Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-12-09
Axis Agents Tapped Telephone
Marshall Says Preventing It's Use
To Warn Pearl Harbor Of Attack
RooseveIt-ChurchiII
Talks Also Were
Intercepted He Says
By ]. A. O'LEARY and
CARTER BROOKE JONES.

CAh1Eh bhOOkE JONES.
Gen. George c. Marshall told
the Pearl Harbor Investigating
Committee yesterday that he
didn't use the telephone to send
a war warning to the Hawaiian
command the morning of Pearl
Harbor because Axis agents were
tapping even the transatlantic
conversations of President Roose-
welt and Winston Churchill.
The former Army Chief of Staff
revealed that German agents had
intercepted Mr.. Roosevelt's calls to
London and other foreign capitals
and that was the reason the tele-
phone was not used to advise Ha-
waii that Japan apparently was
going to make some move at / pm.
G:30 am. in Hawaii. Gen Mar
shall said he had warned Mr..
Roosevelt and Mr.. Churchill to be
more careful in what they said in
their phone conversations.
Due to transmission difficulties
the Marshall warning to Hawaii
went by commercial telegraph and
radio and did not reach Maj. Gen.
Walter G. Short, the Hawaiian COM
mander, until seven hours after the
first bombs fell.
Marshall Explains.
The Army Board report of last
August contended that no salts
factory explanation had been given
OF why the War Department mes
sage center did not use the Navy
or FBI radio or the telephone to
send the final warning to Gen.
Short. Gen. Marshall yesterday
gave his first detailed explanation
of why he did not use the telephone
on his desk to tell Gen. Short of
the critical situation which Wash
ington had learned through inter-
cepting the last japanese note to
Secretary Hull.
When Senator Ferguson, Repub-
hcan, of Michigan asked Gen. Mar
shall for an explanation, he replied:
For reasons of security the tele-
phone was ruled out. That may
have been an after-thought, or it
may have been discussed at the
time-I don't know"
Ferguson Recalls Statement.
Senator Ferguson reminded the
witness he had said, in preparing
the warnings to field commanders
then and 10 days earlier, he had
used precautions to avert any overt
act by Americans which might pro-
woke war with Japan.
How" demanded the Michigan
Senator, could the telephone have
been construed as an overt act?"
Gen. Marshall said the Japs
might have intercepted the call to
Hawaii, adding:
II think they would have grasped
at any straw to convince those in
this country who doubted our in
tegrity that we were at fault, not
they"
Asks for More Detail.
Senator Ferguson then asked the
general to 60 into more detail about
the security of the telephone.
"Mr. Roosevelt" said Gen. Mar
shall, had been in the habit of
talking frequently to Winston
Churchill over the telephone"
Gen. Marshall said the President
also talked to William c. Bullitt,
American Ambassador to France be-
fore the outbreak of war.
"We found" the general added,
that the Germans were intercept
ing some of these conversations to
Paris and London. had tests made
and found the transatlantic phone
talks could be tapped. I talked to
the President about it several times,
urging him to be more careful in
what he said"
Also Warned Churchill.
Gen. Marshall said he also talked
to Prime Minister Churchill, warn
Ing MIN OF Ine Danger.
Gen. Marshall admitted there was
a "scrambler" on the phone which
he could have used to call Gen.
Short In Hawaii. Asked to define
"scrambler," the wartime chief of
staff said: "It makes a conversation
sound like Chinese to any one who
intercepts 1t. But the person at the
other end can press a button and it
unscrambles automatically, coming
out In Ineligible English"
Gen. Marshall said it had been
his habit in the prewar period fire.
quently to use the phone to talk to
commanders in outposts like Pan
anna, but he found there were too
many indiscretions in such con-
versations and he stopped them.
Even a 'scrambler' phone can be
tapped, Gen. Marshall said, though
he did not go into detail.
you did not talk to Gen. Mac
Arthur in the Philippines the day