13. The Writing on the Wall

Chapter Thirteen

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

ALTHOUGH DIPLOMATIC exchanges continued in Washington up to the very moment of the December 7 attack, and even beyond it, they became hopeless after Secretary Hull’s submission of his proposals of November 26, and apparently were so regarded in the State Department even before that. On November 22, for instance, Ballantine asked Nomura and Kurusu the rhetorical question whether it were not the duty of every politician to “strive for peace up to the day before war is found to be unavoidable.”¹

Meanwhile, other messages between Tokyo and its diplomatic outposts throughout the world which Army and Navy intelligence continued to intercept showed that the crisis was fast approaching. The sequence of these messages, with the interpretation which military intelligence might logically have placed upon them, was as follows:

NOVEMBER 24

Tokyo advised its Washington ambassadors that the deadline previously set for reaching an agreement was in Tokyo time, November 29—November 28 in Washington.²

Interpretation: After the 28th things were “automatically going to happen.”

NOVEMBER 25

Japanese representatives in Hanoi, Indo-China, informed Tokyo:

We are advised by the military that we are to have a reply from the United States on the 25th. If this is true, no doubt the cabinet will make a decision between peace and war within the next day or two. . . . Should . . . the negotiations not end in a success, since practically all preparations for the campaign have been completed, our forces shall be able to move within the day.³

Interpretation: Hanoi, although not advised of the extension of the deadline to November 29, reported that troops were prepared to begin military action in a matter of hours.

Another message from Bangkok, Siam, discussed the “empire’s taking decisive action in a southward advance,” indicating that this attack would be directed against Burma and Malaya and would involve the occupation of Thailand.⁴

Interpretation: Objectives of the Japanese attack in that quarter now known to Washington. They violate Roosevelt’s warning of August 17 and require the President to give military assistance to Britain under his parallel action obligations.

NOVEMBER 26

This was the day on which Hull submitted the American terms to Japan. The Japanese envoys in Washington were sent a new word code to be used in telephone reports to Tokyo in order to save time. Roosevelt was to be designated as “Miss Kimiko” and Hull as “Miss Fumeko.” “The child is born” would be interpreted as the arrival of a crisis or the decision to go to war.⁵ Upon receipt of this code, Kurusu telephoned Kumaicho Yamamoto, head of the American section of the Japanese foreign office, and expressed a feeling of hopelessness concerning any successful outcome of the negotiations.⁶

Interpretation: The “child” would soon be born.

Reporting that same evening on Hull’s submission of the ten points, Nomura said that he and Kurusu had been “dumbfounded” at the terms and felt they could not even report them to Tokyo. “Why,” he asked, “did the United States have to propose such hard terms as these? Well, England, the Netherlands, and China doubtless put her up to it.”⁷

Interpretation: Hull’s terms were unacceptable. America’s ABCD partners were thrusting America forward to force a showdown with Japan.

In a later message Nomura said that the American government was endeavoring to cast “the responsibility for the rupture of negotiations” upon Japan, and implied that while the negotiations were still technically in progress, Japan should not “deliberately enter into our scheduled operations.”⁸

Interpretation: Matters had passed out of the realm of diplomacy, and, with military operations in the making, each country was now endeavoring to fasten “war guilt” upon the other.

NOVEMBER 27

Tokyo forwarded Washington a series of hidden word signals to be used if other means of communication failed.⁹

Interpretation: This step was obviously in anticipation of hostilities.

That night Kurusu used the telephone code established the previous day in a call to Yamamoto, who told him that although a crisis seemed imminent, he was not to break off negotiations. The army, Yamamoto said, “is champing at the bit.”¹⁰

Interpretation: The Japanese military had now taken over and were impatient to start operations. Diplomacy henceforward would be useful only to mask military intentions and moves.

In a code message that night, Nomura told of having gone with Kurusu to see Roosevelt. The President told them that at the Atlantic conference he and Prime Minister Churchill had agreed that “our respective basic policies coincided.”¹¹

Interpretation: Under the parallel action agreement, Japan would be forced to fight both Britain and the United States.

