american artifacts, touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. history books else with america's best-known history writers, the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies about nations commanders in chief, lectures in history with top college professors delving into america's past, and our new series featuring government and educational films from the 1930's through 1970's. c-span3 watch us in hd, like this on facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> each week, "american artifacts" takes viewers into archives, museums, and historic sites around the country. next we visit the national cryptologic museum, located just north of washington d.c. on the campus of the national security agency, to learn about the making and breaking of secret codes, and their role in u.s. history. this second of a two-part

program includes a look at the breaking of japanese diplomatic and naval codes in world war ii. >> hello, i'm patrick weadon, the curator of the national cryptologic museum. when we use the word cryptology, we mean simply the making and breaking of codes. during my time as curator i've noticed a trend, and it's basically this. many people come into this museum and they don't know what cryptology is, they really have no clue. but they leave highly impressed and the reason is because during the time that they're here, they learn about some of the amazing stories about how throughout time individuals and organizations, nation states, have been able to get critical information from their adversaries and protect their own. and most importantly, they've realized what was at stake, and the role that cryptology played in helping those entities to be successful. the discipline is one that's been incredibly important, and we have any number of interesting artifacts on display in the museum that we're going to be able to look at today.

it really tells the story in interesting and illustrative ways. now we're going to move over to some interesting stories from the pacific theater. we're going to talk about what i believe to be one of the most important stories in the museum, and that is the breaking of japanese diplomatic codes. even before world war ii. now, in the early part of the 20th century, it was very clear that japan was modernizing, both her government and most importantly her military. policy makers in washington realized that japan could be a potential threat, and they began to think of ways that they could try to determine what the future intentions of the japanese government and military were going to be. in 1930, an organization called the signals intelligence service was created.

its very first director was william friedman. he starts with a staff of four individuals and by the end of world war ii there are 10,000 people working for the s.i.s., but in the beginning one of the most important missions they had was to try to help american policy makers and war fighters ascertain the future intentions of the japanese empire. they began a program in the early 1930's to break japanese diplomatic traffic. and the first system that they went after was called red. and what i'd like to do now is to point out to you a very rare and treasured artifact. this is an authentic japanese red machine. it was used during the 1930's to send and receive messages within the diplomatic corps. we believe this might be the last existing one -- we don't even think there's one in japan. the red code was broken by the signals intelligence service in 1935, due to the hard work of a team led by a man who would become a very famous and

accomplished cryptanalist, or cryptologist, frank rowlett. his team is able to design a cipher wheel that allows them to decipher red dispatches and then to automate it with the red analog. so from 1935 until 1938, they are reading japanese diplomatic exchanges, and it is extremely helpful in helping the leadership in washington to understand again what japan is going to do. but in 1938, the japanese do something that all modern nation states do, they changed and upgraded their system to a new system that the americans dubbed purple. now, purple was more challenging, more complex, more difficult, and one of the added challenges was that the americans had never laid eyes on a purple machine. so it was back to the drawing board, and the americans would be in the dark for about 14 months, desperately trying to

get back to where they were before. now, the way the red code was broken was, first there was a basic understanding of it, and we see that through the cipher wheel, then of course it was automated with an analog. well, they're going to do basically the same thing, although perhaps this is going to be a lot more difficult because of the fact that purple was a much tougher nut to crack. frank rowlett gives the job of building the purple analog to a gentleman by the name of leo rosen. rosen was an m.i.t.-educated engineer who also happened to be part of rotc, not unusual for that day and time. and he was eventually assigned to the signals intelligence service. now, you have to take into account the fact that again he's never seen a purple machine. but he's looking through an electrical supply catalog one evening, and he notices telephone switches, and he says

you know what, this device has the ability to multitask, and the only piece of technology i know that can do that is a telephone switch. so he builds the analog with a collection of wires, telephone switches, and a series of inputs. there's a keyboard that plugs into the various inputs. and in september of 1940, a little before pearl harbor, a year before pearl harbor, frank rowlett types in an encrypted japanese purple message. it runs through the analog, and it comes out decrypted. and now the americans are back in business. when purple is broken, it is a huge success. people like general marshall, the president himself, and others in washington are amazed that our nation has this capability, and in fact the reason that the decrypts of the purple code were called magic is because friedman considered the people who had done this magicians.

