, 

!; 

f?~~A63403 

SECOND PERIOD 

_ COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY 

Gentlemen, this period will be devoted to_the subject of communications 

security, how it can be established and maintained. 

Three or four years ago I gave a talk before the student officers of 

another Service School on this subject. About that time there was being 

hammered into our ears over the radio in Washington a slogan concerned with 

automobile traffic safety rules. The slogan was: "Don't learn your traffic 

laws by accident." I thought the slogan useful as a title for my talk but I 

modified it a little-- Don't learn your COMSEC laws by accident. I began 

my talk on that occasion, as on this one, by reading the Webster Dictionary 

definition of the word "accident". I know, of course, that this group here 

today is not directly concerned with COMSEC duties but as potential future 

cQJD!D8nders of' fighting units the definition of the word "accident 11 should be 

of interest in connection with what will be said in a moment or two, so I will 

read Webster's definition if you will bear with me. 

"Accident: Literally a befalling,; an event which takes place without 

one's foresight or 7x~ctation,; an undesigned, sudden and unexpected 

' 

event, hence, often an undesigned or unforeseen occurrence of an 

" 

afflictive or unfortunate character,; a mishap resulting in injury to a 

person or damage to a thing; a casualty, as to die by accident." 

. . Having defined ' the word, I wil~ pot proceed to make the definition 

.. .. ; 

relevant to this talk by reminding- you of' a minor but nevertheless quite 

Declassified and approved for release by NSA on 03-24-2014 pursuantto E .0. 1352B 

-39-

~ECREl] 
REF· ID: A634_03 

would leave Buka :f'or Balalle. They also knew what his air escort would be, 

and so on. You can see, therei'ore, that it was relatively easy to bring 

t. • : .I ... 

about the "accident" Yamamoto was to sufi'er. Our top ·comme.nder-in-Chief 

and his party, on the other hand, journeyed with sa.f'ety because the communica-

.. . tions connected with his various trips were secure. The Japanese Commanderin-Chief journeyed in peril because his communications were insecure. His 

death was no accident in the dictionary sense of that word--it was brought 

about. The Yamamoto incident later gave rise to a somewhat amusing exchange 

of' TOP SECRJ!re telegrams between Tokyo and Washington. After the war was all 

over certain telegrams turned up in the Forrestal Diaries, from.which I will 

now read (Page 86): 

The formal surrender took place on the deck of the u.s.s. Missouri 

off' Tokyo Bay on September 2nd. The mood of sudden relief from long and 

breaking tension is exemplified by an amusing exchange a few days later 

of' urgent TOP SECREI' telegrams which Forrestal put into his diary. In 

the enthusiasm of' victory someone let out the story of how in 1943 

Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese Naval Commander-in-Chief and architect 

to the Pearl Harbor attack had been intercepted and shot down in flames 

as a result of' the American ability to read the Japanese codes. It was 

the first public revelation of the work of' the crypta.naJ.ytic division 

ahd'it brought an anguished cable from the intelligence unit already 

engaged at Yokohama. in the interrogation of Japanese NavaJ. officers. 

- -41-

' 
REF ID:A63403 

a.mazing achievements of American intelligence, the enemy bad succeeded 

in breaking the principal code then in use by the Japanese Navy. In this 

way the eneJDiY was able to learn of our intentions almost as quickly as 

we had determined them oursel.ves. 11 

And then in the last chapter, entitled "Anal.ysis of the Defeat", Captain 

Fuchida says: 

"The distinguished American Naval historian, Professor Samuel E. 

Morison, characterizes the victory of the United States forces at Midway 

as 'a victory of intelligence'. In this judgment, this author full.y 

concurs for it is beyond the sligh~est possibility of doubt that the 

advance disc~very of the Japanese plan to attack was the foremost single 

. and immediate cause of Japanese defeat. Viewed from the Japanese side, 

• 

this success of the enemy's intelligence translates itself into a failure 

on our part--a failure to take adequate precautions regarding the secrecy 

of our plan. Had the secret of our intent 'to invade Midway been concealed 

:t 

"• with the same thoroughness as the plan to attack Pearl Harbor, the outcome 

of this battle might well have been different." 