Tokyo sent a message of the utmost importance to its emissaries in Washington. Nomura and Kurusu were told,

NOVEMBER 28

Well, you two ambassadors have exerted superhuman efforts, but, in spite of this, the United States has gone ahead and presented this humiliating proposal. This was unexpected and extremely regrettable. The imperial government can by no means use it as a basis for negotiations. Therefore, with a report of the views of the imperial government on this American proposal which I will send you in two or three days, the negotiations will be de facto ruptured. This is inevitable. However, I do not wish you to give the impression that the negotiations are broken off. Merely to say to them that you are awaiting instructions . . . . From now on do the best you can.¹²

Interpretation: This message, intercepted and decoded ten days before the Japanese handed in their reply to Hull coincident with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, showed that the Japanese government had already rejected Hull’s terms. The deadline after which things were “automatically going to happen” had now passed. The ambassadors were instructed to stall from then until the finish, which would occur whenever that which was “automatically going to happen” did happen. The American government thus had a clear warning to direct its forces to go on an all-out alert in preparation for certain war.

Tokyo then began to notify its diplomatic and consular representatives in Hawaii, Indo-China, Argentina, and other countries that Hull’s counter-proposal “overlooks all we stand for; therefore, of course, we disregard it,” and that relations with the United States and Britain would soon be broken off. The message to Honolulu stated significantly: “Do not destroy the codes without regard to the actual situation in your locality, but retain them as long as the situation there permits and until the final stage is entered into.”¹³

Interpretation: Whatever was “automatically going to happen” was approaching a “final stage,” in which Hawaii would have such an important role that codes were to be retained for transmission of last-minute information until hostilities should present the danger that the codes would be confiscated.

A message from Hsinking, Manchukuo, to Tokyo discussed in detail the policy to be followed in dealing with British and American nationals in the Japanese puppet state when war came. It was reported that plans had been made to intern 81 American citizens and 339 British subjects until they could be exchanged, and that other “obnoxious characters with pro-British and American leanings are to be suitably taken care of.”¹⁴

Interpretation: War with the United States and Britain.

NOVEMBER 29

A message from Berlin to Tokyo related a conversation between the Japanese ambassador and Von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister, in which Ribbentrop drew a highly optimistic picture of the course of the Nazi war with Russia and predicted eventual defeat of Britain, whether Germany should be compelled to land its army in England or not. Ribbentrop urged the Japanese to press for the “new order” in the Far East and pledged, “Should Japan become engaged in a war against the United States, Germany, of course, would join the war immediately.”¹⁵

Interpretation: Hitler urges Der Tag with deceptive estimates of Germany’s military situation. The three partners of the Axis would all be at war with the United States if Japan took the plunge.

NOVEMBER 30

In response, Tokyo advised its Berlin ambassador that the Washington conversations “now stand ruptured—broken.” The ambassador was directed to inform Hitler and Ribbentrop that

lately England and the United States have taken a provocative attitude, both of them. Say that they are planning to move military forces into various places in East Asia and that we will inevitably have to counter by also moving troops. Say very secretly to them that there is extreme danger that war may suddenly break out between the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan through some clash of arms and add that the time of the breaking out of this war may come quicker than any one dreams.*¹⁶

Interpretation: Unmistakable. Negotiations were over. Military movements would begin. War would come soon—“quicker than any one dreams.”

This reading is sustained by further remarks in a later message. It was said that the Japanese government had decided to discontinue negotiations with the United States because “a continuation of negotiations would inevitably be detrimental to our case.” The American proposal of November 26 was termed “insulting” in that it attempted to obtain a disavowal from Japan of its commitment to assist Germany and Italy if the United States intervened in the European war. American consultation with England, Australia, the Netherlands, and China during the course of the negotiations was cited as proof of “collusion,” and it was said that all of these powers regarded Japan, as well as Germany and Italy, as an enemy.¹⁷

In a telephone conversation the same day with American Division Chief Yamamoto, Kurusu noted that until a few days before his government had been insistent that the negotiations be brought to a conclusion, but that “now you want to stretch them out.” He said that Tokyo could help him in this undertaking if Premier Tojo and Foreign Minister Togo could be persuaded to adopt a more temperate tone in their speeches.¹⁸

Interpretation: As made unmistakably clear in Tokyo’s November 28 message to Nomura and Kurusu, the continuing conversations in Washington were now play acting, intended to cover some movement which would not take effect until after a further lapse of time. Hull, on December 7, would complain of Japanese treachery in attacking “at the very moment when representatives of the Japanese government were discussing with representatives of this government . . . principles and courses of peace.” Roosevelt, in his message to Congress December 8, asking a declaration of war, would decry the Japanese attack as coming “when the United States was at peace with that nation and . . . still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.” How could either have been sincere in such statements? They knew that after November 28 Japan continued the conversations only in an endeavor to throw dust in the eyes of the American government.

