now all the time these conversations were in progress, and what the American people would not know until four years later, was that months before the Pearl Harbor attack the American government, by a stroke of unmatched good fortune, had been placed in possession of a priceless weapon. Our intelligence had cracked the Japanese code relating to ship movements and the Japanese ultra code used in advising its diplomatic troops throughout the world (Morgenstern 168). With this knowledge in their possession, President Roosevelt, the State Department, and the Army and Navy were privy to all of Japan's plans and intentions. They knew what the Japanese were saying among themselves, what they were thinking and what they were planning to do. “Our officials could not have been better informed if they had had seats in the Japanese war council.” (168). So like a gift of the gods did our leaders consider the breaking of the Japanese code that they referred to as "Magic" (Bachrach 93).The first intimation that the American government had broken the Japanese code came on August 29, 1945, when President Truman released the reports of the Army and Navy boards of inquiry, which had investigated the Pearl Harbor disaster. The Navy Court had reported its findings to the Secretary of the Navy on October 19, 1944 and the Army Board to the Secretary of War on October 20, 1944. At that time, the nation was still at war with Germany and Japan, and, by resorting to the convenient pretext of national security, the secretaries labeled the reports "Top Secret" and suppressed them for ten months. When they were finally released, large sections were still withheld, but there were enough hints in the text made public to suggest that the United States was in possession of the code secret before Pearl Harbor. (Morgenstern 168). Those who received Magic included the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the chief of staff, the se...