Lest you infer that our side didn't meet with any COMSEC accidents, let me 

say that we bad plenty of them. These were not attributable, however, to 

serious weaknesses in our COMSEC devices, ma.chines and procedures, but 

principally to human failure to follow the rules implicitly or to weaknesses in 

the COMSEC devices, machines and procedures of some of our Allies. Take for 

instance the heavy losses that the United States Army Air Corps sustained in 

-44-
REF ID:A63403 

their air strikes on the_ Ploesti oil fields in aoutheastern Europe. We lost 

several hundred big bombers within a relatively short time because of weaknesses 

in Russian communications, weaknesses we didn't suspect. Those big raids constituted field days for the German fighter commands, because merely by traffic 

\ 

analysis, and simple traffic analysis at that, they knew exactly when and where 

our bombers were headed. We found what the trouble was, but sad to say, it was 

t 

too late. This incident leads me to say that the COMSEC weaknesses of Allies 

even today lead to a rather serious illness which afflicts our high level 

authorities from time to time. I've given the disease a na.me--cryptol.ogic 

schizophrenia. It develops when one is torn between an overwhelming desire to 

continue to read friendly traffic by cryptanal.ytic operations and the al.most 

certain knowledge that the same traffic is also being read by others and should 

be made secure against the common enemy. What to do'l Thus far, no real 

psychiatric or psychoanalytic cure has been found for the illness. The powers 

that be have decreed that the illness will be avoided by the very simple ruling 

that COMSEC interests will. al.ways over-ride COMINT wishes. 

It is hardly necessary to tell you that with the advances made in the 

invention and development of all the many instrumentalities of warfare, including 

communication systems, the so-called "pencil-and-paper ciphers", the bandoperated small cipher devices, the codes and code systems of former days, even 

during and throughout the_ period of World War I, appeared to be and were indeed 

completely inadequate. Military, naval., air, and diploma.tic cryptographic 

-45-
REF ID:A63403 

communications had to be speeded up,; a.nd obviousl.y the road al.ong which cryptoengineering a.nd development bad to travel was that which by mechanical or 

electro-mechanical apparatus for crypto-communications would at least begin to 

approach the ever-increasing speed of electrical communications in general, 

including both wire and radio systems. The need to invent, develop and field 

test practical. crypto-appa.ratus became obvious even before World War I had 

ended. It is a truism that as mechanization and automation progresses in our 

civilization, parallel progress ha.s to follow in communications systems and 

instrumentalities. And let me remind you that the impetus for devising and 

developing faster means for crypto-communication came not only from the need 

for speedier crypto-apparatua to match the ever-increasing speed of electrical 

communications, but al.so--a.nd perhaps more importa.ntly--f'rom the need for much 

greater security in those communications, which were now J.argely by radio a.nd 

therefore susceptible of interception and study by the enemy. 

A brief history of the invention and development of crypto-devices, 

crypto-machinery, a.nd crypto-a.pparatus will therefore be of some interest. We 

will proceed now with the slides. 

First, I show you the earliest cipher device known to history. This slide 

is a picture of the cipher disk ta.ken from Alberti, who wrote a treatise on 

ciphers in Rome about l47f/J. It is the oldest tract on cryptography that the 

world possesses. 

The next slide shows a similar sort of wheel. which appeared many years 

later in Porta's book, which I showed you after the first period, recommends the 

use of a similar device, if you call it a device. 

-46-
REF ID:A63403 

The Myer disk is next, pa.tented in November 1865 by the first Chief Signal 

Officer of the United States Army, and the next slide pictures the U.S. Army 

Cipher Disk, (1914-18), used in the period of Worl.d War I. It foll.owe exactly 

the same principl.e that AJ.berti used. It seems to have taken a long time, 

doesn't it, for the Signal. Corps to get caught up with.Al.berti? 

Now I know it ta.Ke~ a 1.ong time to ··nurse a patent through the United States 

Fa.tent Office, but AJ.berti 1 s device was f'inal.ly pa.tented in 1924. Here the 

device pa.tented. 

Next is a picture of' the Wheatstone Cryptograph, the first real improvement on AJ.berti 1 s device. I bave the only copy in the United States, maybe 

in the world and I've brought it with me. Wheatstone interested himself in 

cryptography and he invented his device in the latter part of the decade 187~· 

It is not just a simple cipher disk. Of course, as you see,it consists of the 

ordinary alphabet on the outside and an alphabet on the inside a.nd the latter 

is a mixed sequence; but there is one additional important f'eature--the 

alphabet on the outside contains 27 places, the one on the inside, 26. There 

is a differential gear in the device so that as you encipher a message and 

turn the big or "minute" hand to the letters to the plain text, the small or 

"hour" band advances one step for each complete revolution of the "minute" 

hand, Just as in a clock. At the close of this period those of you who woul.d 

like to examine the device may do so. 

