• 'l ' 

REF 

,. 

- ..,, Ia.dies and Gentlemeni 

now 

I am/about to begin the •tory o1" World War I and the cryptologic aspectq 

I 

ot it. It broke put in August 1914 By that time Britain had become so 

.. dependent upon seaborne imports_ that its people aouldn1 t live,, let alone wage 

a war tor more than f'our or five weeks after those sea lines at communication 

-

to the outer world were severed. Protection of these sea l.ines was Britain's 

imports and Navy's historic function of' arresting enemy seaborne trade lapsed • 

e,f'ter German shipping f'ound refuge in neutral ports ~ 

-- British trade route 

protection was the responsibility of the Grand Fl.eet. A battle with the almost 

r ~ 

equally stro.ng German Fleet would nullify this protection but the Germa.nt'I were 

- . ~ "not inclined to risk their fleet. German hopes ot quick victory were shattered ~ -

when their armies were brought to a standstill in ~ance and with each IllOnth 

it became more and more evident to Kaiser Wilhelm-and his_&dvisors that there .. 

~ 

could be no victory unless British seaborne trade was destroyed. Now the 

.. - - succeqs of the German small. au"bmarine f'l.otilla ot 1914 pointed out a. way ot 

doing so without risking their fleet and therefore the bighest priority was 

given to the construction and launching of subnarines _ Now the rulea of' .. 

me.r1t~ warfare l'equired that no merchant ship be sunk without warning~ 

• w 

betOl''i: the crw could take to the lli"e boa.ts. Dut observance or these rules 

severely reduced the destructive power of the submarines aXJd their commanders 

~ were ordered to ignore them The Bri ti ah were unprepared f'ar such an 

o:c'fens1ve and there came a time when the daiJ.y toll of ship losses was so 

. ~' 

heavy that unless somethinS new was discovered or devised, there could be one 

@'pproved for Release by NSA on 09-18-2013 pursuantto E.O. 1352e 

& .. ' 

... 

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REF ID:A38535 

. ' 

and only one end to the war and tha.t woul.d be soon The scientists and shipbuilders and the sailors bad their pa.rt to play and by tremendous exertion the1 

• 

enabled the 'British to turn the corner but it was not until early 1918 that a 

ma.stery over the submarine fleet •as gained During the :f'irst year of submarine 

warfare, the Gernnn Governl'ment respected the rights or neutrals but faced with 

the XR prospect of losing the war Wl1ess all imports to Britain wer~ stopped, 

they ma.de the :f.atati fateful decision--they ordered the suoma:r1nes to sink at 

sight all ships encountered on the high seas In February 1917, they proclaimed that unrestricted submarine warf'are wouJ.d commence. Now tlle :British 

expected the U s., already exasperated by activities of Gorn:ia.n a.gents in 

America and by specious arguments by the German Government and excuses for 

sinking Ame1ican ships, the British f'elt that the United States would soon 

join the Allies but President Wilson was determined to keep out of' war and he 

tried l!lOSt earnestly to keep neutrality,, like Holland, like Demnark, like 

Republics 

Norway and the other countries The South ~rican ~~JUltxitue were not 

unsympathetic to Germany Spa.in wa.s neutral. but there was 110 le.ck of German 

sympathizers in Spa.in British and German agents conducted their own private 

- warfare on Spa.n1sh soil. The United States S1Ulpa.thies on the whol.e -ere with 

;;:. - the Allies but there ws ale.r~ Gerrran-American population, ,POWerl'ul too and 

these had to be ta.ken into account Even when British high-handed action every 

once in a while hurt their case, so the United States Government official 

position was very dti'f'icult President Wilsom came to the tiu:e when he was 

hesitating on the brink o£ war, :reluctant to :plunge into 1t1 clinging painfully 

-a-
REF ID:A38535 

.. 

to the idea ai strict neutrality which seemed to be almost a part of his 

.. -

religion. ~ou remember the slogan for the Democrats~ for the swcond t~rm for • J ~ ' .. 

the President-- he kept us out of war. His statement, you will remember, "there 

is such a. thing as being too proud to fight". This did:n•t aclt too well with 

the American people. For a large pa.rt of -the United States,~ for the middle 

J 

West and the fer West, Southwest, the war in Europe va.s 3,1Hf6 mil.es ac:ross . 

the Atlantic • It might just as well have been on another planet. Then c~ .,. 

a crypt.analytic episode which entirely changed the picture and it did it almost 

overnight A "• 

~ ......... c ... ,. 

The episode goes under the name "The Zi~rmann Telegram''. The interception 

• 

and polution of this message by the British and the 'brilliant manner ot its .. - ... ...... - f 

employment bro~t the United States into the war on the ~ide of the Allies • 

..Now ]: had decid~d to give~ a fairly detailed acco~t ot :t;he Zimmermann Telegram <!.. 

- ... episode and had~ordered to be shipped out to SCAMP, the motion picture which ~ ~ f 

~ 

-- you 'ffre" ab~ut to hear ..... It 18 Walter Cronkhite•s "You are There" and we ar~ 

about to see a very well-don~ picture but Just yesterday I received a letter 

' . . -

:from which I would like to read a. few lines. I don •t bave time to request ... ;.. - ~ "" - ..... - -- f.. ~ ... "'=- «. 

permission ot i\s writer but I am sure m:y friend wouldn't object to my readiDg 

. ' 

:pa.rte ot his letter before this group. The letter is from Cmr. A. G. 

