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So Marshall, Who Knew His Dickens, Must Have Thought That Fall and Early Winter of 1944

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So Marshall, Who Knew His Dickens, Must Have Thought That Fall and Early Winter of 1944 I T was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So Marshall, who knew his Dickens, must have thought that fall and early winter of 1944. The bright certainty of summer, fading in the weak sunlight of au- tumn’s half promises, ended in chilled and darkening hopes at mid- December. Victory, so close at hand in August, seemed far away on the eve of Christmas. The advances in northwest Europe and in Italy north of Florence stirred momentary optimism abroad while at home the politics of a presi- dential election emerged as a temporary embarrassment for the War De- partment. The siege of Metz, the drive on Aachen, the dreadful losses in the Hurtgen Forest were sometimes overshadowed by politics as New York’s Republican governor, Thomas E. Dewey, sought to deny Franklin Roosevelt a fourth term in the White House. The approach of victory abroad had brought to the surface old suspi- cions and divisions between the Western Allies and the Russians; it had also reawakened partisan hopes on the home front. Silent temporarily in the face of foreign challenges, Roosevelt’s oppo- nents became active as Allied fortunes prospered. Mid-summer 1944 saw a renewal of interest in the background of the Pearl Harbor disaster, and Congress called for further investigations into the background of the at- tack. From late July until late October 1944 separate Army and Navy inquiries were made.1 Both the Army and Navy were especially disturbed because full answers to the questions raised would involve the disclosure that the Japanese diplomatic code, which they were still using, had been broken before Pearl Harbor. Although efforts were made to preserve secrecy, some infor- mation leaked out. Demanding an accounting from, Roosevelt, Repre- sentative Forest A. Harness, Republican of Indiana, cited General Mar- shall’s message on the morning of December 7, which indicated that it was Victory Deferred 47= thought that the Japanese would be presenting an ultimatum at I p.m. and that their embassy had been told to destroy their code machine.2 At this point Marshall was informed that Governor Dewey was in full possession of information concerning the diplomatic code and was plan- ning to reveal it in a campaign speech. He was appalled at the possible consequences. He recognized that politically it was smart for the Republi- can nominee to say that the President knew of Japanese intentions prior to December 7 and failed to act. But to the Army and Navy, still crucially dependent on reading intercepted enemy messages, the revelation that they had broken Japanese codes would be tragic. Marshall later described the situation: “At this time the sinking of Japanese vessels was developing at a rapid rate. General MacArthur was then making his final prepara- tions for the invasion of the Philippine Islands and getting vital informa- tion. We were [still] getting vital information. .” Hearing that Mr. Dewey was in the Middle West on a campaign tour and fearing that he might divulge cryptographic secrets without realizing their continued imperativeness to the Army and Navy, Marshall asked his intelligence advisers to draft a message to the governor. He eliminated a paragraph from the letter asking Dewey to persuade the Republicans to stop their inquiries into the breaking of codes and then sent it to King for concurrence. Marshall explained: “This letter of course puts him [Gover- nor Dewey] on the spot, and I hate to do it, but see no other way of avoiding what might well be a catastrophe to us.” Just what Dewey could do without giving his reasons for not acting he did not know, “but at least he will understand what a deadly affair it really is.” Anticipating that party leaders would probably oppose Dewey’s dropping of the issue, Mar- shall considered calling in Republican House Floor Leader Joseph Mar- tin and explaining the danger of the attack so he would understand Dewey’s attitude. The whole thing, Marshall told Admiral King, “is loaded with dynamite but I very much feel that something has to be done or the fat will be in the fire to our great loss in the Pacific, and possibly also in Europe.’’ King heartily assented. The letter was taken to Dewey in Tulsa by special courier, Colonel Carter Clarke of the War Department staff. After looking at the first para- graph the Republican candidate declined to go further. Marshall had asked him to stop before reading the reasons he was outlining unless he could agree in advance not to pass the information on. The request was unusual, and the governor said frankly to Clarke that he would make no such pledge since (1) he already had considerable information on the subject, some of which he thought was probably enclosed, and (2) he could not believe that such a letter would be written by Marshall and King without the President’s knowledge. Having taken the plunge, General Marshall decided to go further on his own. In a slightly changed version, which he sent by Clarke to the 472 Organizer of Victory governor, now back in Albany, he said he was willing that Dewey read the entire letter provided he communicated to others only facts that he then had or that he received from someone other than Marshall. Dewey replied that on an issue of this magnitude, he owed it to his party to seek the counsel of a major political adviser and proposed that he be allowed to discuss the information with Elliott Bell, a close personal friend and po- litical strategist. Marshall agreed to the ~ondition.~ This matter arranged, Dewey now read Marshall’s assurance “that nei- ther the Secretary of War nor the President has any indication whatsoever that such a letter has been addressed to you or that the preparation or sending of such a communication was being considered.” The only per-’ sons who knew of the message were Admiral King, the seven key officers concerned with cryptographic matters, and the secretary who typed the letter. “I am trying my best to make plain to you,” he explained, “that this letter is being addressed to you solely on my own initiative, Admiral King having been consulted only after the letter was drafted, and H am persisting in the matter because the military hazards involved are so serious that I feel some action is necessary to protect the interests of our armed forces.” Having set the stage, Marshall then outlined the tremendous advantage that the United States had gained from breaking the diplomatic code. He cited the successes at Midway, submarine activities in the Pacific, and Halsey’s current raids. “Now the point to the present dilemma is that we have gone ahead with this business of deciphering their codes until we possess other codes, German as well as Japanese, but our main source of information regarding Hitler’s intentions in Europe is obtained from Baron Oshima’s messages from Berlin reporting his interviews with Hitler and other officials to the Japanese Government. These are still in the codes involved in the Pearl Harbor events. “You will understand,” he continued, “the utterly tragic consequences if the present political debates regarding Pearl Harbor disclose to the enemy, German or Jap, any suspicion of the vital sources of information we now possess.” He then spelled out the possible consequences of parti- san speeches in Congress. Revelations about American cryptographic ac- tivities could also prove embarrassing to America’s allies. He told of diffi- culties that had arisen because various U.S. agencies failed to coordinate their actions. “Some of Donovan’s people”-i.e., from the Office of Strate- gic Services-had raided Japanese Embassy offices in Portugal without telling U.S. military officials that they had such action in mind. As a result the Japanese had changed their military-attach4 code, thus denying infor- mation to the Army and Navy that had earlier been available. The con- duct of General Eisenhower’s campaign and all operations in the Pacific, Marshall continued, were closely related in conception and timing to in- formation secretly obtained. Such information contributed greatly to final victory and to the saving of American lives. “I am presenting this matter Victory Deferred 473 to you . in the hope that you will see your way clear to avoid the tragic results with which we are now threatened in the present political campaign,” Marshall concluded 5 Dewey accepted the General’s word that his action was not a political trick and that the diplomatic code should be kept out of the political campaign. It is possible that Dewey’s action cost him thousands of votes that could have been garnered by the revelations. At any rate the matter was never mentioned publicly until shortly after the war’s end. Then someone-Marshall assumed it was a member of Governor Dewey’s staff- revealed to the Joint Congressional Committee the existence of the corre- spondence. Within a short time Marshall was under heavy pressure to release it to the commi ttee.6 Not until the disclosures of 1945 did General Marshall inform the White House of what he had done He explained to Truman, who had succeeded Roosevelt five months before, that only a part of his letter to Dewey should be released because some of the paragraphs affected other countries 7 The President reacted with his usual hearty approval of Marshall’s ini- tiative, writing at the bottom of the letter, “Dear General: As you know I have the utmost confidence in you and your judgment. I suggest you give both of these-memo and letter to Dewey-to the Press for tomorrow.
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