CODE BUSTER TO GET MEDAL 45 YEARS LATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330009-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: December 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330009-5 STAT
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WASHINGTON TIMES
9 December 1985
Code buster to get
medal 45 years late
'By Bill Gertz
? THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A Navy intelligence officer based
in Pearl Harbor during Japan's
);nea]C attack on Dec. 7, 1941, will be
awarded the Distinguished Service
Medal next month, nearly 45 years
after he succeeded in breaking Jap-
anese military codes that lead to a
U.S. victory in the Battle of Midway.
The Pentagon announced last
month that the posthumous award
will be granted to Cmdr. Joseph J.
Rochefort, who earlier had been
.blamed for the intelligence failure
that led to the Pearl Harbor disaster.
Cmdr. Rochefort was granted the
'award after new details about his
work were revealed in a book by the
former fleet intelligence officer at
Pearl Harbor, the late Rear Adm. Ed-
win T. Layton, and two other histori-
ans, retired Navy Capt. Roger
Pineau and John Costello.
Their book, `And I Was There:'
published Saturday, charges that the
Navy Department in Washington
had intercepted vital cables from
Japanese embassies and other
sources that, had they been properly
analyzed, would have shown that the
Japanese were preparing to attack
Pearl Harbor.
But the information was not re-
layed to Cmdr. Rochefort in Adm.
Layton's fleet intelligence section
until after the bombing raid that
killed 2,335 men and left a large
number of Navy ships at the bottom
of Pearl Harbor.
Working from close to a million
secret documents declassified in
1981 and 1982, the authors examine
the controversy surrounding the
Navy intelligence failure prior to
Pearl Harbor and through the war.
The problem still exists today, and
their purpose in exposing it, the au-
thors say, is to prevent a "nuclear
Pearl Harbor."
Cmdr. Rochefort, who died in
1962, was denied the Distinguished
Service Medal recommended in
1942 by the Pacific Fleet com-
mander, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz.
Adm. Nimitz had recommended the
medal for Cmdr. Rochefort after he
helped provide vital intelligence on
Japanese military intentions during
the Battle of Midway, six months
after Pearl Harbor.
That same year, a presidential
commission placed the blame for the
unpreparedness of U.S. forces at
Pearl Harbor on the commanding of-
ficers, Adm. Husband Kimmel and
Army Gen. Walter C. Short.
But Adm. Layton's book charges
that the two men were "Scapegoats"
for incompetence at senior levels of
the Navy and War departments.
Using declassified documents
and Adm. Layton's personal recol-
lections, it shows that the Navy's top
commanders in Washington, notably
Chief of War Preparations Adm.
Richmond K. "Terrible" Turner, kept
a" stranglehold" on intelligence data
that could have prevented the Pearl
Harbor disaster.
Among the intelligence materials
were detailed diplomatic cables be-
tween the Japanese consul in Ha-
waii, Nagao Kita, and the govern-
ment in Tbkyo.
"These were vital clues of an
impending air attack on the Pacific
Fleet:' the authors say.
Adm. Layton, who died last year at
81, said that Pacific Fleet intelli-
gence was denied access to certain
decoding keys Washington had ob-
tained and therefore was unable to
decode its own copies of the coded
messages to Tbkyo about ship move-
ments toward Pearl Harbor.
Had the information been
available, Adm. Layton said, Adm.
Kimmel could have ordered the fleet
to leave port, a move that could have
minimized the loss of ships and lives.
"The terrible irony of the Kita
messages is this: The cryptanalysts
[in Washington] .. had no trouble
reading the Japanese J-19 or PA-K2
[codes];' the authors say. "But the
consular ciphers had a low priority,
and although several had been
broken out that week, none was re-
layed to Pacific Fleet headquarters:'
The cables reveal that the Jap-
anese were receiving reports two
times a day on ship movements at
Pearl Harbor. On the Thursday be-
fore the attack, Washington had de-
coded a message from Tbkyo re-
questing data "when there are no
movements;' the book says.
"This was the one that was the
real giveaway;" the authors say. "But
apparantly no one in the Navy De-
partment stopped to reflect why
Japanese naval intelligence was as
interested in knowing what war-
ships were actually in Pearl Harbor
as they were in those that put to sea:'
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330009-5