-- ~ Denniston w'.b.o-for a number of years be!'ore World Var II WJ1.S the ~ad at the 

- :British cryptanal,Jtic group and a short time af'ter World War !I 'began concentrated 

his attention upon the diplomatic, econanic, political cyphers whjch were T • 

.. ~t - . .. ~ - encountered !: f'ew weeks ago I was 1n London and I took the time to go down 

to the country 9.nd visit my old :friend ..;ho has been retired for ~bout a dozea. 

' - . 

_.,. -3- -:.. ":-a, -
REF ID--:-A38535 

years ! was very ~..appy to do this I hope that vhen I get older and he.ve to 

- withdraw from active Participation in this very interestine; activity somebody 

will remember me and come ~ound and talk over some interesting episodes. I 

wrote him a letter and note ot thanks when I got home and mt letter was dated 

the 26th of May and this letter in reply thereto 1s dated. 19th of June. 

"My dea.r Friedman. I tound your letter o:r Me.y 26th and its very interesting 

-... thru 

enclosure, sent :km Ca:ptain Currier, on ·my return f'rom a visit to the North. n 

'W'hich 

(What I sent him wae a -paper/I had written a number of years a.go, 'before we 

became: A1l.ies with the British in this activity The pa.IJer dealt with the 

Zimmermann Telegram and certain questions were raised, the ans~"ers to which 

I needed some help in procuring I thoueht that Denniston could It turned :£" I 

I 

out tbat the 1n:f'ormation in that pa:per}was told by the oi'.f!eial. custodians or 

tJ±e records an.d my :friends at GCHQ, the contents o~ that ;pa.per, which by the 

way was written in collaboration with nx ray- late :friend, Dr Charlea J. 

... 

Mendelsohn, who was Prof'essor o~ Gree~.and Ge~ma.n at t~e City College in 

New York, the ~ontents of that pa.pe1 according to them gave a. more com.pJ.ete 

account '"at the Zimmerr.ia.nn Telegram i'l"om the crY,Ptogra:phic aspects than the4' ... ... 

own records Bu'tf a'lf any rate, I wanted Denn1ston's help I vontt read anything "'t 

more except I want to come to thjs place.) 

"On the same day tbat you wrote your letter, the iBC on 8.QW¥i :t-ad:fo 

broadcast a version of the Zimmermann~elegram giving very £uJl- and accurate 

details of 4' OB and the methods employed and even the names~ot the actual 

perf'ormers I am trying to f'1nd out who is responsible but J eU.spect Admiral 

...4- ~- ,..., 
REF ID:A38535 

• 

Jamea." So ;you see the Zimmermann Te1egrB.ll1, an episode which took place f'ort;y 

yea.re ago ia still a live subJect. 

Now I think we will start the film, we• 11 turn out the lights and we will 

listen to Walter CrODkhite '• "You are There". 

When " the United Statea became one ot the belligerents in World War I 

. it e~tered int? the wa:r very ill;r eqUipped as f'ar as crypto1ogy is concerned. 

It bad no organization whatever either f'or cryptograph;y or for crn>tana.lyais. 

... The N"vy bad a very small unit, called the Registered Publications Section .. 

and their job was to make the Naval. codes which they did occasionall;y and. - . • 

revised them from time to time The Army had that wonde1."tuJ. piece of' work, 

Telegraph 

the War Department/Code ot 1915. There was in the United Sta.tea a o!tizen 

whose name was Fabyan. He had a title--Colonel, Kentucky variety. He was a 

"l£Y wealthy man and he had a lavely estate about 35 miles vest of Chicago and 

he conducted a number of curious activities on this estate. I came there in 

June 19'.l.5, in the middl.e of DJ1' work in the graduate school at Cornell University. 

I was trained as a geneticist. When I came I found on the place a division or - -- ... -

department devoted to the atud;y ot acoustics, nothing mucb was known about 

acoustics in those days but CoJ.onel fttbyan bad gotten 1n touch w1 th Professor 

' 'Wallace Sabin at Ba:ftVa.rd University who was the leading expert in the acoustics 

field in this country and Dr Sabin began to suggest certain things that Colonel 

JrabJan. might do :l.n the way of study o£ acoustics and he actually designed a 

..§°1141"' building which was started and about one-fourth completed when Dr. r_ ]it 

~-5-
... 

REF ID:A38535 ... 

died Tjiere was another divis10Il or department on the place besides my own, 

if you wish to cal}. it tbat, devoted to the attempt to prove by means of 

-- "" .... cryptography that the works the world generally attributes to \lilliam Shakespeare-

" 

are written by Francis Bacon and the attempt was underway with a nu.mber of 

yatrug students under the leadership of a vonian whose name \l&S Eliznbeth Wells 

Gallup. Riverbank Laboratories, or River'bank, was a good distance from 

Chlcago and in those days there ~eren•t r.ia.n.y young fellows who had sportyca.rs a..od I stuck :pretty close to home and he.ving an inquiriug mind I wanted 

to know what vas going on 111_ t~e cipher de~tment and besides a rather 

attractive young woman had come to Join that organizatiorrabout e. year a.f'ter 4 r ' 

I had started Ml genetics work .. From a casual interest in cryptography I . ' 

cair..e to bave a deeper :tta interest as Colonel Fab;yan we.s a. shrewd and far-

. 

