New-York tribune., 1900-07-29
FOREIGN OFFICE CIPHERS.
METHODS ADOPTED BY FOREIGN. GOV
ERNAIENTS FOR COAIMUNICATING
SECRETLY WITH THEIR
AGENTS ABROAD.


It may safely be asserted that there Is no
cipher in use by a government for com1nuuica-
ton with its agents abroad that remains for
any length Of time secret to the other Powers.
and it is difficult therefore. to understand why
so much Importance should have been attached
at Washington to the fact that the message
from Minister Conger, transmitted through Min
lister W. was written in the State Department
cipher. The Chinese have from time iu1memo-
rial been adopts in the art of Cryptography, and
even if they had not long ago obtained posses
sion by other means of the code used by the
diplomatic service of the United States it would
have been mere child's play for them to decipher
any messages sent to and from Minister Conger.
Cipher codes are to such an extent an open
book. if not to the general public at any rate
to the governments interested in knowing the
contents Of the dispatches for which they are
used, that the writer has sometimes wondered
why they should be employed at all. Indeed the
only advantage that one can perceive in the en-
ployment of a cipher is that it prevents the
ordinary telegraph clerks and operators from
possessing themseIves of the information con-
tanned in the government dispatches passing
through their hands in order to communicate
them to the press or to non-oficiaI persons
AUTHORITIES GET HOLD OF IT.
In the Old World the telegraphs are in nearly
every. ease in the hands of the Government. and
il may be taken as a general rule that TO dis
patch comes over the wires 10 the embassy, Iega-
uon or diplomatic agency without the auth0-i-
ties OF the country in which the mission is sta
toned being at once placed in possession Of
copy Of the message. Clever cryptographers
at once set to work to interpret the meaning Of
the communication, and il often happens that
the work of deciphering in the cabinet noir''
IS completed before that at the embassy or Iega-
In IT has
cipher dispatch addressed by the English For
eign Office TO its Ambassador on the banks OF
the Neva has been held sufficient number Of
hours to admit Of the Cars Minister Of Foreign
Affairs ayaiiHg himself Of the contents thereof
in an important interview with the English En-
voy. who received his copy Of the dispatch only
after the meeting was over and after he had
committed both himself and his Government to
obligations which he would not have under
taken had the dispatch arrived in proper time.
On another occasion old Prince GOrtchakoff,
when Chancellor and Minister OF Foreign
Afairs, inadvertently mentioned in the course
Of a conversation with the British Ambassador
if I remember right it was Lord Augustus Lotus
"a piece Of information which he could only
have obtained from a cipher dispatch which
Lord Augustus had received from London an
hour or So previously. Lord Augustus could not
help congratulatirg the Prince on being SO vel
Informed and upon the cIeveruess of his decipher-
eTs. The Prince was not in the least discon-
certed, laughed senialiy. admitted that they
were rather bright, and then proceeded to de-
mOnstrate in the most Unconcerned manner to the
Ambassador the reasons why he should not carry
cut the instructions contained in the dispatch in
question
EASY TO FIND OUT.
In order to demonstrate the difficulty Of main