by DAVID KAHN
188 Austria shutters black chamber in 1848: Stix.
188 end of Cabinet Noir: Vaillé, 384-391.
Chapter 6 THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE DILETTANTES
189 “secrecy in correspondence”: (Portland: Thurston, Ilsley & Co.), in unpaged “To the Reader.”
189 “means should be taken”: anonymous, untitled review of eight articles on telegraphy in Quarterly Review, XCV (June, 1854), 118-164 at 148.
189 telegraph kindled interest: A secondary source of interest was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” (see “Heterogeneous Impulses” chapter).
190 telegraph’s importance in war: Cyril Falls, A Hundred Years of War (London : Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1953), 12; letter, Major General J. F. C. Fuller, January 6, 1964.
190 one-part government codes: for example, Mexico, Diccionario Telegrafico (Mexico: Imprenta Imperial, 1866).
192 A Dictionary: (Hartford: for the Proprietor, 1805), but printed at London. A copy is in the New York Public Library.
192 Jefferson: For dating of the wheel cypher, I am indebted to Dr. Julian P. Boyd, editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, who, in the absence of documentary information, discussed the question in long letters of June 23 and 26, July 8, and August 13, 1964.
193 “Turn a cylinder”: Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, f. 22138. (This bears the penciled notation “1802,” but on what authority I do not know.) I have used this fair copy instead of the rough draft, f. 41575, from which it differs only slightly. Boyd thinks that a note on f. 22138 erroneously calculating 36 factorial as “4648 & c … to 42 places!!” is in Patterson’s hand.
194 Lewis and Clark cipher: Jefferson Papers, f. 22608. Depicted in Library of Congress, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, ed. E. Millicent Sowerby (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), opposite IV, 333. 194 Patterson’s cipher: Jefferson Papers, ff. 20446-9.
194 “I have thoroughly”: Jefferson Papers, ff. 20947-8.
195 “We are introducing”: Jefferson Papers, f. 21071. Other letters from Patterson on the cipher at ff. 21119-20 and 27086-8; Jefferson’s own description of it at ff. 22130-2 and 41578-80.
195 Wadsworth: List of Officers of the Army of the United States from 1779 to 1900, comp. William H. Powell (New York: L. R. Hamersly & Co., 1900), 649; letter of September 20, 1962, from Major General H. F. Bigelow, assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics; Constance McL. Green, Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology, ed. Oscar Handlin (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1956), 116-117, 126, 156, 162, 291.
195 Wadsworth device: Owned by the Hamden Historical Society, Inc., it is held in the museum of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, Connecticut. I am indebted to Miss Ella Wood, secretary of the Hamden society, for making the device available for my inspection.
195 built by Whitney: opinion of late civil engineer Charles Rufus Harte. The device was also found in the home of a Whitney heir. Information from statements by members of the Hamden Historical Society contained in letter of Miss Wood, October 15, 1962.
196 Wheatstone: DNB; Columbia Encyclopedia.
197 Charles I: Physical Society of London, The Scientific Papers of Sir Charles Wheatstone (London: Taylor and Francis, 1879), 321-341.
197 Exposition Universelle: Kerckhoffs, 61.
197 instructions: Scientific Papers, 344-345.
198 Laussedat: Kerckhoffs, 62-63.
198 “C.P.B.”: “Ciphers and Cipher-writing,” Macmillan’s Magazine, XXIII (1871), 328-338. C.P.B. may be Charles Babbage, though elsewhere he never used a middle initial. For a solution of the Wheatstone, see [William F. Friedman], Several Machine Ciphers and Methods for their Solution, Riverbank Publication No. 20 (Geneva, Ill.: Riverbank Laboratories, 1918), 6-36.
198 cipher invented for telegraph by Wheatstone: article in Quarterly Review, 148.
198 Playfair: DNB.
198 friend of Wheatstone: Wemyss Reid, Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair (London: Cassell and Co., 1899), 74, 154-155.
198 Granville dinner: Reid, 158-159.
200 rectangle: Babbage Papers, Add. Ms. 37,205, f. 80. This manuscript is referred to henceforth as Babbage Papers.
201 Foreign Office: Reid, 159.
202 Britain keeps Playfair secret: Great Britain, War Office, General Staff, Manual of Cryptography (1911), mentions the Playfair at 37-39, but this manual was not made public.
202 Beaufort: Columbia Encyclopedia.
202 card: Cryptography. A System of Secret Writing by the late Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, K.C.B., adapted for telegrams and postcards. (London: Edward Stanford). No date on the copy in the Mendelsohn Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Library, but Galland cites 1857.