Now in 1917, in casting about for a field cipher device for use on the 

Western front, our British allies· resuscitated Charles Wheatstone's principle, 

~ -47-
REF ID:A63403 

embodied it in a little different mechanical form, and made thousands of' them. 

Here is one of' them and here is an American copy of' the British model. It 

bas a 27-unit alphabet on the outside and a 26-unit one on the inside; but 

there is now one additional. and very important feature. You will notice that 

both alphabets are now disarranged for mixed sequences, whereas before, in 

the original Wheatstone, only the inner alphabet was mixed. Now I suppose you 

would be interested in a story about this thing. It was decided to adopt the 

device for use on the Western front after it was approved by the cryptologic 

authorities at the GHQ's of each if the principal. allies, British, French and 

American. A copy of' the device was then sent to Washington and the head of 

the American cryptologic agency in Washington approved it. At that time I was 

teaching school--remember that photograph I showed you of the school for 

instruction in cryptography and cryptanalysis? Somebody said why not send it 

out to Riverbank. and see what they have to say. So they sent out a set of test 

messages and one day Colonel. Fabyan came walking into my office, handed me a 

piece of paper, and said: "These are in Wheatstone, I think. Solve them". 

I took one look and saw there were five messages, just five, and they were all 

. ~ _, 

very short--each had about 35 letters. I said, "Oh! It's silly to try this • .. 

., 

I have other fish to fry. 11 The Colonel said, looking hard at me, "Young man, 

on the last day o~_each month, you get a littl.e green piece of paper with my 

name in the lower right-hand corner of it. If' you woul.d like to continue 

receiving those bits of paper, you'll start working on these messages right 

away." I said: "Yes, Sir!" Well, I started :d.n 8.lld by means too involved at 

-48-
REF ID:A63403 

the moment to tell you, I f'elt that the outer alphabet, in this case the 

mixed sequence, had been derived from a rectangle based on a keyword,, and it 

appeared to me, from the distribution of the sequence of about half-dozen letters 

I'd reconstructed, that the keyword f'or mixing the sequence might have been the 

word "cipher". At that time I'd not discovered what later turned out to be 

an important new principle in cryptanal.ysis whereby having the one alphabetic 

sequence the other could readily be found by a process o'f: conversion. So not 

having this principle I was at a loss as to what to do, except try to guess 

what the other alphabetic sequence might have been based upon. I sat back 

and thought: Now, i'f: a chap is simple-minded enough to use as a keyword a 

word connected with the subject '£or mixing up the letters in the one alphabet,, 

he would probably use a word associated in his mind with that word as the 

key for disarranging the inner alphabet. So I tried every word that was 

associated in !l mind witli the word "cipher" "cipher alphabet", "cipher 

i 

device", "cipher polya.lphabet", and so on, one after the other. This took a 

l.ittle time, because with each guess I had to derive the mixed sequence and 

try it out on the messages. Finally, I came to the end of' my rope and said 

~ . . -

to the then new Mrs. Friedman: "Elizebeth, I want you to stop what you are I 

doing and do something f'or me. Now make yourself' comfortable," --whereupon 

she took out her lipstick and made a f'ew passes with it. I said: "Now I'm 

going to say a word to you and I want you to come back with the very first 

word that comes to yolll' mind. Are you ready'l" She said: "Yes". I said: 

-49_ 
REF ID:A63403 

"Cipher", she said: "Machine". Machine was the word. You see my male mind 

didn't regard this thing as a machine at al.1; but the female mind is, as you 

know, a thing apart. Well, the messages were deciphered in a hurry by me. 

The first message, by the way, read: "This cipher is abso1uteJ.y indecipherable." We sent the solution to Washington, where on arrival. there was a to-do; 

there was also a to-do in Europe. I wrote up the solution and Colonel Fabyan 

sent it to Washington so that when I got to GHQ, three or four months later, 

I wasn't very popular with our British friends, because a mere amateur had 

found something their experts had over1ooked. Moreover, what was worse, they 

had to withdraw the device from users, and thousands of' them had been issued. 

