The Woman Who Smashed Codes

by Jason Fagone

  “Exciting, round-the-clock adventures” ESF, “foreword to uncompleted work,” box 9, folder 11, ESF Collection. A six-page manuscript with handwritten corrections by ESF.

  same kinds of call signs L. T. Jones, “History of OP-20-GU (Coast Guard Unit of NCA),” October 16, 1943, RG 38, CNSG Library, box 115, 5750/193, NARA.

  bearing fixes Ibid.

  189 “the goose that lays the golden eggs” WFF, “Communications Intelligence and Security Presentation Given to Staff and Students” (lecture, Breckinridge Hall, Marine Corps School, April 26, 1960), 22.

  “even more secret” ESF interview with Benson.

  adulterations of commercial codes “History of USCG Unit #387,” 5–7.

  “the pie circuit” Ibid., 11.

  giving away Ibid., 8.

  190 “an entering wedge” Ibid., 62.

  common German words Ibid., 62–67.

  anagram the letters Ibid.

  191 eleven letters of the alphabet Ibid., 5–7.

  Durchwalken Ibid.

  192 “the following was produced” Ibid.

  messages that used For The Story of San Michele as a book cipher, see Sterling, “History of the Radio Intelligence Division,” 80. For Soñar la vida and O Servo De Deus, see “History of USCG Unit #387,” 20.

  One Nazi spy proposed Hamburg to Rio, October 31, 1941, RG 457, SRIC, No. 3810.

  a sophisticated process Sterling, “History of the Radio Intelligence Division,” 60–61. See also “History of USCG Unit #387,” 67, and ESF’s marginalia on newspaper clippings in Item 1006.1, WFF Collection.

  193 become the governess ESF’s annotated, working copy of All This and Heaven Too, Item 1006, WFF Collection, 15.

  195 753,506 . . . Craig P. Bauer, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2013), 255.

  196 first adopted them in 1926 “The Man, the Machine, the Choice,” in David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-boat Codes, 1939–1943 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991).

  Polish codebreakers were the first Bauer, Secret History, 256–83.

  197 dramatically more powerful Ibid.

  “search engines for the keys” Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma (London: Vintage, 2014), xviii.

  one to five messages per day “History of USCG Unit #387,” 216–30. All details from the coast guard’s solution to this first Enigma machine are documented here.

  200 a linguist and scholar Mavis Batey, “Knox, (Alfred) Dillwyn (1884–1943),” 2004, rev. ed. 2006, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37641.

  201 “This recovery of wiring” “History of USCG Unit #387,” 230.

  202 separate dining rooms Kent Boese, “Lost Washington: Harvey’s Restaurant,” Greater Greater Washington, June 23, 2009, https://ggwash.org/view/2073/lost-washington-harveys-restaurant.

  “Penalty of Leadership” “Biography of John Edgar Hoover,” John Edgar Hoover Foundation, http://www.jedgarhooverfoundation.org/hoover-bio.asp.

  a Caesar salad Pamela Kessler, Undercover Washington: Where Famous Spies Lived, Worked, and Loved (Sterling, VA: Capital Books, 2005), 35–36.

  203 poured wine into the cryptologist’s glass ESF interview with Benson.

  He got rid of them Michael Newton, The FBI Encyclopedia (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003), s.v. “women agents,” 374.

  a secret dossier Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), e-book, location 5837.

  “dangerous than a man” Henry M. Holden, FBI 100 Years: An Unofficial History (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press, 2008), 37.

  “don’t tell ’em any secrets” Ibid.

  204 a public-relations disaster Raymond J. Batvinis, The Origins of FBI Counter-Intelligence (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007), 10–26.

  a lot of bad blood British Security Coordination, The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940–1945 (New York: Fromm International, 1999), 468.

  “that Jew in the Treasury” Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, location 7845.

  “J. Edgar Hoover is a man” British Security Coordination, The Secret History, 3.

  204 “It was once remarked” Ibid., 468.

  205 “no attack is so unlikely” Roosevelt, “Message to Congress on Appropriations.”

  “our teeming seaboard cities” Knox, “Our Heavy Responsibilities.”

  “the common defense” J. Edgar Hoover, “How the Nazi Spy Invasion Was Smashed,” The American Magazine (September 1944): 20–21, 94–100.

  a historic expansion FBI, “History of the SIS Division,” vol. 1, NARA, three PDF files provided by Richard McGaha.

  The first five SIS agents Ibid.

  was actually Portuguese Transcript of John J. Walsh (former SIS agent) interview with Stanley A. Pimentel, May 19, 2003, National Law Enforcement Museum, 25–26, http://www.nleomf.org/museum/the-collection/oral-histories/john-j-walsh.html.

