December 7 marks the 80th anniversary of our day of infamy. It’s been falsely suggested that this was the greatest military intelligence failure in history. Given what was discovered after, it could be described as the greatest governmental cover up in history. What was learned was the U.S. broke the Japanese diplomatic code and was reading decoded dispatches at a rate faster than the Japanese embassy could decode them, known as “MAGIC.” The Army hired attorney Alfred McCormack to review MAGIC disseminations. The Navy hired history professor John Connerton. McCormack put in place a system for improving MAGIC. Connerton viewed both what happened and what should happen going forward.
Connorton found that on September 24, 1941 the recipients of MAGIC transcripts, FDR, General Marshall, Admiral Stark and others knew or should have known Pearl Harbor was an intended target. None of the intercepts up through December 7 were disclosed to the command authority at Pearl Harbor. Commissions and committees continued the cover up and set up Kimmel and Short to be falsely blamed. There have been efforts to restore Kimmel and Short to their respective ranks at time of the attack. After the war ended legislation was passed to restore those to the highest rank they held during the war. Kimmel and Short were purposely excluded. A much younger Sen, Joe Biden was an active supporter of this rank restoration and the only obstacle was the president. Biden is now president and has the opportunity to right a significant wrong, but will he?
Robert C. Washburn
Concord