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

524 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
from Berlin to Tokyo.” Th ese two categories of traffi c “were being
followed with considerable interest and detail by all the senior
addressees. . . . Th ey therefore wanted to see those things as
promptly as possible.” Th e skill of the U.S. cryptographers was
such that, in spite of the daily adjustments made by the Japanese
to their “Purple” code machine, the U.S. cryptographers were
often able to decrypt a Japanese intercept and have it translated
an hour or two before the Japanese ambassador was to meet
Secretary of State Hull to discuss it. 114 To speed up the delivery of
this material to Hull and our other top offi cials, Kramer said he
didn’t take time to write summaries during the fi nal weeks, as he
had done earlier, but would only indicate subject matter “by
attaching clips to the messages in the folders . . . of most immediate
interest.” 115
Although the intelligence gleaned from the intercepts was
necessarily incomplete, Kramer noted many clues to Japan’s
intentions. Th e Japanese were negotiating for Th ailand to enter
the confl ict on their side; on November 30; they reported to
their German allies on the status of their negotiations with the
United States; they asked their specially trained espionage man
in the United States, Terasaki, mistakenly called “Takahashi” by
Kramer, to leave the country. On December 6 Japanese ships had
been sighted moving down the coast of French Indochina and
rounding its southern tip “approximately a day’s run from Kota
Bharu,” 116 north of Singapore on the Malayan peninsula near the
border of Th ailand; and the Japanese “were very concerned about
what action we were taking, where our Fleet might be, what
action we might take in case the Japs did make a move against
the British.” 117 Kramer testifi ed that the Japanese had wired their
ambassador in Berlin
114Ibid., pp. 851–52.
115Ibid., p. 852.
116Ibid., pp. 859–60.
117Ibid., p. 867.