Monday, June 26, 2006

Blabbermouth media trivia

Apparently the New York Times is not alone among newspapers in revealing secrets to endanger American lives:

Public notice had actually been served that Japanese cryptography was dangerously inadequate by the Chicago Tribune, which published a series of stories just after Midway in 1942 directly claiming — correctly, of course — that the victory was due in large part to US breaks into Japanese crypto systems (in this case, the JN-25 cypher, though which system(s) had been broken was not mentioned in the newspaper stories). Fortunately, neither the Japanese nor anyone who might have told them seem to have noticed either the Tribune coverage, or the stories based on the Tribune account published in other US papers. Nor did they notice announcements made on the floor of the US Congress to the same effect. There were no changes in Japanese cryptography which could, then or now, be connected with those newspaper accounts or Congressional disclosures.
Lucky us.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also in WWII a Congressman, after getting a briefing on US submarines in the Pacific, held a news conference about these brave men. In the course of it, he told the press how stupid the Japanese were being. You see, US subs could submerge deeper than Japanese subs, so the Japanese were setting their depth charges to a max depth of only 200 feet instead of the 350 that the US subs could reach.

He cited this as an example of how the Japanese were lesser beings than noble Americans. He seemed to forget a second conceit of the time -- that the Japanese were great imitators. Because the IJN *did* catch that tidbit of intelligence,imitated the Representative's suggestion, and set their depth charges much deeper after that.

Several submarines were lost as a result.

Anonymous said...

Chilling.
Also in World War II, taxes were raised, not cut. And all of the President's children served, and not merely in P.R. positions but under fire. And Senate oversight was put in place to expose and combat fatcat profiteering. And it was over in less than 4 years. All the parallels, they're eerie!

Anonymous said...

Snark Man strikes again!

Synova said...

The obvious solution, since most presidential candidates have children over 18, is to only elect someone who's children are in the military.

I can't think of anyone on either side, so I guess we're just SOL.

Anonymous said...

The media never changes - it only grows more rotten as it discards one standard after another.

On 6/27/06, the Chicago Tribune (I prefer to call it the Chicago Copperhead; and I note it is owned by the same holding compay that owns the traitorous LA TImes which broke the story at the same time as the New York Times) published an editorial defending the NYT. http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Tuesday/chi-0606270238jun27,2,5818596.story?coll=chi-printedittuesday-hed
(Nothing interesting, registration required - and after a week, they want money.)

The Tribune mentioned the 1942 incident - and seemed to reguard the fact that it had escaped prosecution as somehow justifying the New York Times story. As I recall, there was no prosecution because of the fear that it would only attract the attention of the Japanese to a story they appeared to have missed.

Equally interesting, in 1944 the Republican presidential candidate Dewey also became aware of the capability to decrypt some Japanese codes. Dewey was going to use it to attack Roosevelt over Pearl Harbor. Like the New York Times this time, Dewey was contacted by the government - specifically, General Marshall - who begged Dewey to remain silent
because of the harm revealing the matter would do. Dewey dropped the matter. In those days - hard as it is to believe today- most people believed that there were more important things than partisan political advantage.

I really wonder how the media got taken over by skunks like Keller and the people at the Tribune companies.

Anonymous said...

The skunk Keller quashed the Times' story on the illegal NSA program for over a year, and an election year to boot. It was a mistake the Times chose not to repeat. The Bush White House has squandered its benefit of the doubt.

But let us all share Orman's hope that the media will one day lift otself up to the moral level of politicians.