Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945 (Modern War Studies) [Hardcover]

David J. Alvarez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000 | Series: Modern War Studies

To defeat your enemies you must know them well. In wartime, however, enemy codemakers make that task much more difficult. If you cannot break their codes and read their messages, you may discover too late the enemy's intentions. That's why codebreakers were considered such a crucial weapon during World War II.

In Secret Messages, David Alvarez provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of decoded radio messages (signals intelligence) upon American foreign policy and strategy from 1930 to 1945. He presents the most complete account to date of the U.S. Army's top-secret Signal Intelligence Service (SIS): its creation, its struggles, its rapid wartime growth, and its contributions to the war effort.

Alvarez reveals the inner workings of the SIS (precursor of today's NSA) and the codebreaking process and explains how SIS intercepted, deciphered, and analyzed encoded messages. From its headquarters at Arlington Hall outside Washington, D.C., SIS grew from a staff of four novice codebreakers to more than 10,000 people stationed around the globe, secretly monitoring the communications of not only the Axis powers but dozens of other governments as well and producing a flood of intelligence.

Some of the SIS programs were so clandestine that even the White House--unaware of the agency's existence until 1937--was kept uninformed of them, such as the 1943 creation of a super-secret program to break Soviet codes and ciphers. In addition, Alvarez brings to light such previously classified operations as the interception of Vatican communications and a comprehensive program to decrypt the communications of our wartime allies. He also dispels many of the myths about the SIS's influence on American foreign policy, showing that the impact of special intelligence in the diplomatic sphere was limited by the indifference of the White House, constraints within the program itself, and rivalries with other agencies (like the FBI).

Drawing upon military and intelligence archives, interviews with retired and active cryptanalysts, and over a million pages of cryptologic documents declassified in 1996, Alvarez illuminates this dark corner of intelligence history and expands our understanding of its role in and contributions to the American effort in World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Provides an unparalleled glimpse into Army codebreaking in World War II."--John Prados, author of Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II

"Imaginatively written, thoroughly documented, and brilliantly comprehensive. Fills a significant gap in intelligence literature."--Carl Boyd, author of Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945

"An important and pioneering work that will be essential reading for any student of cryptology, or of intelligence during the Second World War."--John Ferris, author of Intelligence and Strategy

About the Author

David Alvarez is a professor of politics at Saint Mary's College of California and a former scholar-in-residence at the National Security Agency's Center for Cryptologic History. A frequent contributor to such journals as Cryptologia and Intelligence and National Security, he is coauthor of Nothing Sacred: Nazi Espionage against the Vatican, 1939-1945 and editor of Allied and Axis Signals Intelligence in World War II.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700610138
• ISBN-13: 978-0700610136
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,174,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an informative look at a struggle behind the big struggle, May 1, 2000

By 

Harvey M. Solomon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Secret Messages Makes Existing Works on Subject Obsolete, December 3, 2002

By 

Dr. David A. Walker - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

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.

4.0 out of 5 stars Covers a little-known part of history ..., October 6, 2011

By 

Richard T. Leitner (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but as at least one other reviewer has stated, it's not an adventure or spy story. It's a matter-of-fact look at the SIGINT efforts of the United States leading up to and including the second world war. And to give credit to Alvarez, he essentially points out that all that effort, while having a huge influence over military matters, hardly made any difference in American diplomacy or foreign affairs. But this is part of understanding the amazing period of US history that is covered, especially the personalities of leaders both military and political. Roosevelt's hubris about the way things should be (or at least as HE thought they should be) and misunderstanding of his influence over other nations, the reluctance of military leaders to cooperate with their service rivals, the grudging final acceptance that a comprehensive intelligence coordination was necessary to fully realize the potential of SIGINT ... all are well treated here by the author. This is a good read, and I recommend it for those interested in the history of codebreaking and intelligence.