Deja Vue all over again

[WJHopwood]

Apropos of the recent security leaks by Snowden and Manning, an
article in the Wall Street Journal last week by its legal correspondent,
Jeff Bravin, told of "newly released" formerly classified WWii
documents by the DOJ, Office of Legal Counsel, with a headline
reading: "An Echo From a Past Leak Probe,"

The gist of the article was that at the time of the battle of Midway
a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune named Stanley Johnson,
who was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, had seen a classified Navy
intelligence file which revealed that the Navy expected that the IJN
was going to attack Midway. Johnson dispatched his story to the
Herald Tribune which ran it on Sunday, June 7, 1942 under a banner
headline reading: "U.S. Navy Knew in Advance All About Jap Fleet."
How Johnson had gained access to the source of his information was
not revealed.

The article said that on learning of the Herald Tribune's "scoop,"
SecNav Knox went ballistic and contacted the Attorney General to
ask that indictments be brought against not only war correspondent
Johnson but also the Editor and Publisher of the Herald Tribune for
"disclosure of classified information and aiding the enemy,"

However, as the article noted, although multiple charges were presented
to a Grand Jury, they were all dismissed because of a litany of legal
technicalities. Apparently the most important of them was that
the U.S. Navy "refused to specify how the Johnson story had damaged
the war effort."

There is nothing really new about the Herald-Tribune incident in the
recent WSJ article. David Kahn wrote more about it 67 years ago in his
monumental book, "The Codebreakers." In the book Kahn explains in
detail the logic behind the Navy's refusal to specify that any damage
might have resulted from the leak. First, the Navy didn't know. Second,
the Navy suspected that any additional publicity resulting from
indictments might attract Japanese attention, even if the original story
had not. This could lead the Japanese to assume (correctly) that the U.S.
had obtained the information by breaking Japanese coded messages.
Japan would then almost certainly have changed its code(s) which would
have been a serious set-back for U.S. intelligence.

As it turned out the Japanese never got wind of the Herald Tribune
incident, never changed its code(s) as a result thereof, and the story faded
into history---until now.

WJH

[Merlin Dorfman]

Apropos of the recent security leaks by Snowden and Manning, an article
in the Wall Street Journal last week by its legal correspondent, Jeff
Bravin, told of "newly released" formerly classified WWii documents by
the DOJ, Office of Legal Counsel, with a headline reading: "An Echo From
a Past Leak Probe,"
The gist of the article was that at the time of the battle of Midway a
war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune named Stanley Johnson,
who was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, had seen a classified Navy
intelligence file which revealed that the Navy expected that the IJN was
going to attack Midway. Johnson dispatched his story to the Herald
Tribune which ran it on Sunday, June 7, 1942 under a banner headline
reading: "U.S. Navy Knew in Advance All About Jap Fleet."
How Johnson had gained access to the source of his information was not
revealed.

..

There were several recent articles relating the Manning/Snowden
incidents to this WW II leak, e.g., the Chicago Tribune itself:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-11/opinion/ct-edit-
midway-20130811_1_tribune-tower-secrets-u-s-navy
Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/07/government-tried-to-
aggressively-punish-leaker-journalist-in-world-war-ii/
Secrecy News: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/07/publishing-secrets/
and the WSJ article Bill cited: http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424127887323420604578651951028990338.html
For details on how Johnston (with a "t") got the information, a good
summary is on the Naval History and Heritage Command site, at:
http://www.navyhistory.org/2013/02/spilling-the-secret-captain-morton-
seligman/
The executive officer of the carrier Lexington, Commander Morton
Seligman USNA '19, holder of two Navy Crosses, and reporter Johnston were
both aboard the Lexington when it was sunk at the Battle of the Coral
Sea. They returned to the States together aboard USS Barnett, and somehow
during that voyage Seligman let Johnston see some classified messages that
described the Japanese ships expected to attack Midway. (There are other
explanations but this one is generally accepted.) Johnston had apparently
never been officially accredited as a war correspondent and thus had not
signed an agreement to submit all his dispatches to censorship.

