DID HOOVER KNOW OF PEARL HARBOR?

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150004-3
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
August 10, 2010
Sequence Number: 
4
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
December 2, 1982
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150004-3.pdf111.08 KB
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/10: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150004-3 f.RTIC Oft FAGS RObver Did K.-now 0 Historians Say FBI Chief Suppressed a' rn gs By Thomas O'Toole". land for them. Popov (code name In the war of. ,words over who-was Ivan) agreed but turned . double to blame for the surprise Japanese agent (code name Tricycle) as soon attack on Pearl Harbor 41 years ago;; he arrived in England. The Ger- -fresh evidence is emerging that the man Abwehr (intelligence) : soon late FBI director J. Edgar Harvey trusted Popov so much that they had a hand in the intelligence. bun- told him go to the United States .gles that led the United States to to set up a spy ring,` an instruction heed none of the warnings that the that. Popov immediately communi- invasion was imminent. cated to British intelligence. The new evidence is supplied by Upon his arrive] in - New York; Michigan State University historians Popov was met by agents of the FBI John F. Bratzel and Leslie B. Rout who grilled him for -days In -his Jr., who write in the current issue.of memoirs, Popov said that one of his The American Historical Review first statements to FBI bureau chief that Hoover received a double warn- John Foxworth was: 'You can expect ing more than three months before an attack on Pearl Harbor before the the attack that the Japanese were end of the year ... " thinking of making a surprise air- craft attack on the American fleet-n Pearl Harbor. Based on.information in 40-year old -FBI documents and documents from the FDR library near Hyde Park, 'N. Y., the two.historians.a]so claim thatshe 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' intelligence.. records damaging .to high officials in .the Franklin D. Roosevelt adminis= tation :..,; Bratzel and Rout %mmte that the ?. story of -the "missing 'evidence" be- gins. in 1939 in Yugoslavia,. where German . - military intelligence re- i cruited a Mediterranean playboy.. named Dusko Popov ?to spy in Eng- j THE WASHINGTON POST 2 DECEMBER 1982 .. The Michigan State historians say -Popov had two pieces of evidence to back up his warning. One was a ver. bal'aommunique from the German airl attachein Tokyo, who `had es-* corted Japanese naval officers to the Gulf of -Taranto below the Italian boot, where British warplanes from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious .1 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 British feat. ':Of far more importance, the his- torians write, eras Ihe telegram in I Popov r, possession when he arrived ' in New York. Hidden on the face of .the telegram was a microdot message -to Popov asking Tar defense informs tion about the U.S. and Canadian air forces and listing a series of ques- tions the Japanese had asked their Germaiallies to airswer.. One third ' -of the questions p twined to the de- fense installations-that ringed the U.S: naval base`at'Pearl Harbor. ."The Germans -wanted sketches ' showjng the exact locations of Hick sin, Wheeler. and Kaneohe airfields,". be historians write. "They likewise '' wanted sketches of the installations- at ?iarl Harbor and detailed infor- . oration concerning dredging, depth of .water, torpedo nets, anchorages . and the like." ? - - . The historians write -that -Popov was passed on to J. Edgar Hoover,. who chastised him for-taking his un- married girlfriend to Miami and then look 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. :'Fhe full text of Popovs question- naire still rests in the files of the FBI, where- it -has been for over 40 years." Why did Hoover not send 'the full ;text of the micro of questionnaire to the - White House? '"Hoover wanted to look good to the president and... gain. Points against his rivals- namely, :the other U.S. intelligence agencies and MI6 :British intelli- gence),' 'the- historians .conclude. "Clearly, he also found Popov and .is style of living abhorrent and did' "Pearl Harbor? Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/10: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150004-3