Now I show you a poor picture of a very similar device, bearing on its 

face the engraved date 1817. It was invented by a Decius Wadsworth, at that 

time the Chief' Ordnance Officer of the United States Army. The device itse1f' 

is still in operative condition and i~ housed in the museum of' a little hamlet 

in Connecticut. I borrowed it for a short time 'froni the curator and unf'ortunate1y .. , •. 

- i .. 

didn't have a good picture ma.de. Decius Wadsworth an~icipated Sir Charles ::- - - - - -~ 

Wheatstone's invention by a good many years • 

.Next comes the cipher cylinder. A French Army reserve off'icer, Commandant 

Bazeries tried to interest the French Army in a device which he called the 

"Cryptographe Cylindrique", or cylindrical cipher. His device consisted of 

a series of' disks with a central hole so that they can be mounted upon the 

sbaf't; each disk bears an alphabet (of 25 letters in this case) in disarranged 

-50-
REF ID:A63403 

device; here is the second page. YC?U see his caJ.cul.ations, giving you at the ,. 

bottom the number of permutations that bis particular device affords--a whale 

.. . of a 1a.rge number because Jefferson proposed a set of 36 disks. 

r 

. In studying the degree of security provided by the M-94 I soon came to 

the conclusion that security would be much increased by the use of variable or 

changeable alphabets so I bad a gadget built on which we could mount slips of 

paper and fasten them and then cba.nge the alphabet as often as was felt 

necessary. That was the beginning of our variant forms of the strip cipher 

devices used by the Armed Forces, and later by the State Department and the 

Treasury Department. Here's the original version of the strip cipher device 

that used changeable aJ.phabets. Both the Army and the Navy cryptographic 

divisions proceeded to improve on the system, both as to the form of the 

device itself as well as the ways of ma.king the strips in quantity. Here is 

a picture of the final Army type of strip cipher device. You see the channels 

in which the alphabet strips were inserted according to the daily key, and 

according to the particular cry;pto-net to which your command belonged. I mean 

by this that not all the traffic would be in the same set-up of strips or even 

used the same strips. The idea was to cut down the amount of interceptible 

traffic in the same key. 

Next we come to a machine called the Kryha, invented by a German, in about 

the year 1925 • The Kryha was the last word in the way of mechanical cryptographs at the time, and Mr. Kryha tried to interest various governments in 

hie machine. I t~ink I ~hould explain it for those who have never seen it. 

-53-
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for it. When there are several messages in depth the solution becomes even 

easier. And the bad part about this from the standpoint of COMSEC is that with 

a solution by depth the recovery of the key--the whole setting of the machine--

is not at all difficul.t. Then, of course, the solution of all other messages 

enciphered by the same arrangement of keying elements is an easy matter. 

The er machine now used by the Marine Corps is a double M-2~9 machine 

and it is , but I'm sorry 

to say th t it t f an easy solution w ~wo or more 

messages are in depth. 

... • "'° I 
.... -

REF ID:A63403 

was being built until the final model was completed and ready to be delivered 

to us. After a quick look I asked the Chief' of the Division to put up some 

messages for us himself, so that there would be no question as to whether I or 

some of my assistants had gotten any illegitimate help. Well, he enciphered a 

few messages and I brought him back the answer to the first one in 2~ minutes, 

and the answer to the rest of them in 35 minutes • The whole development 

represented a loss of time and energy and moreover, it wasted what little money 

we had for such business. I almost forgot to tell you. This was very amusing. 

When we finally went to pick up the machine, I talked to Colonel So and So, who 

told me with some pride that his machine was all mechanical. and that there was 

nothing in the way of an electrical machine or operation that you couldn't do 

mechanically. I asked: 11Colone1, can you light a room mechanically?" To which 

he replied: "You've said enough--get out.~ That's the machine, take it with 

r • ... 

you." The power source, which in the model Wa.s laughable, he planned to 

! 

motorize. But I do not regret to say that the crypto-principle was very .. . 

faulty--it didn't take very much time as I indicated to read the messages--and 

the laboratories development came to an ignominious end. But I •m glad to say 

that was an unusual. Colonel; those who came later were much more inclined to 

take advice from persons experienced in the field of cryptology. 

