West Wind Clear: Cryptology and the Winds Message Controversy--A Documentary History

Preface and Acknowledgments

"There is nothing makes a man suspect much, More than to know a little." – Francis Bacon

In the seemingly never-ending debate over the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the significant topics of contention pressed by some revisionist and conspiracy writers, historians, and critics of the conventional view of the attack and the Roosevelt administration's role in it has been the phenomenon of the so-called "Winds Message" (hereafter referred to as Winds message). In the years after World War II, several writers and scholars and a few politicians espoused the position that this message was a clear warning that the Japanese were going to attack the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. They have also argued ...