mind and in anticipation of such an eventuality, set up facilities for a U.S.-Mexico international intelligence route. This net which will cover Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru will also be centered in Mexico.
(8) We shall cooperate with the German and Italian intelligence organs in the U.S. This phase has been discussed with the Germans and Italians in Tokyo, and it has been approved.
Please get the details from Secretary Terasaki upon his assuming his duties there.
Please send copies to those offices which were on the distribution list of No. 43.
Japanese U.S. consulates to Tokyo
Throughout the rest of 1941, some of the messages between Tokyo and its embassies and consulates continued to be intercepted.In response to the ordered shift from propaganda efforts to espionage collection, the Japanese consulates throughout the western hemisphere reported their information normally through the use of diplomatic channels, but when time-sensitive through the use of MAGIC encoded messages. This provided vital clues to their progress directly to the U.S. President and his top advisers.
Intercepts in May 1941 from the consulates in Los Angeles and Seattle report that the Japanese were having success in obtaining information and cooperation from "second generation" Japanese Americans and others.
Magic intercept LA to Tokyo #067 - May 9, 1941
Intercept dated May 9, 1941 and translated 5-19-41
Numbered #067
FROM: Los Angeles (Nakauchi)
TO: Tokyo (Gaimudaijin)
(In 2 parts—complete).
Strictly Secret.
Re your message # 180 to Washington.
We are doing everything in our power to establish outside contacts in connection with our efforts to gather intelligence material. In this regard, we have decided to make use of white persons and Negroes, through Japanese persons whom we cannot trust completely. (It not only would be very difficult to hire U.S. (military?) experts for this work at present time, but the expenses would be exceedingly high.) We shall, furthermore, maintain close connections with the Japanese Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the newspapers.
With regard to airplane manufacturing plants and other military establishments in other parts, we plan to establish very close relations with various organizations and in strict secrecy have them keep these military establishments under close surveillance. Through such means, we hope to be able to obtain accurate and detailed intelligence reports. We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destinations of such shipments. The same steps have been taken with regards to traffic across the U.S.-Mexico border.
We shall maintain connection with our second generations who are at present in the (U.S.) Army, to keep us informed of various developments in the Army. We also have connections with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes.
With regard to the Navy, we are cooperating with our Naval Attache's office, and are submitting reports as accurately and speedily as possible.
We are having Nakazawa investigate and summarize information gathered through first hand and newspaper reports, with regard to military movements, labor disputes, communistic activities and other similar matters. With regard to anti-Jewish movements, we are having investigations made by both prominent Americans and Japanese who are connected with the movie industry which is centered in this area. We have already established connections with very influential Negroes to keep us informed with regard to the Negro movement.
Magic intercept Seattle to Tokyo #45 - May 11, 1941
Intercept dated May 11, 1941 and translated 6-9-41
Numbered # 45
FROM: Seattle (Sato)
TO: Tokyo
(3 parts—complete)
Re your # 180 to Washington
1. Political Contacts
We are collecting intelligences revolving around political questions, and also the questions of American participation in the war which has to do with the whole country and this local area.
2. Economic Contacts
We are using foreign company employees, as well as employees in our own companies here, for the collection of intelligence having to do with economics along the lines of the construction of ships, the number of airplanes produced and their various types, the production of copper, zinc and aluminum, the yield of tin for cans, and lumber. We are now exerting our best efforts toward the acquisition of such intelligences through competent Americans. From an American, whom we contacted recently, we have received a private report on machinists of German origin who are Communists and members of the labor organizations in the Bremerton Naval Yard and Boeing airplane factory. Second generation Japanese ----- ----- ----- [three words missing].
3. Military Contacts
We are securing intelligences concerning the concentration of warships within the Bremerton Naval Yard, information with regard to mercantile shipping and airplane manufacturing, movements of military forces, as well as that which concerns troop maneuvers.