Now we come to a development which is of' deep interest to us. Here's a 

picture of a gentleman named Boris C. W. Hagelin, a Swedish engineer, who was 

responsible for the invention and development of one of the machines that we used 

-56-
REF ID:A63403 

in World War II in great quantities. Mr. Hagelin and I became very good 

' friends after the war. I was opposed to taking on Hagelin's device in 194S-41 

for reasons that will presently become clear. It wasn't a case of NIH--"not 

invented here"; but the deci~ion to have them made f'or and used by the United 

• 

.. 

.. States Army was a decision on a leve;L higher than my own, and I simply accepted 

it. It turned out, I think, that my superiors were right, f'or we at least had 

something, whereas if they'd listened to me we wouldn't have. 

Now just a bit about Mr. Hagelin. He did what I best describe as a 

hysteron-proteron. That's a four-bit word, not four bit in the sense that 

you use it for digital computers but in the everyday sense; it's a four-bit 

word from the Greek meaning to do a thing "ass-backwards". I mean that usually 

you go into cryptographic work and then you have a nervous breakdown. He did 

it the other way. He had a nervous breakdown and while he was recovering he 

invented this ma.chine--and he made several million U.S. dollars. That's why I 

say he did a hysteron-proteron. 

Here's a picture of' Hagelin's very first ma.chine and I've brought his very 

first mod.el, in fact, number one, a present from Mr. Hagelin to me for_ my 

museum and, when I've passed on, for the museum of the United States on 

Constitution Avenue in Washington. It's a very interesting device. From 

that prototype we built in America for World War II this six-wheel Hagelin 

ma.chine with American inch-specifications and with American tools rather than 

European millimeter specifications and tools, the astonishing number of over 

one hundred and ten thousand of these ma.chines. They were manufactured by the 

-57-
~~~RE~F ID:A63403 

~ECRElj 

Smith-Corona Typewriter Company, in Groton, New York, and are undoubtedl.y known 

to many of you as Converter M-21iJ9. But the M-21iJ9 had a serious, a very serious 

weakness, you know; among other things it had no printing mechanism; but I'm 

not really concerned with that. I'm concerned with its cryptographic 

deficiences, about which I'll tell you presently. This is a picture of one 

of the Hagel.in machines as modified by some of our GI' s in Italy. You know 

how resourceful. GI 1 s can be; they scrounged parts here and there and they 

improved their machine to make it a ~rinting model. See, here is the 

keyboard, and here's the printing mechanism. Inside the cover is a cartoon 

of a couple of GI's getting ready to test a home-ma.de still for the production 

of you-know-what. The caption at the bottom of the cartoon says: 11Yes, but 

will the God damned thing work?" 

Now, Mr. Hagel.in proceeded to imp~ove his ma.chine and this is a side view 

of one of his la.test models--the CX-52 •. It prints not onl.y the pl.ain text but 

also the cipher te~t. It has a ciphering mechanism that represents a very great ~ 

advance. Now the ~heels, instead of being permanently fixed upon the shaft, 

E:IU[KmlXJl:IUl:J.OalJIJlcej::xXJllJd~Xli;t1j~JDl:i.xJIJtlll:XX:KSJ1ih:&XJ11XlibUl1JDJl:Zlgj31 

are demountable and can be rearranged in 721iJ different ways. The stepping 

motion for these wheels is complicated and as of this moment we do not know 

of all, I will show youj1ow a. message which has been enciphered by an intelligible 

SECRE] EO 3.3 ( h) ( 2) 

PL 86-36/50 USC 3605 -58-
~ rf9.lia® 4 o 3 

c:: ..... ......-. -,.,..._ ., 

:-59-

f$ECREl] 

3. 3 !hi I 2 I 

86-36/50 USC 3605 
~R-gqA63403 

It will. take about a dozen or more messages 

in this case, and it won't be a particularly easy job at that. EO 3.3(h)(2) 

PL 86-36/50 USC 3605 

We are going to proceed with a quick review of the development of what we 

call electrical. rotor ma.chines. The first one I show--a product of' the company 

which was headed by Mr. Hagel.in when his father bought out a Swedish cryptograph 

company in Stockhol.m--was not a real. rotor device of' the type we know today but 

I don 1t want to go into details. I merely want to show the device. The device 

is now connected with an electric typewriter, so that instead of' writing down 

letters one by one you can make with speed a printed record. Up to that time 

devices of' this sort were only of' the indicator-type of' ma.chine. You press a 

key and the light would light, you would have to write down the letter flashed 

on the light bank and wheels would step. 

The next slide shows a better picture of this machine controlling a . . . 

Remington electric typewriter. The next step, of course, was made by Mr. Hagel.in 

'· 

when he made the printing mechanism'.~ integrai part ·of the ma.chine itself. Here 

is the keyboard, the printing mechanism, in here, and now the whole assembly is 