DECEMBER 1

Tokyo again advised its Washington ambassadors of the necessity of stalling. This message said:

The date set [November 28, Washington time] . . . has come and gone, and the situation continues to be increasingly critical. However, to prevent the United States from becoming unduly suspicious, we have been advising the press and others that though there are some wide differences between Japan and the United States, the negotiations are continuing.¹⁹

Interpretation: As above. The deadline was past. Japan’s plan had been set in motion. The stalling in Washington was to allay suspicion. Told this in so many words, Washington should have ordered American forces everywhere to exercise the utmost vigilance. But Washington manifested no suspicion, so far as its actions and orders show.

Another message to Washington the same day said that when faced with the necessity of destroying codes, the embassy should obtain chemicals for that purpose which were on hand at the office of the Japanese naval attaché.²⁰ Other messages that day directed London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila to destroy their code machines and burn their codes.²¹ Still another message to Hsingking said that “Manchuria will take the same steps toward England and America that this country will take in case war breaks out.”²²

Interpretation: War against Britain and the United States, and quickly. Code and code machine destruction was the penultimate step.

Nomura, reporting a conversation December 1 with Hull, said that the Secretary had expressed objections to new Japanese army and navy movements in Indo-China and said that as long as Japan acted in this fashion “there is absolutely no way of bringing about a settlement.”²³

Interpretation: Hull, who should have known that the game was up, was still talking as if peace could be saved if the Japanese reformed.

In response, Nomura said to Hull,

Peace between Japan and China could not be attained through any such terms as were contained in your most recent proposal. We hear your argument to the effect that you cannot stand by and do nothing while China dies. The converse of that argument should be even stronger. That is, that it is of the utmost importance for us to avoid standing by and watching our own respective countries die, just because of the China problem.²⁴

Interpretation: Hull was directly informed that his November 26 terms could not be accepted.

DECEMBER 2

The Japanese embassy in Washington was ordered by Togo to destroy one of its two code machines and to burn most of its codes.²⁵ Similar instructions as to the destruction of codes and secret documents were sent to consular and diplomatic officers in the American republics, Hawaii, and Canada.²⁶

Interpretation: War now very close. Washington’s retention of its one remaining code machine was to receive the Japanese reply to the American November 26 proposal, which obviously would coincide with the beginning of hostilities.*

A supplementary “hidden word” code was sent to Singapore, Chile, and Brazil the same day, so that information could be communicated to Tokyo concerning the arrival of American military planes, the identity of British and American merchantmen docked in port, and similar data useful only for military purposes.²⁷

Interpretation: Hostilities assumed within a short time.

Also on December 2, Canton advised Tokyo that

if hostilities are to begin, we here are all prepared. The army has completed all preparations to move immediately on Thai. Should the British resist to the bitter end, it is understood that the army is prepared to go so far as to militarily occupy the country.²⁸

Interpretation: Plain. Jap forces in South China ready. Thailand to be seized in defiance of Roosevelt’s warning of August 17 that the United States would be compelled to act in this event.

DECEMBER 3

The Japanese ambassadors in Washington were advised that it was “inappropriate” to renew the suggestion that a meeting take place between the President and the Japanese premier. They were instructed to stand on the Japanese proposals for a settlement tendered November 20.²⁹

Interpretation: Tokyo no longer interested in diplomatic solutions.

The ambassadors informed Tokyo in response that “we feel that some joint military action between Great Britain and the United States, with or without a declaration of war, is a definite certainty in the event of an occupation of Thailand.”³⁰ Nomura strengthened this by stating, “There is no saying but what the United States government will take a bold step, depending upon how our reply is made.”³¹

Interpretation: Nomura and Kurusu in a last admonition that the steps apparently contemplated by Tokyo would bring American counter-action.

A message from the Japanese ambassador in Rome depicted Mussolini on December 3 as pledging support to Japan under the tripartite pact when war came and saying he was not surprised that the Washington negotiations had failed.³²

Interpretation: The negotiations having failed, the United States would find itself at war with all three members of the Axis.

