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

508 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
that everybody recognized that there was a very tense situation;
that diplomatic relations were in danger of being severed,
but that a severance of diplomatic relations did not necessarily
mean that war was going to result.
He could not speak for others, “but my own opinion . . . was that
Japan would go her own way in East Asia and would put up to
the United States the onus of using force to oppose her.” 56
Captain Safford Relates Many Warnings
Contained in Japanese Intercepts
At the time of the attack, Captain L.F. Saff ord had been in
charge of the security section of Naval Communications, which
was concerned with “security proper, that is, codes and ciphers,
and surveillance over their use . . . also . . . Communications
Intelligence [C.I.]. Th e name was used in peace-time,” Saff ord
explained, “purely to mask the major mission of the section . . . collecting
information from enemy or prospective enemy nations through
their communications” (italics added). Most of the section’s eff ort
at that time had been concentrated on Japan. Saff ord had been
“in charge of the intercept stations, direction fi nder exchanges,
and decrypting units.” 57
Saff ord’s testimony was forthright and factual. He identifi ed
the selected Japanese intercepts that had been made available to
the NCI. Asked what information, if any, had been “received in
the C.I. Unit in Washington prior to the evening of December
6th that indicated a break in relations between the United States
and Japan,” 58 Saff ord discussed several intercepts other than those
available to the NCI, with which he was familiar because of his
duties in communications intelligence. He pointed out that on
56Ibid., pp. 759–70.
57Ibid., p. 769.
58Ibid., p. 775.