DID HOOVER KNOW OF PEARL HARBOR?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302810003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 2, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302810003-6
.ART I ~ L.F APPS
Ob PAGE THE WASHINGTON POST
2 DECEMBER 1982
ioover nnow
OlPearl Harbnr.~'- r
Historians Say FBI Chief-Su"presse&:W" gs
By Thomas O'Toole"-
In the war of woods over who. was
to blame for the surprise Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor 41 years ago;
-fresh evidence is emerging that-the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover:
had a hand in the intelligence. bun-
.files that led the United States to
heed none of the warnings that the
invasion was imminent.
The new evidence is supplied by
Michigan State University historians
John F. Bratzel and Leslie B. Rout
Jr., who write in the current issue-of
The American Historical Review
that Hoover received a double warn-
ing more than three months before
the attack that the Japanese were
thinking of making a surprise air-
craft attack on the American fleet.in
Pearl Harbor.
Based on information in 40-year
oid TFBI document and documents
from the FDR library near Hyde
Park, N. Y., the two historians . also
claim that':the double warning to-
Hoover is the "missing evidence"-
that Pulitzer Prize-winning author'
John Toland said he and other Pearl
Harbor writers have sought for
years. Toland claimed in his last
book, "Infamy," that the "disappear-
ance " of this evidence was part of a
cover up" to . purge intelligencs-
records damaging to high officials in
.the Franklin D. Roosevelt adminis=
? tation
Bratzel and'Rout write that the
story of -the "missing 'evidence" b4-
.gins. in 1939 in Yugoslavia,. where
German . military intelligence re-
cruited - a Mediterranean playboy
named Dusko Popov -to spy in Eng-
aaau aVa Y/G14. . Vt1VV \cWt?. tine -
Germarallie
]Van) agreed but turned . double
of the Questi
agent (code name Tricycle) as soon
ense to
as he arrived in England. The Ger- f stall
man Abwehr (intelligence) : soon
trusted Popov so much that they
told him to go to the United States
to set up a sm, ring, an instruction '
that. Popov immediately communi-
cated to British intelligence.
Upon his arrival in - New York;
Popov was met by agents of the FBI
who grilled him for -days. In -his
memoirs, Popov said that one of his
first statements to FBI bureau chief
John Fox worth was: "You can expect
an attack on Pearl Harbor before the
endoftheyear ...
The Michigan State historians say
-Popov had two pieces of evidence to
back; up his w-arning. One was a ver-
baltommunique from the German
air attachLin Tokyo, who `had es-'
corted Japanese naval officers to the
Gulf of -Taranto belew the Italian
boot, where British warplanes from
the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious.,
had devastated the 'Italian fleet in
November of 1940.
'The Japanese wanted to know all
about the attack in infinite detail,"
the historians write. Popov's-German
.sources 'had concluded that the
-Asian member of the Tripartite Al-
..liance was planning.to.duplicate the
f far more .importance, the his=
torians write, av,ras the- telegram in
Popov's' possession when he arrived ?
.in New York Hidden on the face of
.the telegram was a microdot message
.to Popov asking Tar defense informa-
tion about the U.S. and Canadian air
forces and listing a series of ques-
tions the -Japanese had asked their
STAT
s to answer..One third
ons pe -tained to the de-
s
tiens..'that ringed the
U.S. naval base?atFfearl Harbor.
'he Germans wanted sketches '
showing the exact locations of Hick
, Wheeler. and Kaneohe airfields,".
die historians write. 'They likewise
'r -wanted sketches of the installations.
at 'Pearl Harbor and detailed infor-
oration concerning dredging, depth
The historian write- that -Popov
was passed on to J. Edgar Hoover,
who chastised him for-taking his un-
married girlfriend to Miami and
then'took only a small portion of the
microdot. material on the telegram to
translate and pass on to the White .
House, the Military -Intelligence Di-
vision and the Office of.Naval Intel-
ligence. The historians claim that-
none of the questions the Germans
asked about Pearl" Harbor were
...passed by-' Hoover to. the White
House or anybody else.
. `Hoover used the information to
demonstrate how efficient the FBI
was .(about discovering the microdot
system) rather than to warn of a
possible attack," the historians write.
'The full text of Popov s question-
naire Will rests in the files :of the
FBI, where it bas been for over 40
years."
Why did=Hoover not send the full
text of the microdot questionnaire to
the White House "Hoover wanted
to look good 'to 4.he :president and
gain. points against his rivals-
namely, the other U.S. intelligence
agencies and MI6 ;British intelli-
gence), the historians ? conclude.
'Clearh, he also found Popov and
ibis style of living abhorrent and did ?
of water, torpedo nets, anchorages .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302810003-6