[news]

Post by Merlin Dorfman

Apropos of the recent security leaks by Snowden and Manning, an article
in the Wall Street Journal last week by its legal correspondent, Jeff
Bravin, told of "newly released" formerly classified WWii documents by
the DOJ, Office of Legal Counsel, with a headline reading: "An Echo From
a Past Leak Probe,"
The gist of the article was that at the time of the battle of Midway a
war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune named Stanley Johnson,
who was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, had seen a classified Navy
intelligence file which revealed that the Navy expected that the IJN was
going to attack Midway. Johnson dispatched his story to the Herald
Tribune which ran it on Sunday, June 7, 1942 under a banner headline
reading: "U.S. Navy Knew in Advance All About Jap Fleet."
How Johnson had gained access to the source of his information was not
revealed.

..
There were several recent articles relating the Manning/Snowden
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-11/opinion/ct-edit-
midway-20130811_1_tribune-tower-secrets-u-s-navy
Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/07/government-tried-to-
aggressively-punish-leaker-journalist-in-world-war-ii/
Secrecy News: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/07/publishing-secrets/
and the WSJ article Bill cited: http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424127887323420604578651951028990338.html
For details on how Johnston (with a "t") got the information, a good
http://www.navyhistory.org/2013/02/spilling-the-secret-captain-morton-
seligman/
The executive officer of the carrier Lexington, Commander Morton
Seligman USNA '19, holder of two Navy Crosses, and reporter Johnston were
both aboard the Lexington when it was sunk at the Battle of the Coral
Sea. They returned to the States together aboard USS Barnett, and somehow
during that voyage Seligman let Johnston see some classified messages that
described the Japanese ships expected to attack Midway. (There are other
explanations but this one is generally accepted.) Johnston had apparently
never been officially accredited as a war correspondent and thus had not
signed an agreement to submit all his dispatches to censorship.

just out of curiousity, why would anyone or any ship not directly
involved in the upcoming battle be privy to such information

[Merlin Dorfman]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 23:45:54 -0400, news wrote:

..

Post by news
just out of curiousity, why would anyone or any ship not directly
involved in the upcoming battle be privy to such information

The cited Naval History and Heritage Command article says the
following:

CINCPAC's message of 311221 May contained Admiral Nimitz's final
appreciation of the Japanese order of battle prior to Midway which Nimitz
sent to the commanders of Task Forces 16 and 17, Spruance and Fletcher,
respectively. The message was passed in communications channels available
to other ships. Contrary to normal practices, which expected communicators
to ignore traffic not addressed to their ship or commander, it was
probably decoded by communications officers from the Lexington en route
home from the loss of their ship at Coral Sea, who were acting as watch
standers aboard the transport USS Barnett (AP 11). Perhaps the nature of
the message, the identity of the sender, and the use of the flag officers'
code "encouraged" the officers in Barnett to break and read the message.

NSA is simply wrong when it states that the info addees did not read the
mail. "Information addressees" were analogous to "ccs," namely those to
whom the messages sent not for action [those were addressees] but for
information. Apparently the Fox system was open to be copied by all ships
and units to whom the messages were not addressed. During World War II the
Fox transmissions implicitly encouraged the copying and reading of many
messages not addressed to a particular ship. This may have been a wide
spread problem as best illustrated by Seventh Fleet's "misreading" of a
prep message sent by Commander, Third Fleet during the Battle of [for]
Leyte Gulf. Admiral Halsey sent a message to his fleet advising of his
intention to form Task Force 34 centered on his fast battleships under
Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee, U.S. Navy. Third Fleet never formed TF 34 and
the fast battleships, with Halsey embarked in his flagship, USS New Jersey
(BB 62) steamed north with the carriers towards the IJN's decoy force of
carriers. Contrary to Seventh Fleet's expectation, there were no heavy
Third Fleet units guarding the entrance to Leyte Gulf. This reading of
messages not addressed to ships, squadrons, and even fleet commanders
nearly led to the destruction of the Seventh Fleet's invasion and support
forces, and it led to the infamous padded message from CINCPAC to Third
Fleet, "Where is TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR The world wonders."
["TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO
COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR
RR THE WORLD WONDERS" Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world_wonders]