With this as a basis, men are sent out into the field who will contact Lt. Comdr. OKADA, and such intelligences will be wired to you in accordance with past practice. KANEKO is in charge of this. Recently we have on two occasions made investigations on the spot of various military establishments and concentration points in various areas. For the future we have made arrangements to collect intelligences from second generation Japanese draftees on matters dealing with the troops, as well as troop speech and behavior. ----- ---- -----. [three words missing]
4. Contacts with Labor Unions
The local labor unions A.F. of L. and C.I.O. have considerable influence. The (Socialist?) Party maintains an office here (its political sphere of influence extends over twelve zones.) The C.I.O., especially, has been very active here. We have had a first generation Japanese, who is a member of the labor movement and a committee chairman, contact the organizer, and we have received a report, though it is but a resume, on the use of American members of the (Socialist ?) Party. ------ OKAMARU is in charge of this.
5. In order to contact Americans of foreign extraction and foreigners, in addition to third parties, for the collection of intelligences with regard to anti-participation organizations and the anti-Jewish movement, we are making use of a second generation Japanese lawyer.
This intelligence ---- ----- -----.
Access by Roosevelt's cabinet
These intercepts plus other reports from the FBI and the Office of Naval IntelligenceOffice of Naval Intelligence
The Office of Naval Intelligence was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland...
counter-espionage efforts, the TACHIBANA espionage case during summer 1941, FBI efforts against Japanese Yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
throughout the 1930s along the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
(the TOKOYO and TOYO CLUBs) were all available only to the most senior leaders in the Roosevelt cabinet. Even J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
, Director of the FBI, was not privy to the existence of Magic intelligence.
Opposing viewpoint
Those who consider that Executive Order 9066Executive Order 9066
United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...
regarding Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
was not based on Magic intercepts, argue:
- the commanding officer on the West coast, Lt. Gen. J. L. DeWitt, was not on the Magic intercept list,
- his superior, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, was on the intercept list, and
- Stimson requested justification for the relocation program from DeWitt.
- If Magic intercepts provided justification, why ask DeWitt for further justification?
One theory is that Stimson wanted DeWitt to provide justifications that could be made public, because the Magic intercepts could not be made public.
The issue has been inflamed recently due to the release of Malkin's recent book, In Defense of Internment
In Defense of Internment
In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror is a 2004 book written by conservative American political commentator Michelle Malkin...
, in which the Magic intercepts play a major role in the defense of her thesis.
Other Japanese ciphers
PURPLE was an enticing, but quite tactically limited, window into Japanese planning and policy because of the peculiar nature of Japanese policy making prior to the War (see above). Early on, a better tactical window was the Japanese Fleet Code (an encoded cypher), called JN-25 by U.S. Navy cryptanalysts. Breaking into the version in use in the months after December 7, 1941 provided enough information to lead to U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
naval victories in the battles of the Coral Sea
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged...
and Midway
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
, stopping the initial Japanese advances to the south and eliminating the bulk of Japanese naval air power. Later, broken JN-25 traffic also provided the schedule and routing of the plane Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto would be flying in during an inspection tour in the southwest Pacific, giving U.S Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
pilots a chance to ambush the officer who had conceived the Pearl Harbor attack. And still later, access to Japanese Army messages from decrypts of Army communications traffic assisted in planning the island hopping campaign to the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and beyond.
Another source of information was the Japanese Military Attaché code (known as JMA to the Allies) introduced in 1941. This was a
fractionating transposition system based on two-letter code groups which stood for common words and phrases. The groups were written in a square grid according to an irregular pattern and read off vertically, similar to a disrupted columnar transposition. Then the letters were superenciphered using a pre-arranged table of alphabets. This system was broken by John Tiltman at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
in 1942.
Other claimed breaks into PURPLE
The book Sword and Shield, by Christopher Andrew, based on the Mitrokhin ArchiveVasili Mitrokhin
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin was a Major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and co-author with Christopher Andrew of The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, a massive account of Soviet intelligence...
smuggled out of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in the early '90s by a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
archivist, says that the Soviets
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
independently broke into Japanese PURPLE traffic (as well as the Red predecessor machine), and that decrypted PURPLE messages contributed to the decision by Stalin to move troops from Far Eastern Asia to the area around Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
for the counterattack against Germany in December 1941 as the messages convinced the Soviet government that there would not be a Japanese attack.