very much smaller and more compact. 

Now I show a German machine known as the Engima, a commercial model, invented 

and put on the market in about 1923-24. It comprised a keyboard, a light bank, 

-60-

~ECREl] 
REF ID:A63403 

a set of electric wheels called rotors. In this case the enciphering-deciphering 

circuitry is more complicated; it goes from a key of the keyboard, and through 

these rotors and back through them, to a bank of lights whereon it lights a 

lamp. This reversing wheel is a very important feature of this machine. Now 

everytime you press a key, one of these rotors steps forward and the stepping 

of the rotors is such that the machine had a very short cycle as such things 

go, about 263; it was a little less than that on account of certain factors 

into which it isn't necessary to go. Now, I'm not going to take the various 

developments of that machine through World War II. At the moment, I want to 

go directly to the American developments in these rotor machines. For this 

purpose I show a picture of a man named Edward H. Hebern, a Californian, who 

independently, I think, thought of rotor ma.chines. I asked Mr. Hebern one day 

how he happened to get started on such work and he said, "well, you see I was 

. in jail"; I said: "In jail, what f'9r?" He sa~d, "Horse thievery • 11 I asked 

him: "Were you guilty?", whereupon he said: "The jury thought so. 11 It was 

while he was in jail, then~ that Mr. Hebern conceived the idea of a cipher 

machine. Here is his very first model, built presumably after he got out of 

jail. It has a keyboard, a left-hand stator, that is, a ring of' 26 stationery 

26 contacts, arranged in a circular fashion; a rotor of 26-points, and an exit 

stator of 26 contacts on this side. You press a key and a lamp lights. Just 

one rotor was in his first model, which he built in 1922 or 1923 for the Klu 

Klux Klan. Here is the first printing model made by Mr. Hebern--still a one-wheel 

or one-rotor ma.chine--with a keyboard and now an electric typewriter connected 

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thereto. I have among my treasures in my library a brochure which went with 

this thing and it 1 s a very curious document. Now, one interesting thing about 

Mr. Hebern•s rotors is worth noting. H~- didn't have absolutely fixed wiring--

these are detachable wires, and this next slide shows 13 leads on one side and 

. ... .. 13 on the other, shewing that he conceived at an early.date the idea of variable 

connections for rotors. This is an extremely important feature of any kind of 

a rotor machine. This shows his next step. Now we liave three rotors in cascade. 

This, too, was a very important step--the cascading effect was a great advance 

in connection with rotors. Here I show his next development--a 5-rotor machi.D.e. 

Here are the rotors removed from the machine to show you what they look like. 

They were still variable--you could take wires and rearrange them; there was a 

keyboard and still a light bank. There is an interesting story connected with 

that model. The Navy Department was very much interested in cipher machines 

for these were things they absolutely had to have for speedier communications 

from Washington to the Fleet Commanders and, of course, for intra-fleet 

communications. The Navy was very anxious to have a suitable ma.chine and the 

Bebern ma.chine seemed like a good bet. This was the machine they thought they 

would like to buy. They got an appropriation for the purpose, a large sum of 

money for those days, $75,~~~, and they proceeded then to negotiate with Mr. 

Hebern. At that time, in the code and cipher section, there was a cryptanalyst 

of parts, who happened to be a lady, and she was quite able. She was the one 

who got Mr. Hebern ready to move from a three-wheel to a five-wheel machine; 

and when he finished the develo;pment of tb~ latter and be seemed to be on the 

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point of getting a good-sized order from the Navy Department, he offered and 

she accepted an attractive offer to come and join the Rebern firm in California. 

I apologize for introducing the first person singular so much, but the fact is 

that I became interested in this machine as a result of a personal inquiry from 

the President of the Naval Board that had been assigned to study the machine 

and I persuaded the War Department to purchase one of them from Mr. Hebern. 

I sat and studied it for some weeks--three or four weeks. The whole of my 

outfit consisted of myself and a World.War I veteran, an ex-prize fighter, with 

crossed-eyes and cauliflower ea.rs; the only thing he could do was to type, and 

I may say that he cot.ild copy from draft letters or cipher text with absolute 

accuracy, but that's all he could do. The rest of' it was up to me. As I say, 

6 

I studied the Bebern machine until an idea for a solution came to me, whereupon 

