Joseph J. Rochefort is a name famous in intelligence circles but not as well—known to the general public as he should be.  Rochefort headed the cryptanalysis section of the Pacific Fleet — Station Hypo — in the early days of World War II.  At the beginning of the war, the Pacific Fleet was at a substantial disadvantage relative to the Japanese due to the Pearl Harbor attack and to the Japanese building program of the 1930's.  Admiral Nimitz, Commander—in—Chief in the Pacific, was confronted with the problem of how to allocate his limited resources to prevail over a superior opponent. Rochefort was able to pull off two historic intelligence coups.  Rochefort's team had cracked parts of the Japanese naval code — JN—25.  He got snippets of Japanese communications and augmented them with signals analysis and other intelligence.  Based on this, he was able to tell Nimitz that the Japanese planned an assault on Port...(Read Full Post)