US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

Planning for War, 1940–1941 187
Foreign Intelligence Division of ONI, was that the change was very much
broader in effect, if not intent, and that
the function of evaluation of Intelligence, that is, the drawing of inferences
therefrom, had been transferred over to be a function of the War
Plans Division.Gs
It is apparent from the above quotes that the policy decision of the Chief
of Naval Operations created a gap between what the Director of War Plans
thought ONI should and would send to the Operating Forces and what the
most important intelligence subordinate of the Director of Naval Intelligence
actually felt that the Office of Naval Intelligence was responsible for distributing
to the Fleet. The McCollum interpretation of the decision was
widely held at the second and third levels in ONI and since they believed that
they had been robbed of one of their main functions, evaluation, they
sulked in their tents. The essential close cooperation between War Plans and
Intelligence suffered.
This War Plans-Intelligence gap was indirectly widened by the special
handling of decoded enemy dispatches called “magic” and later “ultra.”
These dispatches were handled, and were known to be handled, in a com-
pletely separate and distinct manner from routine secret information. By
and large, second echelon War Plans officers received more of the droppings
from these dispatches than second echelon ONI officers, except for the Far
Eastern Section of ONI.
There also was a direct wedge widening the War Plans-Intelligence gap,
which was the security precaution exercised by limiting strictly the distribu-
tion, within the Otlice of Naval Operations, of secret dispatches relative to
preparations or readiness of the Operating Forces for war. Such secret dis-
patches were generally limited in their distribution to the head of each major
subdivision of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and his immediate
subordinate. This left out many, many seasoned officers at the working
levels. Again second and third echelon officers in ONI were less likely to
learn of these dispatches than similar officers in War Plans.
It is suggested by this scribe that Admiral Starks decision in this Intelli-
gence-War Plans dispute, not only was based upon what he considered the
correct channel of advice to him regarding “enemy intentions,” but from
whom, in this difficult and touchy area, he would be apt to receive the
sounder advice.
It is also suggested that there undoubtedly was an administrative error
mIbid., p. 3388.