I went over to the Navy Section, which was then in charge of a Lt. Struble, who 

now is Vice Admiral Struble, Retired, with an enviable service record. I said 

to Struble, "Lieutenant, I don't think that machine is quite as safe as you think 

it is • 11 He said: "Oh, you' re crazy! 11 I said: "Does this mean that you 

challenge me?" whereupon he said, "Yes." So I said: "I accept." He asked: 

''Well, what do you want in the way of messages'?" And I said: "How about ten 

messages put up on your ma.chine'/" He gave me the ten messages and with some 

typing help from that ex-prize fighter I worked on them until I got to a place 

one day, at the close of business, when I had reduced the text of one of the 

messages to monoalphabetic terms. By this I mean that I'd reduced it to its 

simplest terms: I knew that in the first line of the text of' that message the 

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had the text of the first message which I was able to solve in that thing. And 

by the way, you will. forgive me if I say, the methods that were devised at that 

time for the solution of rotor machines and rotors in cascade are practically 

the same today as they were over twenty-five years ago. The Navy decided that 

the Hebern principle was still. a good one and went ahead with Mr. Hebern after 

he got out of prison, and Hebern built some more machines for them. Here's a 

picture of the last ma.chine built for them. 

Wlfir*Q 

As regards the purely mechanical. factors the Navy wasn't satisfied with the 

power drive and the band drive; but the crypto-principl.es seemed satisfactory, 

but the cautious Navy asked the Army's help in evaluating the security afforded 

by the ma.chine. It had a different kind of stepping motion in which the Navy had 

put a great deal of faith. It was a good motion but nevertheless it had 

weaknesses that we found we could exploit, and we solved challenge messages 

put up by the Navy. Here's a 'Picture of the last ma.chine that Hebern built 

for the Navy. He wanted to get paid for it but there was a hitch. When it 

was pointed out to him that the machine didn't work, he said: "Show me where 

it says in the contract it has to work", and when they couldn't he was paid off. 

The Navy then decided that they had had enough of Hebern and went into research 

and development themselves. They had a laboratory established in the Navy Yard, 

with a very able young man named Seiler, now a Captain in the Navy, who did some 

excellent developmental work. Years later the Hebern heirs brought suit in the 

., United States Court of Claims against the United States for $50,S~S,SSS, believe 

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dif'f'icult f'or the Army and. the Navy to have any inter_-communication at all. The 

only thing that we had was a disreputable hand-operated cipher using pencil 

and paper, which had been adopted way back in 1931/J by direction of the Chief 

of' Staff' of the Army and the Chief' of' Naval Operations, and that's all there 

was. The strip cipher device could have been adopted f'or joint communications 

but wasn•t. Fortunately, the EX:M-SIGABA came just in goo time and was used 

with great satisfaction on both sides, I am very happy to say. I might add in 

closing that incident by saying that, to the best of my knowledge; this is the 

only gadget that was withheld f'rom our British Allies. Although they knew that 

we had a machine of' this character and although we knew their type.of machine, 

with which neither they nor we were at all happy, it was our policy on the 

highest level of the Army and Navy, to wi-tbhold this from the British. There 

was a struggle for several years on this point until the reca1citrant people 

high up in both services began to see the light. The trouble was that when '"the 

technicians assured them that messages put up by this me.chine couldn't be read 

t • 

without having the rotors and key list--tbat we ourselves, in Army as well as 

Navy, had tried very hard to do so aiJ.d f'ail.ed--they just wouldn't believe it. 

'• 

One reason is, of' course they were daily getting the decrypts t~at were being 

I 

produced from German, Italian and Japanese messages and they just didn't feel 

like taking any chances. "How could the technicians be so sure as they say they 

' 

are?" they asked over and over again. I don•t know how many millions of' dollars 

were spent needlessly in establishing means for inter-communication with the 

British. By this I mean that we bad to make an adaptor for this ma.chine so 

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that it could inter-communicate with the British TYPEX and the British had to 

make an adaptor for their machine to inter-communicate with the ECM-SIGA:BA. It 

was a wholly unnecessary expense, I think, but by the end of 1953 we were able 

to convince the authorities that it would be all right and finally the British 

..i 

• V' 

