COURTING A RELUCTANT ALLY - National Intelligence University

emanating from Japanese home waters and were eager to obtain the greater volumeof signals the U.S. could provide them for analysis. 313 A formal agreementwas reached whereby a special radio circuit would be used to share informationusing a one-time pad code for the security of the transmission. 314 Hardcopy trafficand detailed analyses were sent using a regularly scheduled flight from Manila toSingapore. 315 Given the success of these exchanges, the U.S. Army attaché inLondon, in late May 1941, made a request to the British government, on behalf ofthe War Department, requesting a full exchange of intelligence information in theFar East. During a 6 June 1941 meeting of the British JIC, the British reached adecision to share all their intelligence in the Far East, except their SIS and SOEoperations, with the Americans. 316 Although this was a significant offer on thepart of the British, it was a difficult policy to implement, despite its having beenenacted at the request of the American government. As Richard Aldrich hasobserved, the U.S. had no comparable inter-service intelligence organization thatthe British could deal with, so every agreement needed to be worked out betweenindividual departments of the U.S. government. 317 Alan Bath has also noted thatthe U.S. was slow to respond to Far East initiatives as the threat there seemed lessurgent and many in leadership positions were still wary of any British desire tomaintain their colonial empire. 318 Both Aldrich and Bath are correct in pointingout that perennial problems in the relationship between the two countries existedas late as the summer of 1941 and continued to work against better cooperationon both operational and intelligence matters.The Godfrey Visit—May-June 1941In parallel with the effort to improve intelligence cooperation in the Far East,the JIC in London was still interested in ways to improve the cooperation andcoordination of U.S. and UK intelligence in the Atlantic theater. To this end, Godfreywas dispatched on a mission from the JIC to assess the state of U.S. intelligenceand, as Donald MacLachlan has stated, “to persuade the Americans to pooltheir intelligence with ours [the British], to adopt those of our methods which hadbeen proved by nearly two years’ experience and to accept all we were prepared313Smith, Ultra-Magic Deals, 79; Worth, 106-107314Stripp, 148; Aldrich, 80; Smith, Ultra-Magic Deals, 82; Worth, 105.315Smith, Ultra-Magic Deals, 82.316Best, 146-147; Aldrich, 80; Bath, 163-164.317Aldrich, 80-81.318Bath, 159.87