now, from the decrypts of the purple code, we learned two very important things. number one, the japanese are not negotiating in good faith, they are basicallying lying to us. number two and perhaps most importantly, they are planning to start military action. where, we don't know. even so, there is such a wonderment at the success of this that just about all of the cryptologic activity in washington was focused on the breaking of purple. so you can say that the breaking of purple was a huge accomplishment. but on the other hand, maybe not, because the purpose of cryptologic organizations is to give their nations forewarning of attacks. and of course we know on december 7, 1941, there was no warning. we were dealt a horrible blow at pearl harbor, one of the greatest defeats in the history of the united states. and so you could say that in many respects, purple failed us

at pearl harbor because it was not, the breaking of the code was not able to give us forewarning. now, i have to mention here that there are many people who come into this museum and they claim -- hopefully, or thankfully, this myth is slowly dying out, but they will claim that roosevelt knew about pearl harbor, and oftentimes to buttress their argument they will say that we broke japanese codes prior to pearl harbor and president roosevelt failed to share the information because he wanted us to be attacked so that we would be drawn into world war ii. what they forget is that we did indeed break japanese codes prior to the attack, but we broke japanese, again, diplomatic messages. and there was nothing in the diplomatic messages that would have given forewarning of the attack on pearl harbor or any other tactical operation. so again it was a huge success on one level, but on the other

hand it was a bit of a failure because it did not predict pearl harbor. oftentimes the museum staff will have these interesting debates, and god forbid this should ever happen, but if this building were ever on fire, we often say to ourselves, which one of the artifacts would you grab and run out of the building with? well, we almost all agree that the bombe probably is the most precious, but that's too heavy. but my answer always is i would grab the purple analog. and the reason is because this is a -- this device that you see here is a huge part of our nation's history. this is the actual device that decrypted the famous 14-part message that came from tokyo to the japanese embassy in washington on the evening of december 6 and the morning of december 7. because of the efficacy of this device, american code breakers had that message in their hands

long before the japanese code clerks at the agency. in fact, japanese code clerks at the agency were having trouble decrypting it, so much trouble, in fact, that they were not able to get it done until well after 1:00. and when the japanese diplomats finally reached the secretary of state's office to present it, it was way past 1:30 and the air raid on pearl harbor was well underway. for the rest of the war the japanese would be understandably accused of starting the war without a declaration. so again this is not just a part of our nation's cryptologic history, but of the history of world war ii in general. purple does indeed fail us at pearl harbor, but there is a silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud, because it does help us to win the war in many other ways. probably one of the most impressive is baron oshima. baron oshima had been sent to

germany as a military liaison officer in the 1930's and had been witness to hitler's rise to power. he was a huge proponent of adolf hitler, and an even bigger proponent of the concept of national socialism. so as he rose through the ranks, at some point he begged to be sent back to germany as the formal ambassador from japan. his wish was granted, and he was sent back to germany, where he quickly became familiar with adolph hitler, not only on an official level but really on a social level as well. and he became friends with hitler on a social basis, or not only with hitler but with all the other leaders of the third reich. he would often talk with them at great length about the future plans of germany, and most importantly, after these discussions he would go back to his office in the japanese embassy and send back long detailed reports about those discussions.

which meant that we had an unwitting spy right inside hitler's inner circle for the duration of the war. the dispatches from baron oshima are golden. just an example, a couple examples, one of the biggest concerns that the allies had was, they had put together this huge deception program to help, or to convince the germans that the invasion across the channel was going to come at calais and not where it actually occurred. they learned from oshima through several different messages that he was sending back to japan that the germans had bought into the deception, lock, stock and barrel. in addition, in january of 1944, president -- excuse me. general eisenhower still had a