.., 

sighted man came to believe that the United States wouJ.d "Pe dra~ into the 

'W'lir sooner Cl" later and tba.t it would be a good thing if there were some ,,.. ' 

\· 

. 

people skilled in military cryptography. He sue;gestcd that I d.o some stud}"~· 

I looked !or texts, there was very little available certainly aone in this .. ~ '\. : ~'- t. 

small taJn of Geneva and the city of Chicago had little to offer I d~dn't 

re~liic ~t the tin:e thet there wasn't very much but at any rate I beiza,n 

etudying with a ma.nua1 that had-been pt"oduced by tbc MTJr/' Sigcial. School which 

vaa t°llen at Fort :(.eave~worth and from the very small be'inning firew an - _, .. - J 

. orga.1'11zat1on whiah was able to f'ill in the ga.p until the gover:ru:oont could 

establish a real. organization to deal with cryptology Now the first slide 

• 

.. - _, 

\ 

\ 

;> I want to shO'I< 1e one of, I thtnk o:r, George Fa.byan • 

.. 6-

T 

... _ ..... 

.. ..... . 
REF ID:A38535 .. ... 

Colonel. George Fabyan sitting in what we called the "hell chair". It is 

suspended. you see on chains which the 

cha.ins were attached and when you were called upon the carpet you had to stand 

in front of hiln and he slowly s"Wllng back and f'orth and you caught helll ! 

There is that War De:partment Telegraph Code ar 1915 and soon a.:f'ter our 

entr¥ into the war, our British Ally gentlyinf'or.med the Military Intelligence 

Division o:f' the War Department General. Staf'f that its code was not safe.. i 

think you can see the impl.ica'\.ions of that statement and I certainl.y wouJ.dn't 

deny m;rself the benefit of reading the code of an Ally to be and I bel.ieve that 

they probably were reading a. certain amount of Army tra.f'fic. There was acmebcx!.y else who had very l.ittle conf'idence in the codes of' the United States ~ -

Gover.nment--President Wilson. Tl'i...ere is a message which he was getting oft in . -

his own handwriting. Mrs. Wilson was his cryptographic expert--she put the 

message up in a s:pecia.l code. Where there was no word in the code or phrase 

~ a name had to be given 

those words were left as they are That is the way the message wa.s f'ina.J.l.y 

sent out from 1..he White House to the Department or State for transmission a.nd 

whether the message was -super-encocfed 'by State Department code, I don•t remember 

... at this time. 

Some shorthand written by President llilson--a memorandum tar himself' vhieh 

typed 

he then •na:tslum out and :J'OU will see that it's in a code made up not or 

groups of' numbers or letters but a word ccde--the old-fashioned type. Someday 

I am goin8 to try to- find. tho.t code. I think it would be a good souvenir to 

ba.ve And the pl.a.in text of tbat shorthand note is dawn here. Now I said that 

~ -7-
REF ID:A38535 

we l;lega.n studying, I say "we" because it was not only- myself' but by that time 

Elizebeth Smith had become Mrs 'Friedman and we studied together and the 

manual that we had was the manual far the solution of' military ciphers--this 

is 1 t and this is the very copy that she used--her own copy That had been 

wr:ttten by Parker Hitt, then a Captain of' the Infantry, but stationed at 

Leavenworth, the Signal School f'or a brief period and it was a good manual, 

very succinct and I learnt the basic principles. Co1one1 Hitt became the 

Chief Signal Of':f'icer of ~he ADF and did a f'ine job and a.f'ter, shortly e.:f'ter, 

the end o~ World War I retired I believe he is etil1 living 

'W'e_ also studied a manual, a little brochure 

Q,u.eation• 

- Yes 1 an advanced problem. The problem was the PLAYFAIR cypher--the 

cypher which I think anyone of' you cO'l_:ll.d solve now with one hand tied behind 

you in tventy minutes but :fn those days it was considered quite a fea.t. As a 

matter of' fact the PIAYFAIR cipher was the field cipher used by the British 

in World War I and to a certain degree by our o-wn tield forces This is the 

picture of Ma.uborgne, the author ot' that treatise He later became Chief' 

Signal ~r.r1ce1 He took a deep interest in cryptography I suppose that 

my co11tinuance 1n the cryptologic field I owe to him. We studied ciphers and 

since there was no department in the government tbat was devoted to that sart 

at business, Colonel Fabyan got in touch with the authorities in Washington 

and p:retty soon ·we "·ere being given messages to solve The messages were 

mostly those that •,,era surreptiously obtained by the De:partment of Justice 

-8-
REF ID:A38535 

.,. 

passing between potnts in the United States including Washington and Mexico. 