202 Sestri: Metodo Brevissimo & assoluto per scrivere occulto in tutto le lingue … (Roma: Bernabò, 1710). Unpaged.
203 Chase: DAB.
203 Chase ciphers: “Mathematical Holocryptic Cyphers,” The Mathematical Monthly, I (March, 1859), 194-196.
204 Babbage: DNB; Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines, eds. Philip Morrison and Emily Morrison (New York: Dover Publications, 1961), xi-xxxii. Quotations from Babbage are cited to this volume, which reprints his Passages.
205 “Deciphering is”: Morrison, 103.
205 solved personal advertisements: Babbage Papers have numerous clippings of such ciphers and Babbage’s worksheets and solutions of them, as at ff. 12, 35 et seq., 42, etc.
205 “The bigger boys”: Morrison, 103.
205 Henrietta Maria: Babbage Papers, opposite f. 220.
205 recommends Wheatstone: Babbage Papers, f. 211.
205 Flamsteed: Francis Baily, An Account of the Revd John Flamsteed, the First Astronomer-Royal (London: Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1835), 346-347, 391.
206 Kinglake: Babbage Papers, f. 81 et seq.
205 Henry’s cipher: Babbage Papers, f. 35 et seq.
206 double Vigenère: C[harles Babbage]., “Mr. Thwaites’s Cypher,” Journal of the Society of Arts, II (September 1, 1854), 707-708, and (October 5, 1854), 776-777. These in reply to articles by John H. B. Thwaites in same Journal, “Secret or Cypher Writing” (August 11, 1854), 663-664: “Secret or Cypher Writing” (September 15, 1854), 732-733, and “Mr. Thwaites’s Cypher” (October 13, 1854), 791.
206 “singular characteristics” and autokey: Morrison, 103-105.
207 algebra: Babbage Papers at f. 13 et seq. for Gilbert cipher and at ff. 135, 184, and others.
207 Kasiski: Geschichte des Fusilier-Regiments Graf Roon (ostpreussisches) Nr. 33, in annex 9; information kindly communicated in a letter of June 15, 1962, by Herbert Flesch, Osnabrück, West Germany; M. W. Bowers [pseud. Zembie], “Major F. W. Kasiski—Cryptologist,” The Cryptogram, XXXI (January-February, 1964), 53, 58-59; Kasiski’s scholarly articles in Schriften der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Danzig, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1818; Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1875, 1877; Baltische Studien, 1876, 1877; Encyclopaedia Britannica citation in 11th edition, XIX, 441, in article on “Neustettin.” These articles were discovered by David Shulman. The Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Potsdam, reports that Kasiski’s personnel records fell within the competence of the former Heeresarchivs, Potsdam, and that these archives were destroyed in an air raid in 1945 (letter, December 7, 1964).
208 Kasiski examination: Gaines, ch. 14; Wolfe, lesson 5.
209 Kasiski examination and solution: Kasiski (“calculate the distance” at § 78); Gaines, chs. 14 and 15; Wolfe, lessons 5, 6, and 7; Friedman, II, §§ iii and iv.
213 mixed-alphabet polyalphabetic solutions: Gaines, ch. 18; Givierge, ch. 7; Sacco, §§ 91 and 92; Eyraud, chs. 9 and 10; Friedman, II, §§ iv-x.
Chapter 7 CRISES OF THE UNION
I am grateful to Watt P. Marchman of the Rutherford B. Hayes Library for reading the draft of the section of this chapter dealing with the 1876 telegrams.
214 Stager: DAB.
214 early history of route cipher: William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph during the Civil War
in the United States (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co., 1882), 1,44.
214 nulls: See, for example, NA, RG 109, message of June 1, 1863, to Sheldon from Thos. T. Eckert, and accompanying deciphering chart.
215 diagonals: Plum, II, 372.
215 Beckwith: Plum, I, 55.
215 12 and 36 pages: Plum, I, 56; David Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York: Century Co., 1907), 53.
215 series of 12: Plum, I, 47-56.
215 department ciphers: Plum, I, 59.
215 polyalphabetics and Hawley: Albert J. Myer, A Manual of Signals, new ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868), 307-311, plate XXVII. Brigadier General Myer founded the Signal Corps, which competed with the U.S. Military Telegraph. One of his patents, No. 50,946, is a kind of cipher disk.
215 sample encipherment: NA, RG 109. Cipher No. 9 is reproduced in full in Plum, II, 370-377.
215 Eckert: DAB.
215 telegraph office: Bates, 38, 144, 147.
216 “Outside the members”: Bates, 9, 3, 7.
