Hanyok, Robert J.: West Wind Clear.v1. 21 April 2014
 

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.

This book by the U.S. National Security Agency reviews these claims with documentary evidence, as well a review of US codebreaking activities at the time.

But it also makes clear that although the US kept its eye on the ball, it was the wrong ball that they were focused on. What held their attention was high level diplomatic communications, in part because of the gee whiz factor. The only thing that could have prevented Pearl Harbor was decoding Japanese Navy and Army communications which languished with all the attention devoted to the diplomatic communications.