If you will remember in those days, 1915 1 1916 we ve1e in continual. difficulty 

vith our Southern neighbor so it was necessary to knO\rl as much as possible what 

was going on and we got these measages and had good tortune--we were able to 

read everything that the Mc~ican Gover~nt sent--the ciphers were not very 

complex We also taught classes in cryptography to the classes of off iccrs 

sent out by the Adjutant General, few from Navy, when the govermnent began to 

see that it was necessary to do some training in this field It w'llS vhile 

• 

we were studying ciphers there that I bad my first contact with Francis 

~aeon's bi-literary a.lpha.bet, bi-literal cipher, so called and there is the 

&lph8.bct and this I believe, gentlemen, is one of the very earl~est examples 

of binary code By means of that alpha.bet you could indicate thoughts, 

sentences, so on, very simply This is an example, a fantastic pictuie of 

a castle Some of the bricks are sha.d~d, sC>r'..e ~e plain and if' you start in 

at the upper moat tier of bricks, assign them to a or b acccn:ding to that 

binary system, your me.Jaa.ge that is spelled out is the following It was 

prepared by a physician :friend or Colonel Fabyans "~ bus !ness is to write 

prescriptions and then to sec my ihml dose:J taken but now! £.I.Ad I sJ:!f!nd "f113'- ... 

time endeavoring ~o out-lla.con :Bacon." Many )'ears later, desirous ot givine: a ~ -

picturesque examp1e or Be.con's bi-literal cipher ln one or m::t" Arllf3' texts, but 

thinking th:it a JlillDltllx p;tcture of a holy castle of this sort might not set 

"''"ell with the autharities, I ho.d to put in a different type or cipher and 

tv!f 1e. If 

there it is. You will nate the !'ootnot;f alls attention to the fact tllat 

-9-

?.i_- -
REF ID:A38535 

• 

there is a cipher in that J;lB.l"agraph Even so, the number of students vho have .. 

found the secret mes&e.ge is very low If there had been no footnote,-! don•t ~ ~ 

think it ~ould ever, have been found AIJ:ybod.f want to tr'f to find 1 t now? 

WellJ we built up a cryptanalytic organization and we did a job that bad 

to be done until the g~vernment did organize ~ta tacjlities, ma.inly,~unt\~Z: 

the Military Intelligence Division of the War Deportment General Staff 'rb.e 

Navy did not go in for cryptanalysie at that time. We were called in 

occasionally to help out and this slide wil.J. give an example of the ty:pe of 

letter which occaaionally was sent to us by the Department of Justice 'rhis 

was one page ot a seven-page letter sent by a Hindu in New York City 'Who was 

reporting to his superior in Geneva, Switzerland The Hindus, financed by 

the Germans, were trying to stir up a reMllion in India '!'he purpose being 

to cause enough of a disturbance so that the :British would have to withdraw 

troops f'rom the Western Front and send thew to India The Hindus in this 

country were buying arms and ammunition and trying to shi,P ~hem. to Illdia. !& 

Since the United State~ was neutral, this could not be allOW'ed and when the 

Bl;';lt1sh turned over these messages, hov they got them I do not kn.ow--I suppose 

they had their own secret agents, we were asked to take a look and this 

particular letter was soived in its entirety You wili notice tbat it's a 

- - :page l.ine &Di l.etter in the line system. The reason that we ~c able to 

aol.ve it was tbat this Hindu va.s a lazy fellow and inst.end of Jumping all. owr .. ... ... -

the book, he took sequent l.ettere in ma.ny cases and he used the same pe.ae a._p.d ~ 

eomet~s the ealllC line r~ a good many different spellings so that with the 

I 

... 11- . . 
REF ID:A38535 

• 

.... .... 

plain language interspersed you would get a ciue. aome idea, as to what 

... might be in here. This might be a name, you see 

.... Well rrr:r assuming names and words between the places where there was plain 

. .. 'language, we could 'beain to reconstruct the book from which the key letters ~ ~ ..... ~ " 

came • For example, there was a place in the text where it said 

fitted in right by it 

you will see if you replace theae letters - you can 

build up words in that text. This gave some idea as to the nature ot the book, 

' 

It dealt with P,m political econamfy or history of Germany and I :f'ound the 'book 

.... -

t - It was Price Colliers' Ge:rma.ny in the Germana. The Hi:nduspad "l.llo other syetems. 

This is one of them, one or the two other ones It was a monoalphabet sort 

..... of thing key numbers at the key word lamp. 

..... .,J 

They bad a trial. in Chicago -of' these Hindus and they were tound guilty and then 

they had a bigger trial in San Francisco and there were about 1~2 or l.~3 Hindus 

on trial simultaneously. I went out as government expert to testify on some 

or these mesaa.ges and the trial. wound up in a. very drama.tic fashion. These 

UindUs were quartered in ~ hotel and everyday be:f'are they were led into the 

courtroom they were searched for weapons • One day one Hindu managed to secret 

a gun and in the midst of- the proceedings, he drew the gun and shot the Hindu 

who bad turned State•a evidence dead an the spot The idea being that ikk 

this dead Hindu I suppose w-as the one that gave awa>:_ tbP key to the ciphers, 

you see. Whereupon the United States Marshal, who was a man about six feet three, 

atan(ling in the rear at the court roam drew his gun and shot over the heads of 

-11-
REF ID:A38535 

the spectators and the second Hindu was dee.d and the whole business within one 

mtnute I was glad I was not in the line of fire. Now 1 in due course, the 

Military Intel.l.igence Division builft an organization around a young man whose 

picture is shown, Yardley, Herbert O. Ya.rdJ.ey, a f'irat Lieutenant at the time. 

Re had been a telegraph operator in the State Department and had taken an 

interest in cryptography and he knew more about ciphere, ! suppose, from what 

.. 

little he bad done with the State Deiartment codes than most other people in 

Washington so when they needed somebody, they conmdBBione4 Yardley and he 

b~ga.n building the organization. I will have something to say about Yardley 

. a little later on 

This picture shows, save f'or Yardley who was abroad at the time, the 

entire af'ficer staff' of the cryptologic division o-r the War Department General 

Btaf':t in World War I. Some of them attained positions at distinction. This 

gentleum.n 

... 1laS already a distinguished ma.n at the time--that'• John Manly who was - - . Hea.d or the Deiie.rtment ~ English at the University of' Chicago and this ie David 

Stevens who became Read of the Humanities Division of' the Rockefeller Institution. 