216 raisins: Bates, 41; Albert Chandler, “Lincoln and the Telegrapher,” American Heritage, XII (April, 1961), 32-33, reprinted from an uncited issue of the Sunday Magazine.
216 fast: Bates, 199.
216 over shoulders: Bates, 40.
216 Jeffy D: Bates, 205.
216 Beauregard: William E. Beard, “YIYKAEJR GZQSYWX,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, XLIV (August, 1918), 1829-1836 at 1831. This article cites the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies for the systems described.
216 Davis: Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923), V, 225. Ciphers also mentioned on 396, 452, 475, 476, 532, 539.
217 Maffìtt, Semmes: Beard, 1830, 1831.
217 Vigenère: For example, NA, RG 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Office of the Secretary of War, Telegrams Received, 1865, Nos. 3900-4210, has all enciphered messages apparently in Vigenère. Vigenère messages also occur in many other places in the Confederate archives. “A Civil War Secret Service Code,” ed. John G. Westover, The Journal of Southern History, VII (November, 1942), 556-557, depicts a Vigenère held, not by a secret agent, but by a general in the Missouri State Guards. Cipher disk in NA, RG 109, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, folder D10, OSO, 1865.
217 Cunningham: Plum, I, 40.
217 “It would sometimes”: U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1886), II, 207-208.
218 Johnston message and solution: Beard, 1834; Bates, 68-71.
218 Devoe: Beard, 1832.
218 Keith cryptogram: Bates, 71-76; Bates, “A Rebel Cipher Despatch,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, No. 577 (June, 1898), 105-109; Plum, I, 41.
220 6,500,000: W. G. Fuller, “The Corps of Telegraphers under General Anson Stager during the War of the Rebellion,” in Sketches of War History, 1861-1865, Papers Read Before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1886-1888 (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1888), II, 392-04 at 398.
220 tapped: Beard, 1829.
220 newspapers: Plum, I, 60.
220 captures and new lists: Plum, I, 47, 49, 52, 55.
220 Booth: Theodore Roscoe, The Web of Conspiracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959), 186 and photographs following 274.
220 cipher reel: Roscoe, 277-279 and photographs; Benn Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators, facsimile ed. (New York: Funk: and Wagnalls, 1954), 41. Myer, plate XXVII, depicts one.
221 Deuel: Roscoe, 455; Pitman, 42.
221 last message: Philip Van Doren Stern, Secret Missions of the Civil War (Chicago; Rand McNally & Co., 1959), 320.
221 641: Edward S. Holden, “The Cipher Dispatches,” The International Review, VI (1879), 405-424 at 408-410.
222 leak, editorials: Harry W. Baehr, Jr., The New York Tribune Since the Civil War (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936), 170.
222 more dispatches: Baehr, 171.
222 subscriber suggestions: Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921), I, 411.
222 Saratoga: Cortissoz, 410.
222 Patrick message: Holden, 411; Baehr, 168; House of Representatives, Select Committee on Alleged Frauds in the Presidential Election Investigation, Presidential Election Investigation, 45:3, Miscellaneous Document 31, Part IV, “Testimony Relating to Cipher Telegrams” (GPO, 1879), 111-112. Referred to hereafter in this chapter as “Testimony.”
223 September 4: Cortissoz, 412.
223 Hassard: DAB; Baehr, 27, 128; James J. Walsh, “John R. G. Hassard,” The Catholic World, XCVII (June, 1913), 349-359; Blanche Mary Kelly, “John Rose Greene Hassard,” United States Catholic Historical Society: Historical Records and Studies, XV (March, 1921), 19-34.
223 Grosvenor interested: The Cipher Dispatches (New York Tribune: Extra No. 44: New York, 1879), ii. This publication, which reprinted the Tribune stories with a foreword by Reid, is referred to hereafter as Tribune Extra No. 44.
223 Grosvenor: DAB; Baehr, 134.
224 Reid quotation: Cortissoz, 413.
225 Holden: DAB.
225 Holden quotation: “Testimony,” 326.
225 Hassard-Grosvenor priority: “Testimony,” 112, by Reid.
225 transposition system: New York Tribune, October 7, 1878; Holden, 420-423; John R. G. Hassard, “Cryptography in Politics,” North American Review, CXXVIII (March, 1879), 315-325 at 322-325; Paul L. Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Election (1906, reprinted Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1927), 318.
226 Holden description: “Testimony,” 326.
226 multiple anagramming: Gaines, 56-59; Sacco, § 76.
227 geodesy: Holden, 412; Hassard, 322; Tribune Extra No. 44, iii.
227 other ciphers: Hassard, 319-321; Holden, 413.
227 all but three: Tribune Extra No. 44, iii.
