FBI SHARED SPY DATA ON HAWAII BEFORE ATTACK, NEW DOCUMENTS SHOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 1, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP90-
T 11.E Isi , L
ON it -
LOS ANGELES TIMES
1 APRIL 1983
CBI Shared Spy Data on
Hawaii Before Attack,
New Documents Show
By RONALD J. OSTROW, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-In the months immediately before
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the -FBI shared with
military intelligence a double-agent's information dis-
closing that the Japanese had sought the assistance of
Nazi Germany to learn about U.S defenses in Hawaii,
newly declassified documents showed Thursday.
The FBI made the documents public to challenge the
conclusion of two Michigan State University historians,
published last December, that the late FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover "used the information to demonstrate
how efficient the FBI was rather than to warn of a
possible attack."
Declassification of the previously secret documents
lifts the curtain further 'on.the. activities of a German
spy-turned-British-agent, Dusan M. Popov.
The new material is likely to add fuel to the
unresolved questions of whether American intelligence
had solid information that a Japanese attack could be
expected on Pearl Harbor and whether it handled the
warning properly.
List of Questions
art the heart of the matter is a .list of questions in
microdot-a microphotography process that can reduce
a page of writing to the size of the dot over, an 'T'-that
the Germans gave Popov to answer while on a 1941
mission for them to the United States.
Among other things. the questions sought "exact
positions of Army air bases at Wicham (Hickam) Field
and V peeler Field in Hawaii . . . whether Bodger
Airport in Hawaii will be taken over by the Army in
wartime, whether preparations are being made."
Writing in The American Historical Review, John F.
Bratzel and Leslie B. Rout Jr. of Michigan State
disclosed that"Hoover on Sept. 3, 1941, sent blowups of
the Popov microdots to Gen. Edwin .M. Watson,
secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to show
him and the President one way that German espionage
transmitted messages to its agents.
Editing by Hoover
Relying on documents from the Roosevelt Library in
Hyde Park, N.Y.. and on information provided by the
FBI, the historians found that Hoover had edited the
questionnaire he sent Roosevelt, excluding the ques-
tions on Hawaii.
"... the FBI now states that the only information
sent to the Army and Navy intelligence offices on this
occasion was a duplicate of that sent to the President."
Bratzel and Rout wrote.
However, one of the documents released Thursday,
an Oct. 20, 1941. memorandum for D.M. Ladd, then
assistant FBI director for intelligence, said: "... the
entire questionnaire furnished Popov concerning Naval
matters was rephrased and discussed with ONI (Office
of Naval Intelligence) by Mr. (A.M.) Thurston (one of
Ladd's subordinates)."
Naval Intelligence asked the FBI to pick out one
particular item in the questionnaire so that Popov could
be given information "not necessarily true" to relay to
the Germans.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0505150002-5