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MILITARY INTELLIGl!;lfCE DIVISION 

3 East 38th st. 

DV YORK, A'llgUSt 20, 1919. 

Brigadier General Marlborough Churchill,., u. s. A., 

Director of Militarir Intelligence, 

Washington, D. c. 

1Q' dear General Churchills 

[ Colonel Mauborgne and I arrived in Chicago Bat~ morni?Jg~ Major Crockett met us and drove· us to Riverbank. @f'ter lwicheon Mr. 

Fabya.u lad us to a conference room wbere his cipher force ex,Plained the 

details of their methods of solution.'~ . 

Colonel Uauborgne then hazld.ed them a list of instructions 

clearly defining the method of procedure of the Signal Corps in enciphering messages i~ the A. T. & T. · 

· !l!his precipitated a heated statement from Fabya.'n who charged· 

that after "busting" the cipher, the method of enoipherment 1'.ras changad.J 

Colonel Mauborgne replied that the cipher-as used by the 

Signal Corps Had not been "busted"; that he himself was llll&ware of 

Gherardi' s method; and that the ~ine belonged to the A. T. &: !I?. but 

that the method of using it was determined by the Signal Corps. 

I anticipated that Mr. Fabyan would charge unfairness, and had 

determined to keep in the background, letting Mr. Fabyan direct his ill 

feeling toward the Signal Co~ps instead of ll. I. D. . 

(}.owever after they had ex;ploded and were smiling again, I told 

Mr. Fabya.u that· on U13 arrival in Washington I recommended that the Signal 

corps be·"informed of what has been accomplished at Riverbank, expressly . gi·Vii-'l'.lB: Mr. Fabyan credit for the discoveries, but that when I personally 

explained everything to Colonel Mauborgne he showed me several tapes 

that were not 1000 letters long, that were not displaced only one point, 

and that did not start to encipher witil the message itself began, so 

that it was unfair to Colonel llfa.uborgne to state that his method changed 

. @'pp roved for Release by NSA on 11-18-2014 pursuantto E .0. 1352a .. 
REF ID:A414Bia3 ..... 

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after Riverbank had made their discoveries. 

· Co~onel Mauborgne then said that he would be only too glad 

to give Mr. Fabyan all the material he \'1&11.ted to work o~ana :Mr. 

Fabyan still pretending to be suspicioU:a replied that h8 could not be 

sure that there \'JOuld not be some trick encipherment. 

_ Colonel Ma.uborgne then suggested that I encipher the messages• but preferring to have charges of unfairness, if such charges were to 

be ma.de, directed at the Signal Corps rather than M. I. D., I replied that inasmuch as the Signal Corps had used the machine, Signal Corps 

operators should encipher the test messages. 

f'We both assured him of our willingness to grant ~ request 

:tie wished'io make regarding the n"WDber of mesaag&a, etc., to be submitted and the meeting finally broke up with the understandillg that Mr. 

Fabya.n' s cipher force vi'Ould examine the Signal Corps method and then 

determine the ohs.racter and length of material that should be sent in 

aa test messages. 

In the test messages Mr. li'abyan will lmow the meaning of the 

cipher indicators which will permit him to arrange the messages in cycles:] I stated that their meaning should be as secret as the cipher tape itself; that we used cipher indicators with our code but their.meaning · changed as often as the cipher alphabets • 

. Colonel Mauborgne is very anxious that I submit a method f'or 

doing this. I have a method in mind that cau ch&nge every dB\Y', as do 

·the tapes, a method that is simple, so'Dlld, and invu~rable to attaok. 

As Colonel Mauborgne considers this very important, I believe it should 

be brought to the attention of the Signal Corps officially instead of 

informally. Within a few days I shall b4ve the method and a memorandum 

to the Sigrial Corps before you. 

[It is to be remembered that the cipher indicators of the messages that the Signal Corps send to Mr. Fa.byan will be lmOwn., permitting 

him to arrange them in cycles.] 

I dined with Major Crockett at the club whB*we talked until 

nearly midnight about the Chicago office. He is afraid that this investigation at Leavenworth will not come to your personal attention and 

consideres this the most important case he has han~led for some time. 

Be urged me to ask you to read this f'~le a.nd let him lmow what course 

he should take; that is, should his investigation continue, etc. 
REF ID:A4148.3 ..._,. 

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Regarding the proposed nEnv War Department Telegraph Code, I 

beg to suggest that if' t~ Signal Corps pleads that they cmmot carry 

out the recom.'118ndations o~ M. I. D., that I am prepared to take the 

entire job of'f' their bands. Colonel Dunn is handling this case. 

Very sincerelJ', . \ 

jcm 

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