229 results of publication: Haworth, 320-321; Baehr, 173; Cortissoz, 423.
229 Tilden: Haworth, 323-326; Alexander C. Flick, Samuel Jones Tilden: A Study in Political Sagacity (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939), 435.
229 Sun: quoted in Baehr, 173.
229 “As a result”: Flick, 437.
229 “It had pilloried”: Cortissoz, 424.
Chapter 8 THE PROFESSOR, THE SOLDIER, AND THE MAN ON DEVIL’S ISLAND
230 Kerckhoffs biography: France, Archives Nationales, F17 22927 and F17 40236. These are Kerckhoffs’ dossiers as a high school teacher and as a member of the Académie de Paris. Previous works are listed opposite title page of La cryptographic militaire, his memberships and posts on title page. He is buried in Paris’ Cimetière de Montparnasse.
231 Volapük: L. Couturat and L. Leau, Histoirede la Langue Universelle (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1903), xxx, 142-151; Albert Leon Guérard, A Short History of the International Language Movement (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1922), 97, 103, 135-136.
233 Kerckhoffs: “La Cryptographie Militaire,” Journal des Sciences militaries, 9th series, IX (January, 1883), 5-38; (February, 1883), 161-191. Future page references will be to the book, published under the same title in 1883 by Librairie Militaire de L. Baudoin & Cie., Paris. An English translation was made in 1964 by Warren T. McCready of the University of Toronto; it circulates in manuscript.
233 features in book: “Austrian writer,” 24; wire service dispatch, 41; German practice and French ciphers, 4-6; Wheatstone, 62.
233 “I have therefore thought”: Kerckhoffs, v.
234 field ciphers in 1600s: Kerckhoffs, 3-4.
234 “It is necessary”: Kerckhoffs, 8.
234 “I am stupefied”: Kerckhoffs, 6-7.
235 six requirements: Kerckhoffs, 8.
235 “the secret matter”: Kerckhoffs, 9.
235 “the material part of the system”: Kerckhoffs, 10.
235 “not require secrecy”: Kerckhoffs, 8.
235 “a process that”: Kerckhof
fs, 10.
235 “it is not necessary”: Kerckhoffs, 10.
236 superimposition: Kerckhoffs, 48-52.
236 Krohn: Buchstaben- und Zahlen-systeme für die Chiffrierung von Telegram-men, Briefen und Postkarten (Theobald Grieben); Kerckhoffs, 37.
237 symmetry of position: Kerckhoffs, 46-48.
238 latent symmetry of position: Gaines, 175-184; Friedman, II, 52-77, 119-129; Sacco, §§91(d), 96; articles in The Cryptogram for April-May, 1943, February-March and April-May, 1948, February-March, 1949, July-August, 1958, and, probably the best, October-November, 1950.
238 St.-Cyr slides: Kerckhoffs, 27-29.
240 second-rate writers: See Galland; [Yves Gyldén], “Bibliographie cryptologique,” in Edmond Locard, Traité de criminalistique (Lyon: Joannès Desvigne, 1935), VI, 904-931; and André Lange and E.-A. Soudart, Traité de Cryptographie (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1925), bibliography at iii-xii.
240 Josse: “La cryptographie et ses applications à l’art militaire,” Revue Maritime et Coloniale, LXXXIV (February, 1885), 391-432; (March, 1885), 640-699. This was published as a book in 1885 by Librairie Militaire de L. Baudoin & Cie., Paris. “Pencil and paper,” 695. “M. Kerckhoffs, whose name,” 668.
240 de Viaris biography: Service Historique, Ministère des Armées (Marine), letter, October 25, 1962; Musée Nationale de la Légion d’Honneur, dossier of de Viaris.
240 de Viaris cipher machine: H. Léauté, “Sur les Mécanismes Cryptographiques de M. de Viaris,” Le Génie Civil, XIII (September 1, 1888), 278-281.
240 Vinay and Gaussin: mentioned in Th. du Moncel, Exposé des applications de l’électricité (Paris: Librairie Scientifique, Industrielle, et Agricole, 1874), III, 529-538. Kerckhoffs, 61, says that the device, though portable, is still too big for wartime use and that cryptographically it has no value whatsoever. It was never patented (Institut Nationale de la Propriété Industrielle, letter, July 1, 1964), and I have not been able to find a description. First names from their joint French patent, No. 80,186.
240 de Viaris in Génie Civil: XIII (1888) (May 12), 24-27; (May 19), 38-39; (May 26), 55-56; (June 2), 72-75; (June 9), 84-88; (June 16), 104-107. The book is Cryptographie (Paris: Publications du Journal Le Génie Civil, 1888).