#3-120
Memorandum for the Under Secretary of State
March 5, 1942 [Washington, D.C.]
Secret
My dear Mr. Welles:
I received your note of March 3d, with the message addressed to the President by the Prime Minister of Australia regarding the matter of the diversion of Australian Imperial Forces to strengthen the garrison at Ceylon.1 At the moment I was in conference with Sir John Dill and handed it to him directly.
Sir John returned the papers to me last night with a copy of his message on the subject to the Prime Minister, which I quote:
"Personal for Prime Minister from Field Marshal Dill. President, who has been given copy of Mr. Curtin's telegram to you relating to two Australian Brigade Groups for Ceylon has asked me through Sumner Welles if I could obtain your reaction to it and any suggestions".2
In Sir John's note he includes a comment which presents a decided embarrassment to me. However, the issue is of such vast importance I feel I must be quite frank and I can only hope that you will not take offense, and particularly that there will be no feeling of resentment towards Sir John.
He referred to your statement that, "I have read this message to the President on the telephone", and was disturbed at the risk involved. The trouble is no telephone message, even on the scrambler, is secret, and the communication related to convoy movements as well as strategical dispositions.3
Every day or two I am furnished transcriptions of telephone conversations over the scrambler 'phone, and which of course are fully exposed to German or Japanese interception. Our intercepts are not confined to the United States but are picked up from overseas possessions as well.
On this very subject I had a long discussion with the President and the Prime Minister to dissuade them from the use of the trans-Atlantic scrambler 'phone. As a result we have installed in the White House a special coding and decoding machine for rapid communication between these two Chiefs. I am inclined to think that a similar set-up should be installed between the White House and Hyde Park.4 It is much slower than a telephone conversation but unless the meaning can be fully disguised, the latter is almost certain to be picked up by the enemy.
Faithfully yours,
Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.
Document Format: Typed memorandum.
1. The editors have not located Welles's note or a copy of Prime Minister John Curtin's message.
2. With the fall of Singapore on February 15, the Allies realized that a successful penetration of the Malay Barrier might expose India to invasion, and the capture of Ceylon could sever sea communications between the Middle East, India, and Australia. To reinforce Ceylon's garrison temporarily, Curtin offered Churchill two brigades of the Sixth Australian Division, then embarking at Suez for Australia. (S. Woodburn Kirby, The War Against Japan, volume 2, India's Most Dangerous Hour, a volume in the History of the Second World War [London: HMSO, 1958], pp. 105–6; Curtin's March 2 offer to Churchill is published in Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, a volume in Australia in the War of 1939–1945 [Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1957], p. 460.)
3. On the question of scrambler telephones, see Memorandum for General Eisenhower, February 5, 1942, Papers of George Catlett Marshall, #3-096 [3: 98].
4. This suggestion was never implemented.
Recommended Citation: ThePapers of George Catlett Marshall, ed.Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 3, “The Right Man for the Job,” December 7, 1941-May 31, 1943 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 123–124.