MEMOS AMPLIFY HOOVER'S PREWAR ACTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 2, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150001-6
AF:CICLE APPE=
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WASHINGTON POST
2 APRIL 1983
Memos Amplify Hroic
Prewar Actions
By George Lardner Jr.
'A siungton Pos.Sia:( Writer
The late FBI director J. Edgar
Hoover was not as tightfisted with
secret warning signals about Pearl
Harbor as he has been made-out to
be, according to declassified docu-
ments made public this week.. -
In the months before thesurprise
Japanese attack in December, 1941,
the FBI informed the Office- of
Naval Intelligence and the Army's
intelligence division about a ques-
tionnaire obtained from a double
agent that reflected intense Japanese
interest in the defense installations
at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Is-
lands and the Armv airfields on the
island of Oahu.
The military apparently viewed
the information with no greater
alarm than did the bureau.
The FBI released the long-secret
record-, this week in response to a
recent article by two Michigan State
University historians stating that
Hoover kept the details to himself
and passed on to President Franklin
D. Ro;r-evelt onlyv ',a harmless part
of the questionnaire," a part used to
impress the White House with the
bureau's expertise, according to the
historians.
Assistant FBI Director Roger S.
Young, who released six internal FBI
memos bearing on the controversy,
said he thought they would clear
Hoover of the charge that be had a
"harid in the intelligence bungles"
that lulled the United States before
the Japanese attack. -
The documents_dated between
'Sept. 30 and Nov. 8, 4941-deal
with the activities of a. Yugoslav
playboy named Dusko Popov who
became a spy for German intelli-
gence in 1939 (code name:-Ivan) and
then quickly transformed "himself
into a double agent for the British
(code name: Tricycle).
He came to the United States in
'the summer of 1941 with instruc-
tions to set up a Nazi spy network.
He was also instructed to get the
answers to a questionnaire'that the
Germans had prepared in concert
with their ally, the Japanese.
A third of the questionnaire-
'which had been reduced to the size
of dots in the "i's" of a telegram
Popov brought with him-dealt with
requests for information about the
defenses on Oahu. including Hi-
ckam, Wheeler and Kaneohe air-
fields, the piers and dry docks at
Pearl Harbor and the depths of the
water there. Popov turned the tele-
gram over to the FBI on his arrival
In New York.
Historians John F. Bratzel and
Leslie B. Rout Jr. disclosed in last
December's issue of the American
Historical Review that Hoover told
the White House only about the mi-
crodots, and an innocuous portion of
what they said. to illustrate how the
FBI was staying on top of the latest
methods of German espionage.
Bratzel and Rout also reported
that Hoover apparently failed to tell
military intelligence officers any
more of the questionnaire's contents
although they might "have better
appreciated its importance."
But one of the newly declassified
documents, a Sept. 30, 1941, FBI
memo for D.M. Ladd, then head of
the bureau's intelligence division,
said that "information contained in
the questionnaire furnished Popov
by the Germans" had been para-
phrased and given to U.S. naval and
Army intelligence. Another docu-
ment showed that further details on
the enemy inquiries concerning Pearl
Harbor were supplied to naval intel.
ligence.
The Navy, in turn, asked the FBI
to pick one particular item-it
turned out to be about anti-torpedo
nets-so that disinformation could ;
be prepared for Popov to feed back
to the Germans. -
U.S. intelligence historian Thomas!
F. Troy said yesterday that the big
US. worry at the time was sabotage.
The questionnaire contained no clear
hint that a Japanese air attack could
be expected. Popov wrote before his
death that he had warned the FBI of
that, too, but this question remains
to be settled as declassification pro-
ceeds, on the 19 volumes of FBI
records about Popov.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505150001-6