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Title: Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945 (Modern War Studies) by David J. Alvarez ISBN: 0-7006-1013-8 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Informative Solid Research
Comment: Taking advantage of declassified materials, David Alvarez has produced a solid and insightful narrative covering American code breaking activities from the early thirties through the end of the Second World War. In Secret Messages he has woven a tightly controlled account of cryptology and its effect on diplomacy during those years, paying little attention to military matters. In this, he has kept to his goal and stayed on target.
The history presented here is solid and often entertaining, particularly in the early years when the cast of figures is small and their activities limited. The reader will get a close feel for life in the fledgling Signal Intelligence Service (SIS). Occasionally amusing anecdotes are sprinkled throughout. For readers in search of engaging story telling, the later chapters, particularly during the war years, will dry up a bit, but for aficionados of the field, this should not be a problem. I should point out that since this is not a text about methods of cryptology at all, the reader with no foreknowledge of the field might find the going a bit rough. Even watching a few History Channel programs on WWII code breakers will go a long way to filling in some of the gaps. This should not be taken to mean that this is advanced stuff for specialists only - merely that Alvarez has assumed at least passing familiarity and interest in the topics.
Besides the activities of the code breakers themselves, Alvarez points out wherever possible the effects they had on policy making. This is not a cheerleading account. His final conclusion is that it had little effect most of the time. Besides lack of data, failure to break codes, mundane results, and failure to distribute the output properly (not all the fault of the SIS), he points out that all too often, know one cared or could properly make use of the information. Even so, as a text Secret Messages remains a solid and fairly entertaining account of some very interesting material to anyone who cares about it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Secret Messages Makes Existing Works on Subject Obsolete
Comment: Secret Messages is a meticulously researched, carefully reasoned, and well-written account of the United States government's attack on the diplomatic communications of foreign governments from 1930 to 1945, an attack that produced the most valuable secret intelligence on foreign relations and national security that the United States possessed during this period. Secret Messages is one of the first works to make extensive use of the Historic Cryptographic Collection (HCC), an enormous collection of nearly 1500 boxes of documents relating to United States cryptography and cryptanalysis before 1945 that was deposited into the United States National Archives by the National Security Agency in 1996. The importance of this collection to the history of United States code- and cipher-breaking before 1945 is ably demonstrated by Professor Alvarez, and makes very clear that works on United States cryptanalytic intelligence, foreign policy, and national security policy from 1939 to 1945 that do not take account of the HCC are to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the precise topic) both insufficient and out of date.
Secret Messages provides much fascinating detail on the United States's cryptanalytic attack against the diplomatic communications of foreign countries from 1930 to 1945, an effort that after Pearl Harbor became very wide-ranging indeed, and eventually seems to have included almost every country in the world in its list of targets. While the United States's main cryptanalytic effort before the end of the Second World War was directed against Japanese systems, a fact that was made known to the public shortly after the end of the war, and American collaboration with the British attack against German Enigma systems was revealed in the 1970s, details of the work on breaking into many other countries' diplomatic communications during the Second World War was regarded by the United States government as too important to United States national security (or too embarrassing) to be released until recently. Although few eyebrows would be raised at the account in Secret Messages of United States cryptanalytic efforts against the diplomatic communications of pro-Axis neutrals such as Argentina, Spain, and Sweden, more surprising is the story of the vigorous attempts to break into the official communications of more conscientious neutrals such as Switzerland and the Vatican. Most troubling of all is the material on the cryptanalytic assaults against the communications of staunch Allied governments, such as the governments-in-exile of the Free French, Dutch, and Poles. What strikes this reviewer as ironic is that this tremendous and unscrupulous effort, undertaken mostly by cryptanalysts in the army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) (but which also included the collaboration of FBI agents who burgled foreign embassies in search of cryptographic materials), was made with the full approval and support of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, the statesman who in 1929 as secretary of state in the Hoover administration had shut down an earlier United States cryptanalytic unit, Herbert Yardley's Cipher Bureau, on the grounds that it was unethical for the United States to read other countries' private diplomatic communications. Stimson's abrupt change of attitude is one example of the tremendous rapidity that marked the United States's transformation from isolationism to global superpower.