general eisenhower still had a lot of questions about what hitler's atlantic wall consisted of. he needed to know about manpower, logistics, weapons, et cetera. and baron oshima went on a tour of installations early in the year. he sent back a long detailed report, and low and behold much of the information in that report helped to answer the questions that general eisenhower had been seeking to finally find a solution to. so the bottom line is, while purple fails us at pearl harbor, it does help us to win the war in many other ways. and the dispatches from oshima, like i mentioned, were gold in helping the allies to know that they were on the right track. finally, at the end of the conflict, and after germany had of course surrendered, a couple of intelligence officers were sent over to the japanese embassy in berlin to comb through the wreckage -- like many of the buildings in berlin, it had been bombed to smithereens -- to see if they

could fine anything worthwhile. and low and behold, they were able to recover a piece of a purple machine, and we have it on display in the museum today. and one of the interesting things about this piece of a purple device is, if you look at it carefully, you'll be able to know that leo rosen was a gifted engineer and someone who had achieved success in an interesting way because the japanese had indeed built it with telephone switches. so rosen had been able to design a device, sight unseen, that was strikingly similar to the original. we talked a little about the debacle at pearl harbor, but let's move from tragedy to triumph, and talk about perhaps one of the best illustrations of why cryptology is so critical to nation states. we're going to talk about the battle of midway, and really despite the fact that it happened way back in 1942, there's no better example of showing how cryptology applied correctly in time of war can be what the military refers to as a force multiplier, something that can help you even the odds when you were at a great disadvantage. our story starts in the spring of 1942, and let's just say that

the united states navy was not in a good position. we were down to about 50 ships, we had three aircraft carriers, about 47 other assorted craft. the japanese navy, on the other hand, at the time had over 200 ships and six to eight aircraft carriers that they could deploy. more importantly, the japanese navy after pearl harbor conquered over a seventh of the earth's surface in a few months' time. it was an amazing military operation, and we very much underestimated the japanese. now, admiral yamamoto, who was in charge of the naval effort, was moving at a rapid clip for a couple of reasons. first off, we didn't have the manpower and the resources out in the pacific quite yet to deal with the japanese operation. but the other reason he's moving quickly is, he wants to end the war in a short period of time. why? well, he figured correctly that

it would take about a year for american factories to convert from peacetime to wartime production. and once that 12-month limit had been reached, the factories would begin to churn out so many guns, and planes, and tanks that japan would eventually be overwhelmed. so he's seeking to end the war as quickly as he can. the american navy is like a boxer on the ropes. one more punch, and he'll be down for the count. he wants to throw that punch now rather than later. he left the home islands of japan in the spring of 1942 with the largest fleet in the history of naval warfare up to that point in time. he's going to attack an american held island, the 50 ships will come out to defend it. he will destroy them with his overwhelming numbers. and when they're gone, he is hoping and praying that franklin roosevelt will throw in the towel and sign a peace treaty with japan that will leave them in control of vast regions of the pacific. now, las vegas hadn't been created yet, it was a bus stop in the desert, but if there had been odds makers in vegas at the

time, they would have given all the advantages to the japanese. they were like a football team that was 16-0 and barely scored upon. but amazingly the japanese do not win the battle of midway and partially that's because we had great leadership ourselves. this is a photo of admiral chester nimitz, a man who was able to restore morale quickly not win the battle of midway and after pearl harbor, but nimitz is not only laboring under a handicap of a lack of resources and manpower, but he also has another challenge, and that is this. we have not yet broken japan's naval code. now, after pearl harbor, we got smart, we began to apply more manpower and resources to breaking the military codes, and there were any number of organizations that were devoted to doing just that.

station hypo out at pearl harbor, under the leadership of commander joseph roche for the united states navy, is working every day to break japanese naval systems. there's another organization in washington called op 20g that is doing the same thing. after a lot of very, very tough work in may of 1942, they achieve a breakthrough and they begin to read portions of japanese naval messages, to the point where they can pretty much ascertain what the japanese are going to do. when they look at the messages, they are able to see clearly that the next objective for japan is "a.f." the next question of course is, what does a.f. correspond to? rochefort came to the conclusion quickly, because he had been doing this type of analysis for quite a while, that a.f. was definitely midway island. he convinced nimitz that this was the case and nimitz informed the marines on midway to be ready for a massive japanese invasion. so far the plan seems to be going quite well. the problem was this. the superiors of these gentlemen in washington, admiral king and admiral redmond, were not quite