How secret was Magic?
Public notice had actually been served that Japanese cryptography was dangerously inadequate by the Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, which published a series of stories just after Midway, starting on 7 June 1942, which claimed (correctly) that victory was due in large part to U.S. breaks into Japanese crypto systems (in this case, the JN-25 cypher, though which system(s) had been broken was not mentioned in the newspaper stories). The Tribune claimed the story was written by Stanley Johnston from his own knowledge (and Jane's
Jane's Fighting Ships
Jane's Fighting Ships is an annual reference book of information on all the world's warships arranged by nation, including information on ship's names, dimensions, armaments, silhouettes and photographs, etc...
), but Ronald Lewin
Ronald Lewin
Ronald Lewin , full name George Ronald Lewin, was a British military historian, radio producer and publishing editor.He was educated at Heath School, Halifax and Oxford University where he was a Hastings Scholar and Goldsmiths’ Exhibitioner....
points out that the story repeats the layout and errors of a signal from Admiral Nimitz which Johnston saw while on the transport Barnett. Nimitz was reprimanded by Admiral King for sending the dispatch to Task Force commanders on a channel available to nearly all ships.
However, neither the Japanese nor anyone who might have told them seem to have noticed either the Tribune coverage, or the stories based on the Tribune account published in other U.S. papers. Nor did they notice announcements made on the floor of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to the same effect. There were no changes in Japanese cryptography connected with those newspaper accounts or Congressional disclosures.
Alvin Kernan was an aviation ordnanceman on board the aircraft carriers and the during the war. During that time, he was awarded the Navy Cross
Navy Cross
The Navy Cross is the highest decoration that may be bestowed by the Department of the Navy and the second highest decoration given for valor. It is normally only awarded to members of the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps and United States Coast Guard, but can be awarded to all...
. In his book, Crossing the Line, he states that when the carrier returned to Pearl Harbor to resupply before the Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
, the crew knew that the Japanese code had been broken and that U.S. naval forces were preparing to engage the Japanese fleet at Midway. He insists that he "...exactly remembers the occasion on which I was told, with full details about ships and dates..." despite the later insistence that the breaking of the code was kept secret.
U.S. Navy Commander I.J. Galantin
Ignatius J. Galantin
Ignatius Joseph "Pete" Galantin was a four star United States Navy admiral, World War II Navy Cross recipient, and the first commander of the Naval Material Command.-Early career:...
, who retired as an Admiral, refers several times to Magic in his book about his Pacific theater war patrols as captain of the U.S. submarine . However, Galantin refers to Magic as "Ultra" which was actually the name given to the breaking of the German code. Upon receiving one message from Pacific Fleet command, directing him off normal station to intercept Japanese vessels due to a Magic message, Galantin writes. "I had written my night orders carefully. I made no reference to Ultra and stressed only the need to be very alert for targets in this fruitful area." Galantin had previously mentioned in his book that all submarine captains were aware of "Ultra" (Magic).
In addition, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
discovered early in the War that Magic documents were being widely read at the White House, and that "...at one time over 500 people were reading messages we had intercepted from the Japanese.... Everyone seemed to be reading them".
Fictional treatment
Neal StephensonNeal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's novel Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon is a 1999 novel by American author Neal Stephenson. The novel follows the exploits of two groups of people in two different time periods, presented in alternating chapters...
includes a fictionalized version of Magic, with the Japanese cryptosystem being named "Indigo" rather than "PURPLE".
The W.E.B. Griffin series The Corps is a fictionalized account of United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and Marine Corps
Marine corps
A marine is a member of a force that specializes in expeditionary operations such as amphibious assault and occupation. The marines traditionally have strong links with the country's navy...
intelligence operations in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Many of the main characters in the novels, both fictional and historical, have access to and use intelligence from Magic.