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| ★阿修羅♪ 戦争７ ★阿修羅♪ |
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
『亜空間通信』118号(2001/12/09)
【真珠湾攻撃60周年記念：日本もアメリカの暗号電文を解読し先制攻撃に出た?!】
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転送、転載、引用、訳出、大歓迎！
昨日(2001/12/08)、本通信既報のごとく、同世代のアメリカ人との私的「真珠湾攻
撃60周年記念」日米会談を開始したのであるが、その状況を報告しようかと考えつつ、
本日(2001/12/09)、朝食後に電子手紙を受信したところ、まさにその「真珠湾攻撃60
周年記念」に最も相応しい情報が、アメリカの歴史見直し論者から送られてきていた。
簡略に説明すると、当時の日本も、アメリカの暗号電文を解読していて、アメリカ
が日米の開戦に踏み切ると判断し、先制攻撃に出たのだというのである。
掲載紙は、アメリカ西海岸の有力紙、『ロサンゼルス・タイムズ』(2001/12/07)だ
から、かなりの議論を呼ぶだろう。ともあれ、60年前の事件についてすら、まだまだ
秘められた裏話があるのだから、現在進行中の「事変」の背景に関しては、もっともっ
と疑うべきなのである。
http://www.latimes.com/la-120701codes.story
Japan Broke U.S. Code Before Pearl Harbor, Researcher Finds
Asia: Discovery is based on papers unearthed in Tokyo. They show attack may
have been prompted by belief that Washington had decided on war.
By VALERIE REITMAN
Times Staff Writer
December 7 2001
TOKYO -- Toshihiro Minohara made a startling discovery while digging through
the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., last summer.
While researching secret codes used prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor 60
years ago, the young Japanese American professor stumbled upon a document,
declassified by the CIA about five years ago, that proved that Tokyo had
succeeded in breaking the U.S. and British diplomatic codes.
A few microfilmed documents, showing the Japanese translations of the
telegrams, were attached.
Minohara knew he was on to something important:
For decades it was widely believed that Japan, then a developing country
with a fierce rivalry between its army and navy, hadn't been up to measure
when it came to code-breaking, particularly the documents of the Americans.
"We are so . . . arrogant," said Donald Goldstein, a professor at the
University of Pittsburgh and co-author of "At Dawn We Slept:
The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor."
"It's very possible they could have broken our code, so why shouldn't they
have?"
Research in Tokyo Confirms Findings Further research by a colleague in Japan
confirmed the findings--and may shed light on the mind-set that caused
Japan's last holdouts for peace to opt for war just weeks before the attack,
Minohara said this week.
When Minohara sent fellow Kobe University teacher Satoshi Hattori to check
Japan's diplomatic archives in Tokyo, he wasn't optimistic:
Most top-secret documents were burned after being read in wartime Japan.
Those that remained were confiscated by the U.S. during the occupation that
followed Japan's 1945 defeat; they are now housed in U.S. archives.
But Hattori unearthed a folder marked "Special Documents," containing 34
communiques that would have been easy to overlook--and apparently have been
by other Japanese researchers numerous times. They are simple typed pages,
written primarily in English, of U.S. and British diplomatic discussions and
telegrams, many from U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull to various U.S.
ambassadors.
The contents of the documents have long been known to historians the world
over, and some even pop up on the Internet. But their appearance in the
Japanese archives reveals that Tokyo knew what was going on in Washington in
the weeks before Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
killing more than 2,000 people.
Minohara says his findings may shed light on why the few doves in the
Japanese Cabinet--in particular, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo--dropped
their opposition to war.
Japan Stunned by Hard-Line U.S. Edict
The U.S., alarmed by the march of Japan's Imperial Army through Asia, had
imposed an oil embargo on the nation and told it to get out of China, among
other things.
Togo had sent a conciliatory rebuttal, known as the "Five Points Plan,"
offering some concessions and seeking to continue discussions.
Japan knew from the decoded cables that the U.S. had been seriously
considering some of the compromises. But on Nov. 26, 1941, the Americans
stunned Japan with a hard-line edict essentially ordering Tokyo's troops to
get out of China and Indochina or face the consequences. This apparently
convinced even Togo that the U.S. had decided on war.
Many historians have speculated that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was
looking for an excuse to get into the war in Europe; they posit that he knew
Japan would attack but thought the target might be American forces in the
Philippines or instead perhaps Malaya, then a British colony, which would
prompt the U.S. to come to the aid of its ally.
The newly revealed documents raise an interesting question, Minohara says.
Had the American side accepted the compromises it was considering--lifting
the oil embargo for three months, permitting Japanese troops to remain in
Indochina and continuing discussions on Japan's occupation of
Manchuria--would Tokyo have still gone through with the surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor?
Japan's war vessels had long before set sail for the Pacific, and the
command "Climb Mt. Itaka" meant for Japanese troops to go forward with the
attack on Pearl Harbor; but there was also a lesser-known command "Climb
Mt. Tsukuba," which meant return.
"The big question is why the U.S. dropped the offer," says Minohara, 30, who
did undergraduate work at UC Davis before moving to Japan for graduate
school at Kobe University, where he now teaches.
Togo wrote in his memoirs that, when he read the edict from the U.S., "I was
shocked to the point of dizziness. At this point, we had no choice but to
take action."
Historians often wondered why he was so shocked. Minohara says Togo's
raised expectations that a deal was in the offing led to his anger.
Thomas G. Mahnken, a strategy professor at the U.S. Naval War College in
Rhode Island who recently completed a book on U.S. intelligence on Japan in
the years before World War II, says the knowledge that Japan was breaking
the codes is "significant."
Then again, Mahnken notes, the U.S. diplomatic telegrams "were not
tremendously sophisticated," and a number of countries had even broken those
used by military attaches.
Neither Japan nor the U.S. had broken the other's military codes prior to
Pearl Harbor, Minohara says.
Japanese historians often claim that the U.S. misinterpreted some ofthe
country's telegrams--for instance, that Togo's "Five Points Plan" was
translated as a "final offer" when Togo never said that.
Minohara says the Japanese "were doing the same thing. Even though there
was no error in the translations, they were still misinterpreting the U.S.'
intentions."
以上。
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木村愛二：国際電網空間総合雑誌『憎まれ愚痴』編集長
ある時は自称"嘘発見"名探偵。ある時は年齢別世界記録を目指す生涯水泳選手。
E-mail:altmedka@jca.apc.org
URL:http://www.jca.apc.org/~altmedka/
altmedka:Alternative Medium by KIMURA Aiji
Big big name, ah, ah, ah........
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題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。