Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

254 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
any matter of interest to him.” Captain Heard had personally
arranged for “a special week-end telephone line between the
Offi ce of Naval Intelligence and the State Department,” which
“included my [Heard’s] telephone communication with both
Military Intelligence and with the State Department.” 5
On Saturday, December 6, at 7:15 a.m., Washington,
D.C., time, the Navy’s intercept station on Bainbridge Island
(Washington state), across the Puget Sound from Seattle, started
picking up a message in “Purple” addressed to the Japanese ambassadors
in Washington. 6 Th is coded message was relayed almost
immediately, as was customary by TWX (teletype wire exchange)
along with other messages that had been intercepted that morning,
to Washington, D.C. 7 It was received in Washington that
same day, at 12:05 p.m.
Until a message had been decoded and translated, there was
no way, of course, to know if it was important. Army and Navy
had only just, on December 1, worked out an arrangement to share
responsibility for handling the heavy traffi c of Japanese intercepts,
the Army had the responsibility for decoding and translating
on even-numbered dates, the Navy on uneven-numbered
dates. December 6 was an Army day. So when this message from
Bainbridge came in, the Navy relayed it to the Army’s SIS 8 and
an Army cryptographic unit went to work right away. Th at was
fortunate, for this message proved to be Tokyo’s announcement
to her two Washington ambassadors that Japan’s formal reply to
the U.S. note of November 26 was on its way. Th is message came
to be known among those familiar with MAGIC as the “Pilot
5Ibid., part 32, p. 356, Testimony of Navy Captain William S. Heard before the
NCI.
6Ibid., part 8, p. 3559, Saff ord testimony before the Joint Committee.
7 Ibid., part 8, p. 3560, Saff ord testimony.
8 Ibid., part 14, p. 1413.