- A,nd everyone at them was a scholar at some sort so one mu.at see that at J.eas~ 

and 

Yardl.ey bl his associates above him understood f'rom the beginning that crY,Ptol.ogic 

work required a 11 ttJ.e bit more than the ordinary run of mine brains. Now 

eome ot the tbinga that Military Intelligence worked on I think should be 

menticm.ed or course they 1-Ad posta.J. censorship and there is a picture post 

.. 

card and there is the back ot the postcard with a message which is unintelligibleMit i• German but 1 t is unintel.l.igible. It was pre:pe.red by means of' a gi:oille 

which would 'be applied to the card on which you were going to do the writing. 

-J.2-
REF ID:A38535 

• • 

That•s the front side at the grille. that•s the back'"side so you had 

two positions--in al.l you had tour positions ~ut from. the first position you .. ,, 

get the wardsi Lever, Charles &id so :tortb, you can read that in 

plain 1&nguage So tor the rest ar the thing, you just put the words in as you 

apply the grille to the basic card on whic\h you a.re writing There is one 

~ 

:more position and then ve are finished vith that--a rather easy thing to 

reconstruct. Music--reaJ. music, the writing which you eee in between here 

18 in secret ink. That was one of' the methods t1}e spies and secret agents 

used. The gentlemean "Who used this one was a attrim\n spy. He was caught in 

Engl~ and vas eentenced to life imprisonment. Bere ia an example at phoney 

music, usually detected by any llDllDI. musician I shoul.d modify that to say 

perhaps 

except/£or those who are addicted to modern music. A very simple expedient, 

what we call. a concealment ayatem--every :t'ourth word in this message is 

L. 

significant, the rest is padding. Another example, well, there is the text 

of that one. Another exampl.e. In this case every sixth word in J.inea conta~ning an even number ar words--in this case ve have a message indicated by 

- heavy shading of letters. This measage in :!'act got by thet German censors, ;you 

aee the censors mark at the top. MI-e worked on sabotage messages; this 

doesn't happen to be age that they worked on themselves but I show it for its 

interest. Thia was solved by the Briti8h organization and if you read the text~; -... -

you will see that they were, tbe Germans were bent on raising as much hell. as 

they could by means of sabotage and some of you are oJ.d enough 1D remember a 

It - great disaster on the Eastern Seabqrd, the Bl.a.ck Tom explosion aD4 the Kingsland 

fires where millions at dollars worth ot property damage was done to munitions 

-l.3-
f 

REF ID:A38535 

• 

101.ng to England. The trial of certain-suspects went on tar yi:ars aDd the 

German-American Mixed Claims Division dealt with it tor ~s and ::C'ina.JJy the 

German Government gave 1n and admitted that the thinge had been done 'b7 some 

o:t their agents. 

'l.'hat ia the original. German plaintext message or the previous one 1n 

cipher. I got that i'rom German records e.f"ter W()l"J.d War II. There is the 

aecond pige vith all the authenticating signatures. Thia was no :tJ.y-by-night 

action on the pert at anybody, this was the German ~e~nmen~ setting out the 

aabotage- arrangements. 

Next ve have,, that is a page trom. Blue '.Book magazine with secret ink 

llriting that was a :po.rt ot the testimony a1! exhibits in the Mixed Cl.aims 

Commission study or the case. 

I have llere now a. message which wa.s f'ound on the person of a. man who was 

caught crossing the border f'rom Mexico into Texas. Tbat waa a chap named, 

l?aa.blo Viversky. The message was solved and there you see at the bottom how 

dangerous it is to be a aw and carry ~bing on fOU· 

the bearer of this is the su'bJeat of the Empire e,e a Russie.t1 

I 

under t1'e ~ at Paablo V1veraq etc. Jte was tried by dourt · - - I I - I 

•# I 

~ial, sentenced to death--the sentence was COl!JmUted to ).1fe im,prisonmmt\ bJ _ I 

r 

President Wilson and the gent1eman was out at the hoosegov iJl within a year. 

Questions ' '!. 

- \. 

= 

No it is not rea~ a double transposition It 'a a queer k.ind o-r trans- ' I '~ 

.. -I 

pbaition which ! think I vil.l ~e up later 

·-l.4- \ 

I 

- ... 
REF ID:A38535 

Well, we continued to vork at Riverbank on various mesae.ges that were sent 

to us but as the orpnization 1n Washington grev we were gradually being 

contracted and devoted our attention then more to running some of these 

i~truotio.nal courses and this is a picture or one at those claaaes. This io 

the ]Mgest al.ass we bad. Colonel Fab,a.n pa.id tor all the iilBtructional work, 

the roams and fae1lit.1ea at a hotel in Aurora adJacent to Geneva.. This 

picture contains ciphers. It 1a binary alphabetic. 'Iou w1U see &O'Jlle of the 

af'f'1cers are atanding loOlting stra1f5ht:torward, aome are looking one vay or 

another so you bavc a. binln'y system. Thia chap took me too l.1terally by the \ 

way and ia smack 1n the middle • There 'a myselt, you. see • But tbe message as 

you start off abaab abbaa, etc-- k.a.owledse is power. 