Another message to Tokyo from Peking on December 3 referred to the “coming war” on two occasions and, on another, to the “next war,” and stressed the necessity of attracting the native peoples of Southeast Asia to the Japanese cause “against the United States and Britain.”³³

Interpretation: A war of races to be proclaimed against the United States and Britain, with Japan offering leadership to all Asiatics.

DECEMBER 4

The Washington embassy was given additional instructions on burning codes.³⁴ The same day Tokyo sent a code message to diplomatic posts in China that “when Japan enters a war, . . . Manchukuo shall treat Great Britain, the United States, and Netherlands Indies as enemy countries.” It was directed, however, that in view of the existence of a neutrality treaty between Japan and Russia, Russian citizens were to be excepted and that Manchukuo was to “take every precaution so as not to provoke Soviet Russia.”³⁵ Another message the same day to Japanese representatives in China and Manchukuo referred to attitudes to be adopted toward the Dutch government when war should ensue.³⁶ Still the same day a third message to Hsingking again designated England, the United States, and the Netherlands as enemies in the impending war.³⁷ Meanwhile, the evacuation of staff members of the Japanese embassies in London and Washington was discussed in other messages.³⁸

Interpretation: War against the United States, Britain, and Holland, but peace with Russia.

DECEMBER 5

The Washington embassy reported to Tokyo: “We have completed destruction of codes, but since the U.S.—Japanese negotiations are still continuing, I request your approval of our desire to delay for a while yet the destruction of the one code machine.”³⁹ (This was approved the following day.)⁴⁰

Interpretation: War to be measured in hours from this date.

Peking, in a message to Tokyo, said that “concurrent with opening war with Britain and America, we have considered Holland as a semi-belligerent”; and, “In case war breaks out with Holland, we will take the same steps toward that country that we have taken with Britain and America.”⁴¹ The same day Peking discussed with Shanghai the question of obtaining a neutral third power as custodian of the interests of Britain, America, and Holland in North China when war broke out.⁴² The Navy later contended that it did not translate these messages until four days after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Interpretation: War against the United States, Britain, and Holland a certainty.

DECEMBER 6

Tokyo advised the ambassadors in Washington that it had drafted a very long reply to Secretary Hull’s proposal of November 26 which would be transmitted in fourteen parts. The ambassadors were directed to withhold the reply from the American government pending arrival of a separate message setting the time it was to be presented.⁴³

Capt. Laurance F. Safford, naval communications intelligence chief, said that Tokyo had advised its Washington emissaries between 11:00 and 12:00 A.M. on December 6 that its final reply was on the way. This “pilot” message, he said, was translated by the Navy Department before 11:50 A.M. The first thirteen parts of the final message started coming in shortly after noon and were translated and ready for delivery by 9:00 P.M. Safford said he regarded the first thirteen parts as “highly important” because of the abusive language that was employed.⁴⁴

Interpretation: Under the Axis pattern, first set by Japan in the Russo-Japanese war, the end of diplomatic relations would coincide with the inauguration of a state of hostilities. Remember Port Arthur!

In another message December 6 Tokyo transmitted word to its Berlin ambassador that Japan did not contemplate hostilities with Russia, that it would not stop shipments of American lend-lease material to Russia if carried in Soviet merchantmen, but that “in case we start our war with the United States we will capture all American ships destined for Soviet Russia.”⁴⁵ The Army says that this message was not translated until December 8.

Another dispatch directed Japanese authorities in Canton to advise the British and American consuls that the imperial army would assume control of public property of “hostile nations,” consulates, and buildings.⁴⁶ The Army says that it did not translate this message until December 9.

Another message on the 6th, from Tokyo to Bankok, was of an importance which can scarcely be exaggerated. The Army, however, says that it was not translated until December 8. As submitted to the congressional committee, the message was in the following form:

The (. . . . . .)^a day (X Day) decided by the . . . . . . . .^b liaison conference on the 6th (?)^c is the 8th and the day on which the notice is to be given is the 7th (?) (Sunday). As soon as you have received this message, please reply to that effect.

The Navy listed “translator’s assumptions” as follows:

a “Proclamation” or “declaration.”

b “Ambassadorial” or “China.”

c This word is garbled and could be either the word “6th” or the word “November.”⁴⁷

The tentative translations given tended to obscure the meaning of the message. Here, if it had been admittedly recognized and decoded in time, was the Japanese statement that the opening of hostilities decreed on November 6 by Adm. Yamamoto, commander of the combined imperial fleets, would be December 8, Japan time (December 7, Hawaii time), and the day on which the Japanese reply to Hull’s November 26 proposals would be submitted was Sunday, December 7, Washington time, the two dates coinciding.*

Many of the messages of the preceding ten days individually served notice upon the American officials who were reading them that war was distant only a few days at most, and all of them together could be read in no other light. The first thirteen parts of the Japanese final reply to Hull were couched in such language as to demonstrate that the hour when Japan would resort to arms was at hand.