sure that they were on the right track. nimitz was never ordered to put this plan on the shelf, but they did question him and basically second guess him. not so much because they weren't confident in his leadership abilities, but because they were worried. you can understand why they were worried. we were down to 50 ships. if nimitz was wrong, that would mean that both hawaii and the west coast could be open to japanese invasion. the second guessing, though, really got under rochefort's skin, and he wanted to put an end to it, so he proposed a simple way to do that. he respectfully asked admiral nimitz to help him with a plan to prove that they were right. he respectfully requested nimitz to order the marines on midway to go to their radio center and send out what will be a false message. a message that will say that the water plant on the island that draws in seawater and turns it into fresh drinking water is broken and that there's no fresh drinking water on the island. that message is sent out,

despite the fact that it's demonstrably false. there's plenty of drinking water, but they want the japanese to think there's a problem. well, they prayed that the japanese would intercept it, guess what, they do. days later this there is a message sent from guam, it is intercepted by the americans, we can read those messages now. when we break the message, it is the minutes of an intelligence meeting that was held in tokyo a few days prior, and guess what one of the topics of conversation was. a.f. is short of water. now nimitz has proved his point and he can put his ships exactly where he wants them and ultimately he is able to stage a brilliant, brilliant nautical ambush. now, the early parts of this battle were a challenge, despite the fact we knew the direction the japanese were approaching from, the pacific ocean is a big place. we had lots of different elements trying to locate the

japanese fleet. we had a little trouble doing it and and we lost a lot of very brave pilots in the beginnings of this battle. however, when you know what your adversary is going to do, when you have their battle plan and they can only guess what you're doing, sooner or later if you keep pressing you will gain an advantage. and at quarter after 10:00 on june 4, a collection of dive bombers from the enterprise and yorktown found three of japan's top-of-the-line carriers in close proximity. they attacked and in 25 minutes this was the result. now, american naval forces were able to destroy a fourth carrier later that afternoon. it is worth noting that all four of those carriers had been part of the raid on pearl harbor and they were now gone forever. most importantly, it will now be the united states on the attack, on the offense, and after several more years of bloody fighting japan will surrender in the fall of 1945. midway was definitely the turning point. now, please don't go back to the wonderful organization you work for, c-span, and tell everybody that we won the battle of midway because of cryptology.

cryptologists don't win battles. if they did, poland would have won world war ii in the first week. cryptologists help, but you've got to have soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are willing to stand in harm's way and carry the fight to the enemy. you also have to have guns, and planes, and tanks, and implements of war. but even with all that cryptology with be a huge help because it can help to you know what the enemy is going to do before they do it. now, if you know that, the odds of victory are going to go up, something else will happen as well. we lost around 300 people at the battle of midway. and that's a tragedy. but the japanese lost over 2500 people. so cryptology done right not only helps you to win, but it also helps to you save lives. and if you ever have to describe to somebody what this game is all about, why it's important to break the codes of the enemy and protect your own, this still, despite the fact that it happened in 1942, is one of the very best examples you could use.

one of the challenges we face here at the old national cryptologic museum is this. there are a lot of people who walk into the museum and they're all excited about code breaking. i've often had people come through the door and say, show me the wonderful exhibit that helps me to understand how we broke japanese codes. show me the exhibit that shows us how we broke the german enigma system. there's an old sports adage that offense puts people in the seats and defense wins championships. it's true in cryptology as well. a lot of the exhibits in this facility are not focused just on code breaking, but on protecting information, on code making. and one of the most impressive is the use of native american dialects to protect u.s. military communication. this story starts in world war i. american troops on the battlefield find out quickly that the germans are able to intercept their radio communications. almost immediately, they come up with countermeasures, one of the most effective is to use native

american dialects, choctaw, comanche, sioux. they bet that the germans would not have a clue. they were exactly right. in some of the more important battles in world war i, the use of native american code talkers proved to be extremely helpful. now, when the armistice is signed, the thought was, well, we, maybe we should keep this around, but the consensus was no, sooner or later nations like japan and germany will learn these dialects, so it's not a good idea to use it for the future. what that means is, when pearl harbor is attacked, there's hardly anybody who is in favor of resurrecting code talking. but a gentleman by the name of philip johnston was still enamored of the idea, and the reason was because he believed that the navajo language, which was what he was familiar with, would be an excellent way to protect the united states marines' communications as they moved across the pacific.

