The American Spectator

“…Conspiracy theorists continue to weave elaborate scenarios ‘proving’ that America had advance warning of the Japanese attack, with one branch of the ‘FDR knew’ theorizers insisting that AN traffic was in fact being read in 1941. Yet month-by-month progress reports, internal histories, war diaries, logs — some declassified only in 1998 — are all in agreement: Not a single AN message had ever been read currently by the time of Pearl Harbor, and not a single AN message transmitted at any time during 1941 was read by December 7. Five years later, with the war safely won, a few of OP-20-G’s cryptanalysts were tidying up loose ends and decided to go back and try to crack the unread AN-1 traffic that had piled up in the months just before Pearl Harbor. What they found was enough to break an intelligence officer’s heart. Over and over, the orders to the Japanese fleet during October and November 1941 repeated a single theme: Complete all preparations and be on a total war footing by November 20. Several messages referred to exercises in ‘ambushing’ the ‘U.S. enemy.’ And one signal, dispatched November 4, ordered a destroyer to pick up torpedoes that Carrier Divisions 1 and 2 ‘are to fire against anchored capital ships on the morning in question.’ None specifically mentioned Pearl Harbor, and indeed many other intelligence indications in those critical months pointed to the Philippines, or even the Panama Canal, as possible targets of Japanese naval action if war broke out. Yet the pre-Pearl Harbor AN traffic, had it been broken at the time, would certainly have conveyed heavy hints of what was to come. “

p>Sound familiar? As I type this the showboating, leaking, borderline traitorous Patrick Leahy hectors Robert Mueller and continues his tirades of invective against John Ashcroft. Let these Solons of the Senate read a little history first lest they be condemned to repeat its blunders. br> — Bill Harrison br> Arlington, VA /p>