DECEMBER 7

About 5:00 A.M. on December 7 the fourteenth and final part of the Japanese message breaking off relations with the United States and heralding the advent of war was intercepted. It was decoded and available for distribution to all of the leaders of the government and of the Army and Navy top command by 9:00 A.M.⁴⁸ The language was clearly menacing:

Obviously it is the intention of the American government to conspire with Great Britain and other countries to obstruct Japan’s efforts toward the establishment of peace through the creation of a new order in East Asia, and especially to preserve Anglo-American rights and interests by keeping Japan and China at war. This intention has been revealed clearly during the course of the present negotiations. Thus, the earnest hope of the Japanese government to adjust Japanese-American relations and to preserve and promote the peace of the Pacific through co-operation with the American government has finally been lost.

The Japanese government regrets to have to notify hereby the American government that in view of the attitude of the American government it cannot but consider that it is impossible to reach an agreement through further negotiations.⁴⁹

Interpretation: The “peace of the Pacific” having “finally been lost,” no other alternative except war was possible. It would be war at once.

Of such extreme importance did Tokyo consider its final reply to the American government that just as soon as it had finished sending, the Japanese Foreign Office instructed Nomura not to use a typist or any other person in copying out the note for submission to Hull. “Be most extremely cautious in preserving secrecy,” the ambassador was admonished.⁵⁰

Interpretation: This warning was unique and testified to the importance attached to the fourteen-part response by the Japanese government. In no other instance were such cautionary instructions dispatched to Washington.

Then, between 9:00 and 9:30 A.M., the key Tokyo message disclosing Japan’s intentions to attack the United States at 1:00 P.M., Washington time, that day, was intercepted and translated.⁵¹ Thus, at least three hours and fifty-five minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the time for the outbreak of the war was in the hands of the American government. It was fixed in a message to Nomura, stating, “Will the ambassador please submit to the United States government (if possible, to the Secretary of State) our reply to the United States at 1:00 P.M. on the 7th, you time.”⁵²

Interpretation: The Japanese attack would come at that hour—dark night over East Asia, 2:00 A.M. at Manila, but 7:30 A.M., one hour and four minutes after sunrise, at Hawaii. It is a military axiom that sunrise is the most favorable hour for surprise air attack. Therefore, the attack would be on Hawaii, and no place else.

Two subsequent messages expressed thanks to Nomura and Kurusu and the members of the embassy staff for the efforts they had made during the negotiations, and regret that “matters have come to what they are now”—the situation being referred to as an “unprecedented crisis.”⁵³ The embassy was then instructed to destroy its remaining cipher machine, all machine codes, and all secret documents.⁵⁴

Interpretation: Everything was now over and done with. All that remained was the Jap attack that would open the war.

Subsequent messages to representatives in Japanese and Japanese occupied territory directed how “enemy subjects” and “enemy property” were to be handled.⁵⁵

Interpretation: U.S., British, and Dutch nationals now enemy aliens.

Washington shortly reported back to Tokyo that it had embarked on the destruction of its codes and, upon the dispatch of this final message, would begin the demolition and destruction by fire of its last code machine and remaining ciphers.⁵⁶

Interpretation: No further diplomatic business to transact. H-hour, D-day, now at hand.

This completes the record of significant intercepts. The process and products of decoding were known as “Magic.” Certainly, no magic use was made of them. With a full insight into Japanese intentions—fuller, as will be seen, than the evidence already spread upon the record would indicate—the men in Washington permitted the blow to fall at Oahu.

* “The President regarded this message as of such interest that he retained a copy of it, contrary to the usual practice in handling the intercepted messages” (Min., pp. 21-22).

* “It is well known in diplomatic and military circles that destruction of codes, code machines, and secret documents is usually the last step before breaking off relations between governments. War does not necessarily have to follow, but it may follow either simultaneously or close on the heels of the destruction of codes” (Min., p. 60).

* Cf. pp. 19, 21.