Talk:Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory

See Also + Port Arthur

I add to the see also the Port Arthur Battle. It is part of the mainline history that the attack was predictble, which can be taken as evidence by both sides of the debate. It either proves the incompetence arguement or proves the conspiracy. Not my place to argue either, leave it to the reader. Evadinggrid (talk) 00:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Code Breaking Section, near top of article

The beginning of the section on codes is unquestionably good writing. It’s interesting, focused and tells a story. I learned something reading it. I want more writing like this on Wikipedia. My question, while reading it continued to be what it has to do with the advanced knowledge debate Pearl Harbor. I didn’t come to the article to learn about the status of code breaking from start to finish of the war, who the players were, what the drama was, etc. With regards to the codes, I want a focus on:

• Who knew what, when, who did they tell and how did it effect preparedness.

I think much of the material about the codes should go in an article about code breaking and referred to there, possibly even being published outside of Wikipedia, and then summary comments of its conclusions, such as:

• There were multiple codes.
• Some were broken before others.
• There was a constant fear of using/circulating the information that was decoded as it might tip off the enemy that its code was broken. [I know this was the case with the breaking of the German code, and why British didn’t destroy the feared German battleship Tirpitz [sistership and equally dangerous as the German battleship Bismarck] earlier when they knew exactly where it was].
• Information decoded was hoarded, frequently not shared.
• Those who had broken codes often were protective.
• Resources/staffing devoted to code breaking were limited.

Ultimately, I stopped reading the article, because I have limited interest in the codes. I understand the context is important, but I felt there was far more context than needed, and no sense of if and when anything about Pearl Harbor would be mentioned. So, I started skipping forward–-unfortunately, the stuff following had the same confusing lack of focus on Pearl Harbor, lack of clear thesis sentences about why it is relevant. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I really should take note of more than the most recent change summary when I check over my watchlist. Sorry to have missed this.

The reason the codes business is important, though tedious to some, is that they are central to many of the claims of pre-knowledge by Washington or someone which was withheld from Hawaii commands. As is often the case in intelligence work, some of the information was complete, some was incomplete, some was unavailable, and it all had to be evaluated prior to being treated seriously. Bletchley Park did the same thing for the intercepts it managed to decrypt, and in a famous incident even Churchill finally gave up his insistence on getting the raw decrypts in his dispatch box. Even he couldn't keep up with the meaning of frequently low level and opaque (but perhaps meaningful to a specialist analyst) content in the decrypts.

As for the good writing, thank you. I seem to remember some of it to be mine. Would that the rest of the article were even that clear. ww (talk) 04:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I first visited the page today, and right away I thought the long, long sections on intelligence (Assertions, Detection,J & A Intel consume over 30K characters) really belong on a separate page. Summarizing could help return focus to this long-long-contentious subject. Twang (talk) 00:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

T, There's a problem with this application of the splitting spirit. In this article the question of codes and cyphers is central to nearly all of the alternative theories. Someone was (or was no0 reading one of them and knew something as a result and did (or did not) pass it one to someone in Washington who didn't tell Hawaii which accounts for Hawaii's assorted failures to perform adequately that morning. To do as you suggest is to remove a major portion of the alternative theory business and force Readers into chasing down other articles to find the WP account of this stuff. And they will already be confused by a very hairy and confusing subject. Altogether, and regrettably, the length more or less goes with the topic and can't be avoided without making our Readers' problems worse. The best, if unsatisfactory by an ideal standard, seems to be what we sort of have (minus the bad writing and interfering special pleading). ww (talk) 03:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree. The codebreaking ish is a bit technical, but without understanding that, you can't understand the claim of foreknowledge, let alone the explanation why what looks like foreknowledge was nothing of the kind. Unfortunately, too much simplification only aids the conspiracy nuts. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 12:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Page 142 text No RDF on the Japanese Strike Force: No Conspiracy!

Here is what page 142 really says,

A more critical analysis of the source documentation shows that not one single radio direction finder bearing, much less any locating "fix," was obtained on any Kido Butai unit or command during its transit from Saeki Bay, Kyushu to Hitokappu Bay and thence on to Hawaii. By removing this fallacious lynchpin propping up such claims of Kido Butai radio transmissions, the attendant suspected conspiracy tumbles down like a house of cards.

Please be careful of Anonymous edits. Source may not reflect what is claimed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottS (talk • contribs) 21:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Inquiries

There's a section mentioning US government inquiries. The section should at least summarize or state the inquiry results. It would also be helpful to discuss what established historians think of the theory.