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

4.2. Safford Searches for the Missing Winds Execute Message

The story of Safford's search for the missing Winds Execute message begins about two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We do not know with much detail what he initially did to locate records, how he went about the search, to whom he first spoke, and when he searched. The exact date of origin and source of his belief that such the message had been sent cannot be precisely placed. What we do know is that sometime in mid- to late 1943, Captain Safford had begun writing a short history of American naval radio intelligence called "The Undeclared War."^[] It was completed on 15 November 1943. Interestingly, the last section of the monograph concerned the intercept and handling of the ...