J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau's Counterintelligence Failure in Preventing Pearl Harbor

Credit should be given where credit is due and credit is actually due J. Edgar Hoover and his boys in the Bureau when it comes to how they dealt with the presence of German spies. The Bureau's counterintelligence activities during the early stages of World War II was primarily based on turning the spies around. As a result, Hoover's men were able to make German saboteurs agree to deals that would result in turning the tables on their Aryan overlords. One of the best ways to do this was through example, J. Edgar quickly found out. Six suspected saboteurs who refused to turn over information were executed. The other two handed over substantial and important facts and figures. Too bad that J. Edgar Hoover and his Bureau boys had nowhere near the same success in Hawaii.

Bernard Julius Otto Kuhn was definitely suspected of being a spy for the Japanese, but evidence proving this suspicion was hard to come by. Not for lack of it being there, mind you, but because while on the homeland dealing with German Nazis, the Bureau was on sure footing, they were skating on ice in Honolulu when dealing with Japanese fascists half a world away. On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Kuhn and his daughter Ruth watched from a window as the planes attacked, the bombs fell and the ships sank. Everything was coming up Japan! And then came an unexpected voice from the attic requesting of Kuhn that he put his hands into the air. The father and daughter who had just moment before been almost orgasmic in their delight at watching the entire US Navy blown to bits were suddenly less cheery. Lights emanating from the Kuhn's house had been the tipoff that everything was less than Jake. Of course, that voice in the attic demanded that Kuhn surrender only after the damage had been done. Little did Kuhn and his daughter know that the Americans had caused some damage themselves, including the sinking of the very ship that they had planned to use for their escape. Everything looked like it was coming up J. Edgar. But let us not move so fast.

America during the early stages of World War II was still very much America. Our doctrine of fair play and innocent until proven guilty meant that the Kuhns would receive their trial. The trial did not end especially well for Julius Kuhn or his daughter. But J. Edgar and the boys fared almost as badly. The trial of the Japanese spies revealed a shocking lack of knowledge on the part of the intelligence agents charged with protecting the borders from the fascist hordes. While back home the agents were getting pretty good at detecting the intricate workings of German spy networks, out there in the Pacific they were essentially useless. While the Kuhns had been suspect of being involved in spy activities, many others went thoroughly undetected and this big hole in the web undermined the Bureau's reputation.

The counterintelligence operations overseen by J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau in the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack would wind up being one of the worst blunders of Hoover's career. He and his men completely missed the boat on discovering and detecting almost everyone involved in the Japanese spy network. That failure alone would make for a rather intriguing follow-up to Clint Eastwood's broader portrait of the head of the FBI.

Sources:

Erasing the Brown Scare

Institute for Historical Review