[WJHopwood]

Post by Merlin Dorfman
The cited Naval History and Heritage Command article says the
..... Apparently the Fox system was open to be copied by all ships
and units to whom the messages were not addressed. During World
War II the Fox transmissions implicitly encouraged the copying and
reading of many messages not addressed to a particular ship.

I don't buy that. FOX was a broadcast radio system located at Navy
headquarters in Washington which sent but did not receive message
traffic, both of a generalized nature or specifically addressed to certain
ships. Why would somone not specifically addressed want to open
any message unless it was meant for all ships and clearly marked as
such, as were the ALNAVs?

Any responses necessary from ships specifically addressed, either
as action or info addees, would be sent back over separate radio
channels. FOX, radio call sign NSS, was transmitted on a variety
of radio frequencies to facilitate adequate reception at sea at any
time of day or night, wherever ships might be. Relay stations at
San Francisco and Pearl Harbor were part of this coverage effort.

FOX was transmitted in Morse code. In Washington, the message
traffic was usually heavy and instead of a radio operator sending the
message by using an old-fashioned telegraph hand key, message
clerks would first type it into a teletypewriter connected to a small
piece of equipment which turned it into a perforated tape consisting
of Morse code characters to match the letters of the message. The
tape was then run through a "keying head" which worked like a hand
key only much smoother than a human hand, and converted the tape
into Morse. A dial on the keying head could raise or lower the sending
speed. The usual speed was OK for the average radioman to copy but
at busy times it was sometimes run faster and the joke was, "The
Chiefs will have to get out of bed for these."

Ships were required to maintain a radio watch on FOX 24/7.
Much of the traffic was in plain language such as generalized
information to all ships called ALNAVS, but classified traffic
to specific addressees was first encrypted then sent by Morse
in five-letter groups.

Post by Merlin Dorfman
Apparently the Fox system was open to be copied by all ships
and units to whom the messages were not addressed. During
World War II the Fox transmissions implicitly encouraged the
copying and reading of many messages not addressed to a
particular ship. This may have been a wide spread problem as
best illustrated by Seventh Fleet's "misreading" of a prep
message sent by Commander, Third Fleet during the Battle of
for] Leyte Gulf.
.....Admiral Halsey sent a message to his fleet advising of his
intention to form Task Force 34 centered on his fast battleships
under Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee, U.S. Navy. Third Fleet never
formed TF 34 and the fast battleships, with Halsey embarked
in his flagship, USS New Jersey (BB 62) steamed north with the
carriers towards the IJN's decoy force of carriers. Contrary to
Seventh Fleet's expectation, there were no heavy Third Fleet
units guarding the entrance to Leyte Gulf. This reading of
messages not addressed to ships, squadrons, and even fleet
commanders nearly led to the destruction of the Seventh Fleet's
invasion and support forces....

This I don't understand. Something is missing here. How does
the reading of messages not specifically addressed lead to any
problem as described above, and who would want to do that
anyway? Halsey would have sent an encrypted message
specifically addressed and I can't think of a reason why any
Communication Watch Officer on a ship not addressed by the
message would have decoded it, or conversely why any CWO
on a ship which WAS addressed would NOT have decoded it.
What did I miss here?

Post by Merlin Dorfman
....and it led to the infamous padded message from CINCPAC to
Third Fleet,.."TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC
ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN
X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR
RR THE WORLD WONDERS" .....