What effect did the intelligence produced by this ultimately massive cryptanalytic effort have on United States foreign policy and national security policy during the Second World War? Despite its great success in providing invaluable insights into the thinking and actions of foreign governments, enemy, neutral, and Allied alike, Professor Alvarez believes that cryptanalytic intelligence had little impact on policymaking. In part this was because the central figure in United States foreign policymaking at this time, President Roosevelt, had little apparent regard for cryptanalytic intelligence - Professor Alvarez recounts the president's usual practice of having decrypts read to him while he was shaving - and did not appear to distinguish between it and other less reliable forms of intelligence such as his casual conversations with old friends who had recently visited war zones. But this may have been an act on the president's part. Throughout his presidency Roosevelt was notorious for concealing his thinking and motives regarding decisionmaking from those around him and this may also have applied to his attitude towards intelligence, he may not have wished to reveal to people around him which kinds of intelligence he found more valuable and useful than others in case by so doing his thinking on policy matters might be deduced. Professor Alvarez's findings in Secret Messages strongly suggest to this reviewer that every major decision of the president's regarding foreign policy and national security policy during the Second World War needs to be carefully re-examined in light of the newly-released evidence on United States cryptanalytic work during the war. Even when it turns out that cryptanalytic intelligence did not contribute directly to a decision being made, it is still critical to take it into account when considering the president's underlying motives. For example the president's knowledge of the devastating impact of Operation Barbarossa on the Soviet Union in summer 1941, which was communicated to him primarily through the intercepted messages of the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Oshima Hiroshi, and that foretold the probable collapse of the Soviet state, tends to undermine the claims of historians who have argued that President Roosevelt believed right up to Pearl Harbor that the United States could contain or defeat the Axis powers merely by supplying anti-Axis countries with lend-lease aid. Cryptanalytic intelligence supports the view that President Roosevelt knew that without full United States intervention in the European War it was very likely that Nazi Germany would defeat all its enemies one by one. The thoroughness of Professor Alvarez's work on the United States's cryptanalytic attack on the diplomatic communications of foreign governments from 1930 to 1945 casts doubt on his conclusion that this kind of intelligence had limited influence on policymaking. Secret Messages is a significant contribution to the laying of the groundwork for a thorough revision of the history of United States foreign policy and national security policy during a most critical period.
Rating: 4
Summary: an informative look at a struggle behind the big struggle
Comment: Anyone who has ever been engaged in developing an innovative activity in a highly bureaucratic organization will appreciate the information provided in this book. What to do, how to do it, how to organize the activity, how to present the information, how to share it were all issues the Army, Navy, and national leaders of the United States and England had to resolve under the most difficult of conditions. Most importantly, who gets the credit for it was always a factor. The Navy and the FBI do not come out smelling like roses in this very thorough analysis of a critical chapter in the history of WW II. This is not a book for the novice; a familarity with many of the issues discussed is required for an appreciation of the information it provides. Nor is it a James Bond thriller. It requires attention, effort and a glass or two of good wine. It is a valuable addition to our body of knowledge and is well worth reading. Communication techniques have changed dramatically since these events of fifty years ago took place and one can only marvel at how much more complicated things must be in this field today.
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Title: Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda by John Keegan ISBN: 0375400532 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie ISBN: 0679456716 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: A Look over My Shoulder : A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency by William Hood, Richard Helms ISBN: 037550012X Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 08 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The Emperor's Codes: The Breaking of Japan's Secret Ciphers by Michael Smith ISBN: 014200233X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941-1945 (Modern War Studies) by Robert W. Stephan ISBN: 0700612793 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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