I don •t know whether ~ I would c0ll8;1der lin a garble but tha.t 

1 

picture lla8 reproduced 1n an iasue of ~:magazine about 19561 summer Of' 

19561 when the government 'W8.8 rather nice to me and sane letters came into the 

editor obJecting to the f'act tbat there was one character misoing--one ot the 

tive units, the last one was missing~ Well U you bad aD1' sense at aJ.t, rou. 

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voul.4 know tlla.t yoq could fill. that 1.n. rt ;you got ~ow~e is pow-,, 7ou 

abOUld know vha:t the last letter ts. t' I 

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After this C.&.GDS was ever, I was commissioned aDd vent directly to hop~e 

'Where I became e. W!lliber ot the German Code and Cipher Solving Section ot tlie 

I 

.... 

Milit&rT Intelligence Ste.f'f. That 111 Col.onel Mauborsne, wh<? wu 'l1!f chiet. .., ~ ;r;:f z-

- killds of ,_... - -

!low at tl>at 1;- l learnt sQllll'thirlg about tbl!/collea and c:l.pbers in use b;y the ~ \ '\.,_ 

V'a..'C'ious belligerents. That is the cipher system used by the Russia.o.s. 'rb.ia 18 ' ' 

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REF ID:A38535 

.. l simple modification ot the system It happens to have a key of 

2 - 4 - 6 - a positions and there ia the decipherment. They were ve~y inept 

at it, by the way, and I could talk "ror a whole hour on the causes tor the . ~ 

terrible deteat ot the Russians forces at Tannenberg and the collapse of the 

T 

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Russian military effort because of their ineptitude in cryptography. They 

couldn't even ~e that s;lmj>le system and many times they bad to .... ~es<>!"t to 

pl.a.in l.anguage. It was easy for Ludendorf and Hiddenburg to make up their 

- operations based upon their knowledge ot where the Russian forces were. 

- Arruy. 

This is a cipher aystem used by the French/ It is a tranposition with 

keying tor the col.umns but with a littl.e querk in it by diagonal.s--I won't -

take the time to go into that 

This ia a cipher used by the Italians, a variation of the Viginere 

Square and this is the great German General. Staff' high-level cipher, Called 

~ 

the ADF<JVX, because the cipher text was composed or those tive letters, aix 

letters at the latter :part of the war, a matrix with the letters IJ)FGVX., 

coordinates, these in mixed arrangements, generally a keyword arrangement in 

here 'l'he plain text of your messqe requests etc , the substituted equivalents . - d1agra:phie, the substituted equivalents used nav is again a diagram, transposition 

4~am with a key to determine the order ~hich )-ou take your J.etters out of 

the c<bnns •o here is the t:trat message. You begin abatf and so on. The 

.ADFGVX cipher tor that period was a veey secure &)'Stem but we read 95; of all 

the messages that were transmitted. Thia cipher is susceptible pt solution 

~ 

1R three \i&y9·1' First, 1t 70u have two message• which begin with tbe ea.me 

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I 

" 

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REF ID:A38535 

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ltords. Second, 1f' you have two m.eaaagea which end with the same words. 

Third, i:t you have a number or meaaagea, 'Which are ot identical lengths. In 

• those de.ya we had not worked out a general solution but after the war when 

Wf hfd a little' more time to devote to theoretical studies, a couple or my - ~- ...... 

asaooiatea worked out a general. so1ution and this ciphe:t" now would not 'be at 

all seeure under he&Y7 use. Incl4entally, I :might say that by following the 

ebb and tlov or trattic in the ADFGVX cipher we gained a great deal of ini'orma-

- .. tiozi becauae it wa11 the high canmand cipher. 

Next I show you the PLAD'AIR ciphe+hich is composed ot a :matrix,~ 25 

characters, 5 X 51 the letters I and J are conaidex-ed the same an.d you take 

- it 

them by pairs. For eximple/you want to encipher EB, well they happen to be 

r - • 

on the •uie line 1 7ou take the letters to the right B.W. EX wou1d be enciphered 

'by the letters standing at the other diagonal., AU and so on. Incidentally 

that cipber goes bJ the nam or PLAD'Ant, Lord :Pl.&yf'air, Leon Playtair is his 

~_but it was actual.l.y invented by Sir Charl.es Wheatstone vho tried to get .. 

it introduced into the Foreign Office but had no luck and he thought that 

maybe his trlend Playf'air would be able to 1mpreaa the officials in the Foreign 

'otf';t.ce but he didn•t bave too much luck either but during World Wai- I, the 

l'LA?P'AIR cipher was used. 

Mother system that waa used waa the double transposition. Perbaps 

later on. I will give 7ou an illustration ot that. 

We come now to code systems of World War I. I bardly have to tell 7ou 

'Wba.t a code, 1f. lou see there an §Xalllple a page tram a, a couple pages 

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REF ID:A38535 

f'rom a commercial code. Those code words, :t'1ve letter groups, all. differ 

from each ether by a minimum or two l.e"ttera, the purpose beins that il' a 

•insl.e et.rre% ia made in tranamiasion or reception &D4 generall7 au operator 

will not make more than one errrr, )"OU can ctetect that there is aQJDetbil}S 

• 

wrong b)" the tact that the group will not be in the book. '.?his two l.etter . 

ditferential was a very important piece ot "b\4s1D.esa ~or commera1al. codes. 

