The Uncertain Oracle: Some Intelligence Failures ... - U.S. Army

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when their aircraft production was underestimatedby half, their pilot training pronounced inferior,their Zero fighter remained a mystery, their sonargear was written off as substandard, and thenumber of aircraft on their carriers wasundercounted.7The question of where an attack would fall waswrongly answered just before Pearl Harbor whenanalysts prepared a list of possible targets whichomitted Hawaii altogether. Although U.S. plannershad considered Hawaii a potential target intheir training exercises for many years, the widespreadbelief that the islands were an impregnablefortress tended to cause U.S. intelligence to writeit off as a possibility.Warnings were dispatched to Admiral Kimmelby the Chief of Naval Operations and by the WarDepartment. On 27 November the CNO sent thismessage: “An aggressive move by Japan is expectedwithin the next few days.... The numberand equipment of Japanese troops and the organizationof naval task forces indicated an amphibiousexpedition against either the Philippines, Thaior Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo. ...Executean appropriate defensive deployment.” On thesame day the War Department said, “Negotiationswith Japan appear to be terminated...hostile actionpossible at any moment.” On 3 Decemberthe CNO warned, “Highly reliable informationhas been received that categoric and urgent instructionswere sent yesterday to Japanese diplomaticand consular posts at Hongkong, Singapore,Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London to destroymost of their codes and ciphers at once andto burn all other important confidential and secretdocuments.”8 Since none of these messagesspecifically mentioned Hawaii and because theJapanese were not told to burn all of their codes,no special importance was attached to them.Sometimes even apparent signals are rendereduseless by operational inaction. U.S. defenseplans anticipated that a single submarine attackwould mean that a larger surface force was in thearea. Yet when an enemy submarine was confirmedin the area on 7 December at 0640, therewas no change in alert status.9When Col. Rufus S. Bratton, the chief of ArmyFar Eastern Intelligence in Washington wastroubled by the implications of the new informationintercepted via the “winds” code and wishedto relay that information to his counterpart inHawaii, he was thwarted by the high security classificationwhich could not be sent through normalchannels. So instead he sent a message in theclear instructing the Army intelligence man inHawaii, Lt. Col. Kendall J. Fiedler, to “ContactCommander Rochefort immediately thru CommandantFourteenth Naval District regardingbroadcasts from Tokyo reference weather.”Upon receipt, the untrained and inexperiencedFiedler in Hawaii filed the message and did nottry to see Commander Rochefort. He simply didnot see any urgency in this routine kind of message,especially since he did not expect any Japaneseattack.10Likewise, when Admiral Husband E. Kimmelwas informed that the Japanese were destroyingtheir codes in London, Washington and Far Easternconsulates, he attached no particular importanceto it vis-a-vis his situation. To congressmenand military leaders studying the event afterthe war, destruction of codes was an “unmistakabletip-off” and put Admiral Kimmel’s judgmentin question. But while the admiral might assume,as everyone did after the fact, that this meant war,he did not necessarily come to the conclusion thatPearl Harbor would be attacked. And burning ofclassified documents by the Japanese was a regularoccurrence at the consulate in Honolulu.No one in the Far East U.S. military establishmentseriously believed that Pearl Harbor was aserious target to the Japanese. So it became easierto misinterpret those signs that pointed to thispossibility. The human tendency to explain eventsaccording to their own expectations and beliefs,and the resistance to any information that overturnstheir opinions were key factors in the PearlHarbor intelligence failure. Other factors werethe mass of conflicting information, the Japanesesuccess at keeping their intentions quiet, deceptionoperations, sudden changes in military capabilitiesthat caused, for instance, U.S. estimatesof the range of the Zero to fall short, and ourown communications security which not onlydenied information to the enemy but to key Americanofficers as well.After Pearl Harbor, congressional findingsmade note of the tendency of military men to ac-
cept personal responsibility for actions withoutasking for orders from a superior.While there is an understandable dispositionof a subordinate to avoid consultinghis superior for advice except where absolutelynecessary in order that he maydemonstrate his self-reliance, the persistentfailure without exception of Army andNavy officers...to seek amplifying andclarifying instructions from their superiorsis strongly suggestive of just one thing:That the military and naval services failedto instill in their personnel the wholesomedisposition to consult freely with their superiors.11Wohlstetter found in her study of Pearl Harborthat there was a general prejudice against intellectualsand intelligence specialists. She said,“[intelligence officers’] efforts were unsuccessfulbecause of the poor repute associated withIntelligence, inferior rank, and the province ofthe specialist or long-hair.”12Analysts receive information piecemeal over aperiod of time and seldom are able to evaluatethe cumulative weight of their information. Thiswas true before Pearl Harbor when Magic interceptswere sent to decision-makers one at a time.A messenger waited outside their offices until thefile was read and then carried it to the next personon the list. So the fragments were never consideredas a body of evidence.Expectations have a big part in determininghow information will be interpreted. For example,the chief of Army intelligence in Hawaii was notexpecting a Japanese attack. As a result, whenhe received warning of the Japanese destroyingtheir codes, he attached no importance to it andmerely filed the message.13 An Army lieutenantreceived information from a radar station of aflight of approaching aircraft on morning of December7th. He readily believed that the flightwas friendly and told the radar operators to forgetit. The “wishful-thinking” phenomena isclosely related to expectations. It projects thedesires of an individual into the expected outcome.It is easy to misjudge the importance of newinformation in light of strongly held theories.Admiral Kimmel probably did so when he learnedin a “for action” warning that the Japanese weredestroying their codes. This Japanese action wasconveniently taken to mean that an attack wouldtake place in Southeast Asia, the belief of theAmerican leaders in Hawaii all along. So thisreport was not even passed on to the Army headquartersin Hawaii.Another example of the tendency to reshapeinformation to fit preconceptions was the October1941 intercept of a Tokyo request of the Honoluluconsulate for information on the exact numberand location of U.S. warships in the harbor.No special importance was placed on this requestbecause, said the Chief of Naval Operations AdmiralHarold Stark, “We knew the Japanese appetitewas almost insatiable for detail in all respects.The dispatch might have been put downas just another example of their great attention todetail.”14Of course, it was not entirely a failure of intelligence.Operational planning must be faulted aswell. Even if the signs of the imminent attack onPearl had been correctly interpreted and the warningdisseminated, the victims of the attack musthave sufficient time to react, to get into their defensiveposture. Because the surprise attackershave a definite advantage in timing, seldom is theretime to get ready. Placing troops on constant alertis not feasible. That exhausts both soldiers andpatience. High levels of readiness cannot be sustainedover long periods of time. There are alwayspeaks and valleys.15Wohlstetter concluded her definitive study ofthe catastrophe at Pearl Harbor with this cautionfor the future: “We have to accept the fact ofuncertainty and learn to live with it. No magic,in code or otherwise, will provide certainty. Ourplans must work without it.”16Ephraim Kam reached a similar conclusion thatsurprise attacks were inevitable when he said,“History does not encourage potential victims ofsurprise attack. One can only hope to reduce theseverity—to be only partly surprised, to issueclearer and more timely warnings, to gain a fewdays for better preparations—and to be more adequatelyprepared to minimize the damage oncea surprise attack occurs.”17The War Department General Staff began itsown study of the Joint Congressional Committeeon the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack
Page 2: In an article about “Intelligence
Page 7 and 8: political analysts working on the m
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Page 15 and 16: not, Army Lt. Gen. Donald Bennett,
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