johnston was born on a navajo reservation. his parents were missionaries. at the age of five, he could speak fluent navajo, and by the age of 10 he was taken by the tribal elders to washington to help them negotiate their treaties. at the age of 18, he left the reservation, became a marine, fought in world war i, came back, got his degree at the university of southern california, and at the time of pearl harbor he's 52 years old. he is not going to be fighting in the war. but he went to the marines and said, look, i have an amazing idea. we need to bring navajos into the corps. train them how to be marines first of course, but then we're going to use their language to protect our communication. he was originally told, look, we don't do that kind of thing any more, but he begged to have a demonstration. the demonstration was -- permission was granted for the demonstration. it proved to be extremely impressive, and initially 20 navajos are trained. they are sent out to the fleet to see what the reaction will be. it was very positive. by the end of the war, over 400

navajos are trained to code talk. this plays a critical role, in places like iwo jima, where there are 20,000 japanese troops on the island when the battle begins. when the battle is done, less than 500. what that means is the marines are going to have to fight in very difficult conditions. particularly in places like iwo jima, where the japanese are not on the open battlefield, but down under the ground in caves and concealed places. in that type of environment, when you have to be in combat, if you can send messages quickly, and you can send them securely, it proves to be a huge benefit. and there are many prominent marine commanders on record as noting that without the help of the navajos they could have never done what they did. now, navajo is a language that springs from the american southwest, so you will not see words for b-17 bombers or cruisers or air carriers in the navajo lexicon. so if you could understand the navajo, you would hear them using replacements that fit into their language.

for instance, you would hear them say, the pregnant buzzard will be over the turtles at 1400. meaning the fighter plane with the bombs will be over the tanks at 2:00 in the afternoon. navajo is a language that really does sit on its own. it's not like spanish and italian. there aren't other languages that are close to it. one of the nuances, the verb you use changes depending on the object that's being acted upon. so if i pick up a tea kettle, i'm going to use a different verb than when i pick up a basketball. when you grow up with that type of language, you know it. it becomes part of who you are. if you have to try to teach it to somebody, it's going to be a very, very difficult task. so it's an amazing story, not just world war ii, but world war i. and the fact is that native american tribes through their dialects have been involved in some critical operations that helped to secure the communications of our armed forces when they were in harm's way. this is my friend here, who is going to help us understand what

it sounded like. the first part of course is the navajo, the second part is the translation. navajo]king request support. request artillery support. [speaking navajo] >> so with all due respect to the navajos and their rich culture, that does indeed sound like jibberrish and that's what helped them send and receive messages without the japanese ever being able to decrypt it. there is a tendency, understandably so, to think of this as a museum that celebrates the past. and the incredible things that cryptology has done throughout history. and that indeed is a vital part of the museum. but it's also important to note that we use the museum and we hope that the museum can inspire people to develop an interest in the art and science of

cryptology and to perhaps maybe even one day pursue a career here at the national security agency. because the agency needs bright, young people in order to perform its mission. so, the national cryptologic museum certainly is about the past, but it is also about inspiring people for the future. >> this was the second of a two-part program from our visit to the national cryptologic museum. you can watch this and other "american artifacts" programs any time, by visiting our website, c-span.org/history. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> 200 years ago, but his troops routed american soldiers at the battle of latent spark just outside washington, d.c. british forces marched into the city and burn down the white house and the u.s. capitol. just ahead today, learn more

about the battle, the burning of washington, as we take you to bladensburg waterford cap -- park for a panel discussion among 1812 war ii -- authors and historians. officially began on july 20 8, 1914, when austria-hungary declared war on serbia. less than a month later, most of europe joined the war. as the world marks the centennial, the national world war i museum in kansas city hosted a panel of historians and authors, who talked about the causes and effect of the conflict once known as "the war to end all wars." -- less aboutooks an hour and 10 minutes. >> we look back a century to the start of the first world war. it seems the world is still at war. we have seen a passenger plane shot down, leaving hundreds dead in a clash between the u.n.