Oh, this one was a code and somewhat specialized. You know there are people 

who believe tbat Ulne&S ie all in the .mirJ.d and ao can be treated by mental 

procesises and this was s code gotten up by a practitioner ~ that a.rt who 

wanted to have a. holiday now and then and he a1so wanted. to be able to treat 

his pe.tie~ts at a distance but he realized that he bad to be a bit caretul 

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~ 

• 

because of err<l?s 1 the likelihood ot enoors t ao that be J:w4. not a two letter 

dit:f'erential but a three letter ditt'erentia1. l'ou will see that if' a patient 

t 

were compla.~1ng ot constipation, he might get 'treated tor diarrhea unieas 

there was a three letter d1f':Cerent1e.l or some sort. 

Chinese wlegr&lh codes. I have here & coup1e ot these. They are .. 

interesting to look at. This is the official code or the Chineae Telegraph 

Ministry. There ia nothing secret about it. 'J!hey can't ae:cd cbaractere ao 

they send num~?s to represent the cl:Jatta.ctera a.nd the characters are a1J. ... 

41aposed on :i:agea 121 X 121 ao that it is a very simpl.e maUer 1 it' you can read ... 

Chinese, to p::tck out the numbers and send it. flow prior to World War I, it 

was considered_ ilpractical to use codes in the f'ield but the Germans initiated .. 

. 

• the use of co{ea 1u the f'iel.d and I ahaw you a picture ot Olle of their ao-c&Uecl 

i. .. :KRUS.I\ cO(tee, 'lice.use the code words began with those letters. tou will see 

--;r - _£ - -18-
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REF ID:A38535 

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varian.ta, 1t'a not a bad code at all. 

The French bad a code. In tbia caae it we.a not otily a--I think thia one 

is a two-part code, yea, two-pi.l"t code and then on top at that they auperenciphered. 

This one 1& an extract. I am •orry I can•t give you an actual facsimile 

~ a British field code. OUr British allies were particularly cagey about 

letting us have any ot their codes ao we did the beat we could. We photographed, 

we copied a page from one they bad lent ua for an hour. The AEF went into 

the 'f(ar very vary poorly prepared. Thia, believe it or not 1 is authentic. I 

have the thing in m::t own collection. I don't know, JJ18.7be there are one or two 

who remember these gentlemens Johnson, • 

But we caught up prett7 quickly and that is a fascimile ot a couple of pages 

f'ram the American field code called the Champlain We bad tor the First Arm::1 

~ 

a J.l'iver ser1eaJ the Alleghenf, the Potomac, etc. and for the Second Army, a. 

lake aeries. After we realq got started we were the wonder bo;ys ot France 

because who but the Americans would have an .Adjutant General with a van e.nd 

a. printing plant so that we could get up a new edition of a code of this aort 

every :tive or six days so we were prett7 aecure vith those codes. 

i 

Ifow American 1ucceases in crntanalytic work in the ADF xx World War I 

, were not remarkable eapeciall;y aa regards the solution ot codes because we 

were usigned to a quiet aectar and there was very 11 ttle traf'f'ic. We had fair 

•uccea& with the cipher traf'tic and in this we col.l&borated ver'T closely with 

our French ~ British allies. The beat resuJ.ts that we bad in regard to codes 

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REF ID:A38535 

• 

vere with the low echel.on three-digit codes and ottenve got tactical. useful 

intorma.~i«?ll 'b,y working on 1?_hose. By the ve::r 1 I remember how we used to get 

1ntor:mation when a code changed, when. a German code changed, b7 a very simple 

subterfuge. The Germans &1."e ver7 very methodical. aD4 if' they didn •t have 

~ing to report, they reported "nothing to report n and this happened 

thousallda of times in Worl4 War I and aeveral hundred thouaauds in World War 

II. If' you have good reason to suspect that on the hour frOlll a certain 

atation, where there has been Q.Uiet, there will be a report, it will be 

0Dothing to report" so you have a very excellent crib. We also bad another 

crib. '.rhe;r bad an inspector vho uaed to so around to see to it that the 

men were following the code 1natruct1ons to the letter and so we could follow 

this cbap around on h1s rounds because he did the unpardonable thing or .. 

•1gning his messages and he bad a long German name and this bad to be spelled 

' 

out so f!V'ery time the code changed we looked for this - - - - - • 

Here 1• an example at the worksheet that confronted us every :morning. 

We bad scads of them facing ua when we came 1n 8.lld. all. you. bad to do was to 

till ill the meanings, very eimpl.e .. 

'rhis 1a an exam.pJ.e of the aort at information that WliLS put out trom t.he 

ADFGVX cipher. This is a particularly good one. It was,, I don't know, a 

12 or 15 part message af'ter the armistice when McKenson'a a.rJD1 was withdrawing and we followed them and were able to tell everything that was going 

on. Every message of' McKenson•a was solved. 

lfow ! mentioned that we got a certain amount of 1ntormat1on by watching 
.. 

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REF ID:A38535 

the ebb and f'lov of tra.ff'ic in the ADFGVX cipher. This, I believe, is the 

f'irst example ot wbat later became the art or science of traffic a.ne.J.7aia. 