First, the selection of the words in the end padding was
not in accordance with the instructions on how to make
up of such padding and a dumb mistake by the person who
encrypted the CINCPAC message. Second, it was a mistake
for the person at the receiving end to miss the dividing sign
RR and also not to realize the implication of the wording and
including the padding as if it were part of the message.
Two coincidental human errors, trivial in themselves but
resulting in an Admiral thinking he was being insulted and
creating an uproar.

WJH

[m***@netMAPSONscape.net]

Post by WJHopwood
The gist of the article was that at the time of the battle of Midway
a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune named Stanley Johnson,
who was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, had seen a classified Navy
intelligence file which revealed that the Navy expected that the IJN
was going to attack Midway. Johnson dispatched his story to the

Well, he was a newsman, so he should report news. Job description and all.

My questions would be: "What moron left the file where a civilian could
see it? And why didn't he spend the rest of the war transferred to the
Marines, and cleaning latrines with his own toothbrush?"

Mike

[Rich Rostrom]

Post by m***@netMAPSONscape.net
My questions would be: "What moron left the file where a civilian could
see it? And why didn't he spend the rest of the war transferred to the
Marines, and cleaning latrines with his own toothbrush?"

The blame was laid on Commander Seligman,
XO of LEXINGTON. Seligman was a veteran
Navy aviator (USNA class of 1919), who
had received a Navy Cross for service in
mine-sweeping operations after WW I.

He received another Navy Cross for his
service in damage control operations
after LEXINGTON was hit at Coral Sea.

But it was soon clear that he had been
responsible for the leak. Roosevelt,
King, and Nimitz decided against a
court-martial or other explicit official
punishment, as it would lead to more
publicity for the leaks, and it was at
least possible the Japanese hadn't
noticed. (And in fact they didn't.)

However, Seligman's career died. He
spent the rest of the war in shore-side
assignments and was never promoted
again, retiring as a "tombstone"
Captain. His disgrace was not formal,
but the fact that a highly decorated
combat veteran was shuffling papers
ashore had obvious implications.

[WJHopwood]

On Friday, August 16, 2013 12:39:39 PM UTC-4, Rich Rostrom

Post by Rich Rostrom
The blame was laid on Commander Seligman,
XO of LEXINGTON....it was soon clear that he had been
responsible for the leak....

The current background information available about reporter
Johnston indicates that he was considered a "self-serving"
individual, so we may never really know for sure just how he
got his information in this instance. The wording in his Herald
Tribune story was very close to the same as in Nimitz' initial
warning message (one report I saw said that Johnston even
included the same punctuation and garbles) which might show
that he could possibly have seen a copy of the Nimitz warning
message and copied from it, rather than having been verbally
given or otherwise learned the information from Seligman or
anyone else.

And there have been several other theories proposed as to how
the leak occurred--some sounding logical, others far fetched.
For instance, in Mr. Dorfman's "navy history,org" link, three
of the other explanations are listed:

(1) A Herald Tribune editor later claimed that Johnston
"deduced" the story from pieces of information he picked up
in the ordinary experience of being a correspondent.
(Far-fetched.)

(2) Senior Pacific Fleet intelligence Officer, RADM Edward
Layton, is said to have speculated that Johnston got the info
from a memo he saw posted on a bulletin board in San Diego.
(Not likely).

(3) The author of a book whose name was Phillip Knightly
theorized that Johnston just "put together" all the pieces of
information he had picked up in the ordinary course of
business. (Similar to #1 above)

Then there was John Prados, who, in 1995, wrote "Combined
Fleet Decoded," in which he said that Johnston had not felt
compelled to be too careful about what he wrote for
publication because he had never applied for credentials as
a war correspondent and thus had not signed an agreement
to submit his stories for military censorship before release.
Prados further noted that one thing the story did do was
change the tactics used by the Navy in handling the press.
After the Herald Tribune story the Navy was more open with
borderline classified information given to the press as
background, but was also sure that everyone given such info
had pledged to submit their stories for censorship before
release.

WJH