Intelligence and World War II

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Barton Whaley's "Codeword Barbarossa" has long been considered the definitive study of Hitler's ability to hoodwink Stalin, the Soviet Union's intelligence service and other Allied intelligence networks. The author relates that Roberta Wohlstetter's "Pearl Harbor" conveys that, although rarely has a government been so well informed as to what to expect, this government had "expected wrong". The paper suggests that these books indicate that histories of intelligence or espionage are only tentative as new evidence or new capability in assessing primary sources emerge. The paper concludes that these volumes underscore that, during wartime, uncertainty freezes planning: Stalin responded to the possibility of a German invasion of the Soviet Union; whereas, Pearl Harbor generals waited, puzzled by information from Washington.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Operation Barbarossa
Pearl Harbor
Reflection
Conclusion - 'Surprise' and History

From the Paper:

"On June 21, 1991, a German soldier on the Russian border defected to the Soviet forces and stated that Germany was about to invade the Soviet Union. The warning arrived too late. The June 22 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union proceeded as one of history's worst instances of military surprise, the Soviet forces soon surrounded by the Germans as the Luftwaffe destroyed the Soviet air force, on the ground. At the end of World War II, Whaley had a fair amount of the forerunning intelligence story assessed, to which he added what was gained from various forms of evidence concerning European intelligence networks' activities ..."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barton Whaley. Codeword Barbarossa. (New York: Colonial Press, 1973).
• Roberta Wohlstetter. Pearl Harbour - Warning and Decision. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), p.vii.
• David E. Murphy. What Stalin Knew - the Enigma of Barbarossa. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005).
• H.W. Koch. "Operation Barbarossa - the Current State of the Debate." The Historical Journal. 31. (1988): 377-390.
• J.W. Davis. "Counterintelligence - Seeing through the Enemy's Eye." Army. 49. (1999): 8-9.

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