page_title: Elizebeth Smith Friedman
section_title: Government service
hierarchical_section_title: Elizebeth Smith Friedman / Career / Government service
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, Maryland, USA. All items in this museum are unclassified; items created by the United States Government are not subject to copyright restrictions.
context_page_description: Elizebeth Smith Friedman was an American expert cryptanalyst and author. She has been called "America's first female cryptanalyst".
context_section_description: Although Friedman worked closely with her husband as part of a team, many of her contributions to cryptology were unique. She and her team deciphered many encoded messages throughout the Prohibition years and solved many notable cases, including some codes which were written in Mandarin Chinese.
  The Volstead Act (1919) forbade the manufacture, sale, import, or export of intoxicating liquors. Prevailing conditions during the period known as Prohibition (1920–33), however, encouraged illegal activity. Further, as radio equipment became less cumbersome, less conspicuous, and more sophisticated, it afforded the criminal element a new means to circumvent the law. To avoid taxes and other fees, criminals smuggled liquor into the U.S.—and, to a lesser degree, narcotics, perfume, jewels, and even pinto beans. Enciphered communications about their criminal activities were relayed by bootleggers and smugglers to protect their operations.
  Even though early codes and ciphers were very basic, their subsequent increase in complexity and resistance to solution was important to the financial success and growth of their operations. The extent of sophistication seemed to pose little problem for Friedman; she still mounted successful attacks against both simple substitution and transposition ciphers, and the more complex enciphered codes which eventually came into use.
  Anti-prohibitionists provided Friedman and her team of cryptanalysts with numerous opportunities to hone their codebreaking skills during her employment with the U.S. Treasury Department. She was one of the people who led the cryptanalytic effort against international smuggling and drug-running radio and encoded messages, which the runners began to use extensively to conduct their operations.
  In 1923, Friedman was hired as a cryptanalyst for the U.S. Navy. This led to a position with the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition and of Customs, which in 1927 established a joint effort with the Coast Guard Intelligence Division to monitor international smuggling, drug-running, and criminal activity domestically and internationally. The smugglers and runners used encrypted radio messages to support their operations, presuming they would be able to communicate securely; however the unit was able to decrypt the messages. From 1927 to 1939, the unit was critical during a very active period of smuggling in the United States, and so was eventually folded into the U.S. Coast Guard. Friedman solved the bulk of intercepts collected by Coast Guard stations in San Francisco and Florida herself. In June 1928, she was sent to teach C.A. Housel, stationed with the Coordinator of the Pacific Coast Details, how to decrypt the rumrunners' messages. Under her teaching, Housel was able to decode 3,300 messages within 21 months. In October and November 1929, she was then recruited in Houston, Texas, to solve 650 smuggling traffic cases that had been subpoenaed by the United States Attorney. In doing so, she decrypted 24 different coding systems used by the smugglers.
  Friedman's work was responsible for providing decoded information that resulted in the conviction of the narcotics-smuggling Ezra Brothers.
  While working for the U.S. Coast Guard, the Bureau of Narcotics, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Prohibition and Customs, and the Department of Justice, she solved over 12,000 rum-runners' messages in three years.
  Friedman also perceived the need for a more dedicated effort against suspected communications. By 1931 she was among people who convinced Congress of the need to create a headquartered, seven-person cryptanalytic section for this purpose. As her cryptanalytic responsibilities began to mount, Friedman sensed the need to teach other analysts cryptanalytic fundamentals, including deciphering techniques. By relieving her of a part of the burden, this allowed her time to attack the more atypical new systems as they cropped up and expedited the entire process from initial analysis through to solution. It also allowed her to stay one step ahead of the smugglers.
  In additi
caption: William F. Friedman and Elizebeth Smith Friedman
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