When there was a peak, ve could expect in tour or f'i ve days action in the 

vicinity at where that tr&f'f'ic was going or coming from. A:f.'ter the war 1 I 

was demobiliEed and I we:Q.t back to Riverbank and stayed tor a year. The 

government wanted D1e back. I was aaked, urgently asked 1 to come into the 

Regular .Army. I was urged by Colonel Fabyan to do this--he had a special 

motive at his own. Bo I went and took the examination. I flunked miserably. 

They •aid I had heart diseaee--tbat was 38 years ago and I •m still al.ive. 

Now, I think this is a good pl.ace to stop. I will resume on Monday nth 

what happened in Washington--I think I can finish this 1 it will only take 

a moment or two. 

I went back to Washington, not as an af'f'icer bu.t as a civilian and I 

had charge of' the code compilation division in the Of'tice ot the Chief Signal. 

Officer. At tbat time, the cryptologic work in the Ar'fq' was in somewhat 

chaot.ic state. The Signal. Corps bad respona1biJ.1ty for the comp:Lla.tion and 

the revision of the codes and ciphers. The M.jutant General bad responsibility 

:tor atorage and iaaue of tbe codes and ciphers and their printins~ 'rb.e 

Director ar Intell.igence, G-21 hs.d charge of cr~ic work and there 

waa no contact between the code compilers IEJd in the Chief Signal Office and 

the code solvers in 0-2. Yardley had gone to New York and had established 

what wae later termed the American :Black Chamber and I will have something 

to say about that later on. 

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':fhere came a time vhen a Colonal. Albright came to duty in the General 

6tatf' and he didn't like this arrange~nt at division of responsibility and 

' he ma4e a atudy at the situation and came up with the report t:ba.t recommeDAed 

' that the work be integrated W:lder the Chief Signal Officer so that the work 

tbat was coDducted under Yardley in New York, in great aecrecy, came back 

to Wash!ngton, ar w'hat there was left ~ it and Yardley proceeded to publi•h 

a book. Thia book was ca11ed 11Tba American :Slack Chamber" and I have a cow 

of it here, 1t•a a ~irst edition. It raised quite a commotion, 31,~fS copies 

..... - ot it were so1d in Tolqo within three weeks at a Ja.paneae edition. It al.moat 

got us into a war right there'eu:ld then because you see Ya.rd.ley tells-in hi' 

book. klmrx about how we were reading their meBBages 'between Tok.yo and Washington 

at the time of the disarmament conference e.ud how Mr. Hughes, who was the 

- Secretary at State at the time, and vaa Chairman ot the U .s. del.ega.tion and 

at the time this book. was vritten ve.s Chief' JUBtice of the United States 

Supreme Court--tbia didn •t 1ook very nice. Well,, there was nothing that 

could be done to Yardley tar his indiscretions All I can say is that the 

pu'bl.ication o~ this book cost the-government ot the United States hundreds 

or :iiillions or dollars and thousands and thousands ot lives because until 

'fb.is 'book vas published, the Japanese were children cryptologically speaking, 

children. Alter the 'book. was publiabect, they begQn to study. The7 improved 

their ciphers '- _, ... There was OJ:ily a. small amount of mone1 that couJ.d be devoted ~ 

,. 

to crypto1og1c work in the Artq and wba.t :tittle we bad bad to be coxi.centra't!ed 

oh one thing or an.other. The concentration was on Japanese diploma.tic ciphers. 

1 • 

We bad no money, no ~op1e to atudy military ciphers. As a coneequence,, the 

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REF ID:A38535 

I I , ...... 

ver1 simpl.e types of ciphers that the Army and military attaches were using 

up until the time this book was published 1 became repl.a.ced by mu.oh more 

41tf!cult systems and we did not read a. single Ar"1113' meseage :from December 7 1 

i9i.1 until about theist of April .ttfa3. Thia was a very unf'artunate thing. 

" Had we been able to read the military messages, we might have done. so.me good 

with wtat little f'orcea we bad and prevented the Japuiese :from their onward 

rush'}nto Southeast .Ula. 

... 

Durbg the time tha~ I wa.s workillg 1n t~ ottice of the Chiet Signal 

- ,.... 

Officer and studying ciphers and reviai:ag a.n4 compiling, I also did a number 

or brochures. These vere published and :t shcnir you one cf' them, I thfnk the 

title page at one. J.923--thia was the f':lrst document that the government of 

the United states printed off'icie.11.y on cryptol.ogy. I show it 'bees.use I bave 

• 

~here a photostatic COF.f of it. This phatost&t1c Corf¥ we captured :from the 

Germans a.Dd the O"erJIBJlll captured it :from the -French. It is now- liberated and 

.. belongs in the Friedman Collection. I would like any of' you who want to see 

it to come up and see it. 

Now I think this is-- cmc last elide. Thie is a picture of the entire 

~ 

cryptanalytic group under me in the year 1935 We had two rooms This outer 

room, where peopl.e are standing, I think everyone or these people in the 

picture are still in the business except this one lady who has several children-- , -

she 1lJ8.1 be a grandma. by this time The secret work was cOIJducted inside a 

vault-~we actua.ll.1 sot J.ocked in The tunny part ot it is, you won't bel.ieve 

this, but whatever resuJ.ts we put out in the uay of' decodes and decrypts, 

no'body ever _sav. Our instructions were to put them on a hook--thia was hot 

, ~~ 
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REF ID:A38535 

., ,, 

atutt, it was too c!angeroua to handle, it v-aa illegal. I think with that 

we viU bring this period to a close and will resume on Monday. Thank :you 

very much. 

f' !!-

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