were allowed to have our machines until they could complete their developments 

- and be on their own. I think even at the present time they still have some of 

our machines. I can explain the basic principle of the machine. Here are the 

essential elements in the machine: a set of five rotors here, and another set 

of five here, ma.king a set of ten altogether. These rotors are all interchangeable, so you see that to begin with there can be a great number of 

permutations f'rom a primary set of ten rotors. It's greater than lS! because 

the rotors can be inserted right-side up or upside down. Now there are f'our 

inputs in this row of rotors and their output goes to control the stepping of 

the five cryptographic rotors, so that the stepping of these rotors is very 

erratic according to the output of the control rotors. Here is another set of 

rotors, five small ones, which are used to permu-2 the output of the control 

rotors. 

We know of no case of solution of this system at all tbroughout the war. 

There was one possible compromise and it raised quite a storm at the time. The 

28th Division bivouacked for the night in a small city in France and the vehicle 

containing the cryptomaterial and the SIG.AB.As was stationed in front of the place 

where the Signal Officer and his entourage were quartered for the night. Unfortunately no guard was posted to safeguard the van. In the morning that 

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REF ID:A63403 

vehicle was missing. Warning messages were sent instantly to Washington and 

there was a great to-do. The Army set up blockades on all. the roads, the idea 

being to make sure that the truck wasn't being carried off by some German 

outfit, but nothing turned up. The Engineer Corps even diverted a river, and 

found the cipher machines and the cryptomaterial in the river. The van had 

been stolen by Frenchmen purely tor the vehicle; its contents were of no interest 

to them. The episode was one which caused the Signal Oi'ficer to be tried by 

court martial, as were several others. We had very strict rules indeed about 

safeguarding this gadget, and in mentioning this point I should say that we 

weren't worried by the thought that our messages could be read if the Germans 

would capture one. We were worried by the thought that they would learn bow 

good it was and would copy it--tbus cutting off our COMINT. One of the tunny 

things about our not giving the machine to the British when they needed it so 

·. 

desperately I can hardly refrain from tell~ng you. I mentioned the strict 

. rules about safeguarding it--who could see the thing, who could service it, and 

so on and we saw to it that these rules were followed. But there came a time, 

in North Africa, when our maintenance men ~ere knocked off and there was nobody 

- to service the machines • However, there was a very skillful British Officer, 

4-

an electrical engineer. He serviced and maintained our SIGABAs there for a 

while. When he got back to London he built a machine based upon the ECM-SIGABA 

principle! 

Now, I want to show you next the Enigma, the cipher machine used very 

extensively by the German Armed Forces in World War II. This was a modification 

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as long as possible in order to delay the enemy's real attack on the tra.f'fic 

enciphered by the machines. 

Now let's see pictures of some of the new apparatus. 

Here's a machine designated the KW-3· It is an off-line teleprinter 

cipher ma.chine but it has all the conveniences of an on-line ma.chine and 

eliminates some of the weaknesses of the latter. The machine generates the 

key as well as the indicators for messages. All the operator has to do is to 

type the address, punch a starting key on the ma.chine, and then proceed to type 

off the plain text of the messages, whereupon a cipher tape is produced, which 

' 

can be put on any teleprinter circuit far transmission. At the receiving center 

the operator puts the cipher tape into a reading bead, the start button is 

-:. . . pushed, the message sets up its indicator and key, and the tape produced is 

the plain text of the original message. 

Next I show the KW-37 designed for Navy Fox or broadcast transmission. 

The machine which embodies a teletype printer uses an IBM card for keying 

purposes. So far as the communication center aboard ship is concerned, the 

operators don't even see the cipher--tbe messages arrive there in plain language. 

The ciphering is done elsewhere on the ship. This system is a synchronous one, 

meaning that both ends of' the circuit are constantly and automatically kept 

in step; also, and related to this fact is the fact that the system is such that 

the intercepting enem;y ca.n•t tell when a message is being transmitted and when 

the circuit is idling, giving what we call "link security," a very important 

element in communication security. 

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