Patterico's Pontifications

6/23/2006

If Today’s Journalists Had Been Around in World War II

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Scum,Terrorism — Patterico @ 12:10 am



It is May 30, 1944, and Bill Keller and Dean Baquet have just issued a joint statement:

We have listened closely to President Roosevelt’s arguments for withholding publication of the full details of the Allies’ plans for next week’s invasion of Europe in Northern France. We weighed these arguments carefully, and gave them the most serious and respectful consideration.

However, we have determined that it was in the public interest to publish these plans.

We believe that the government’s use of deception in attempting to mislead our enemy concerning the exact location of our invasion raises serious questions about governmental honesty — questions that merit a public airing and debate.

Additionally, the plans we have published anticipate severe casualties on the part of Allied forces. Publishing the details of such a plan is part of the continuing national debate over the aggressive measures employed by the government in attempting to win the so-called “war on Nazism and fascism.”

I have no trouble imagining this. No trouble at all.

Thanks to Sean M. for the inspiration.

UPDATE: I see that Meg Q. at Goldstein’s did essentially the same riff. Well, I guess it’s just that obvious, isn’t it? Are you proud, Dean and Bill, that many people are having this exact reaction?

11 Responses to “If Today’s Journalists Had Been Around in World War II”

  1. As long as we continue allowing journalists to dictate the terms on which we a) defend the country and b) prosecute the war, we will never win.

    Sirius Familiaris (93f35d)

  2. The Chicago Tribune did almost that in World War II. The week before Pearl Harbor it published the Rainbow 5 war plans that had been worked out in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Then, after Midway, they published a story suggesting we had broken the Japanese codes. Both stories were ignored by Roosevelt although there was consternation after the code-breaking story. Apparently the Japanese did not read the Trib. Now we know the bad guys not only read our news media but consider them allies in the jihad. That is why so many incidents are video taped by the insurgents to provide the tape to al Jazeera and al Reuters.

    Mike K (416363)

  3. thanks Mike… didn’t know that.

    As for our hellbent media, it’s nauseating, depressing, unnecessary. Totally counterproductive to the freedom they claim they worship.

    Vermont Neighbor (a9ae2c)

  4. FWIW I had the same thought as I was going to sleep last night–what would have happened had these self-important nimrods been around during WWII.

    “They were quite vigorous, they were quite energetic. They made a very strong case,” he said.
    –Doyle McManus, LAT DC Bureau Chief.

    So, Doyle, they made a strong case–just not strong enough for either you or the NYT to hold your bolt? Because the stronger the case for sitting on something, the bigger your feeling of power when you break it anyway.

    Anwyn (01a5cc)

  5. The MSM is the enemy.

    Carlos (98df3a)

  6. The distrubing thing to me is not only what is reported but what is believed. These journalists report in such a manner because they truely believe that WE ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE. Earlier this week I read a piece @ talkingpoints memo about polling figures in WWII. The piece was regarding Tony Snow’s assertion that if polling had been conducted during the war then nothing would have been accomplished due to fear of poll numbers.

    There was a chart attached to the piece that showed polling was conducted during the war and that Roosevelt had broad popular support. But there was some very interesting data in those numbers that astonished me….and was lost on the liberal talkingpointer. Consistently throughout the polling figures that lasted from November ’41 to spring of ’45 an average of approximately 15% of american citizens were “willing to make peace with Hitler”. Here’s the link http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/wwii-polls/

    The bottom line is no matter what the evidence or the potential for good there are people who just don’t want war. How can you possibly debate with people who refuse to see facts.

    We’re ALWAYS going to have people against war. FACTS ARE LOST ON THESE PEOPLE. The problem is some of these people are journalists and FACTS SHOULD BE EVERYTHING. I would love to see a follow-up poll conducted on those 15% who wanted to make peace with Hitler…now that the FACTS are out.

    History doesn’t judge them well and certainly is not on their side.

    tripp (c7359c)

  7. In fact, the only reason legal action wasn’t taken against the Tribune for breaking secrecy on MAGIC was the administration did not want to draw attention to the accusation.

    Good news! That doesn’t apply here. String ’em up.

    Dave (6001a6)

  8. And what about the incredible and dishonest diversion of massive funds to that secret atom bomb project?

    Some scientists even believed that the first bomb test could ignite the atmosphere!

    The atomic pile in Chicago could have melted down!

    Surely this should have been given a thorough airing so the American people could decide if the risks of this research were balanced out by the blue-sky promises of these radical scientists.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  9. […] I think most people would agree that the press should be able to publish information that has no real security value, but has been classified only to prevent embarrassment to a presidential administration — such as my example above. But I also think most people think that an administration ought to be able to punish people who publish classified information that has high security value, when there is absolutely no positive societal value to the dissemination of the information — such as my example from a previous post of publishing D-Day plans in advance of the attack. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Can Journalists Be Prosecuted for Publishing Classified Information? Should They Be? (421107)

  10. There is a good discussion of the Tribune case in the Commentary article about prosecuring the Times.

    [snip]

    One of the most pertinent precedents is a newspaper story that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on June 7, 1942, immediately following the American victory in the battle of Midway in World War II. In a front-page article under the headline, “Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea,” the Tribune disclosed that the strength and disposition of the Japanese fleet had been “well known in American naval circles several days before the battle began.” The paper then presented an exact description of the imperial armada, complete with the names of specific Japanese ships and the larger assemblies of vessels to which they were deployed. All of this information was attributed to “reliable sources in . . . naval intelligence.”

    The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the Tribune article was that the United States had broken Japanese naval codes and was reading the enemy’s encrypted communications. Indeed, cracking JN-25, as it was called, had been one of the major Allied triumphs of the Pacific war, laying bare the operational plans of the Japanese Navy almost in real time and bearing fruit not only at Midway—a great turning point of the war—but in immediately previous confrontations, and promising significant advantages in the terrible struggles that still lay ahead. Its exposure, a devastating breach of security, thus threatened to extend the war indefinitely and cost the lives of thousands of American servicemen.

    An uproar ensued in those quarters in Washington that were privy to the highly sensitive nature of the leak. The War Department and the Justice Department raised the question of criminal proceedings against the Tribune under the Espionage Act of 1917. By August 1942, prosecutors brought the paper before a federal grand jury. But fearful of alerting the Japanese, and running up against an early version of what would come to be known as graymail, the government balked at providing jurors with yet more highly secret information that would be necessary to demonstrate the damage done.

    Thus, in the end, the Tribune managed to escape criminal prosecution. For their part, the Japanese either never got wind of the story circulating in the United States or were so convinced that their naval codes were unbreakable that they dismissed its significance. In any case, they left them unaltered, and their naval communications continued to be read by U.S. and British cryptographers until the end of the war.

    [snip]

    The full article is here.

    andrewdb (96ed5c)

  11. Interesting blog – I visit often. Take care.

    Atoms for Peace (09762d)


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