  206 The FBI had neither British Security Coordination, The Secret History, 468.

  She was to teach codebreaking ESF interview with Benson.

  She read pacifist poetry All her life, Elizebeth wrote and typed copies of her favorite poems and kept them, including “Patterns” by Amy Lowell, about a young woman whose lover is killed in the First World War, and “Ultimatum for Man,” a 1940 poem by Peggy Pond Church, a pacifist poet and schoolteacher in New Mexico whose land was taken by the government to build the Los Alamos facility for nuclear-weapons research. See box 11, folder 20, ESF Collection.

  207 “sleep is intermittent” ESF to WFF (addressed to Munitions Building), June 1940, box 2, folder 5, ESF Collection.

  what kind of airline Ibid., June 7, 1940.

  fifty dollars Ibid.

  208 “this morass of debt” WFF to ESF, June 4, 1940, box 3, folder 7, ESF Collection.

  “not for some centuries” Ibid., June 10, 1940.

  CHAPTER 2: MAGIC

  209 One day in September 1940 Frank Rowlett, The Story of Magic: Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer (Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1998), 151–53.

  called her Gene Ibid.

  a professor at George Mason “Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein,” NSA Cryptologic Hall of Honor, https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/hall-of-honor/2010/gfeinstein.shtml.

  209 two patterns Rowlett, The Story of Magic, 151–53. For a deft and clear technical explanation of Grotjan’s insight and the larger process of breaking Purple, see the chapters on Purple in Craig P. Bauer, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2013), 301–10.

  her eyes were beaming Ibid.

  210 “Maybe I was just lucky” Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein, NSA Oral History, May 12, 1991.

  William agreed within seconds Ibid.

  “Suddenly he looked tired” Ibid.

  “The recovery of this machine” Ibid.

  Someone went and got Cokes Ibid.

  “sitting at his desk” Ibid.

  211 September 25, 1940 Jeffrey Kozak, “Marshall & Purple,” Marshall Foundation, http://marshallfoundation.org/blog/marshall-purple/.

  nothing at Purple’s level WFF, “Contributions in the Fields of Communications Security and Communications Intelligence,” undated, NSA.

  a feat on par David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet, rev. ed. (New York: Scribner, 1997).

  they demonstrated it Rowlett, The Story of Magic, 160–64.

  “Last night your magicians” Ibid.

  “By God” Ibid.

  212 “MAGIC Summaries” Kahn, “One Day of MAGIC,” in The Codebreakers, 1–67.

  insisted on getting MAGIC raw David Stafford, “Churchill and Intelligence—Adventures in Shadowland, 1909–1953,” Finest Hour 149 (Winter 2010–11), https://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-149/churchill-and-intelligence-adventures-in-shadowland-1909-1953.

 
“would be wiped out” George C. Marshall to Thomas E. Dewey, September 27, 1944, Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 4: Aggressive and Determined Leadership, Marshall Foundation, http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to -thomas-e-dewey1/.

  213 He said hello ESF interview with Pogue, 24; Rose Mary Sheldon, in discussion with the author, January 2015.

  oily smoke rippling out Ulrich Steinhilper, Spitfire on My Tail: A View from the Other Side (Keston, UK: Independent Books, 2009), 306.

  “The sky seemed full of them” Henry Steele Commager, The Story of World War II, rev. Donald L. Miller (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 38–41.

  213 telephones of Jewish families “Historical Background: The Jews of Hungary During the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem, http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/newsletter/31/jews_hungary.asp.

  America had no standing Charles Lindbergh, “We Will Never Accept a Philosophy of Calamity,” speech, Keep-America-Out-of-War rally, Chicago, August 4, 1940, http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1940/1940-08-04a.html.

  “danger to this country” Charles Lindbergh, “Who Are the War Agitators?” speech, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941, http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech.asp.

  214 British officers began to arrive British Security Coordination, The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940–1945 (New York: Fromm International, 1999), Introduction by Nigel West.

  thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth floors Ibid.

  Ian Fleming Jennet Conant, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 84–86.

  twenty-three-year-old Roald Dahl Ibid., xiv, 10–11.

  He seduced actresses and heiresses Ibid., 99–126.

  “I would do my best to appear calm” Roald Dahl, “Lucky Break,” in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (New York: Puffin, 2000), 201.

  215 “All I can say” Conant, 30.

  planted anti-Nazi information British Security Coordination, The Secret History, 66–87.

  staged protests at rallies Ibid.

  sending gorgeous female spies Ibid., 193–96.

  in the Western Hemisphere Ibid., “Part VII: Counter-Espionage,” 345–403.

  one day in June 1941 Mark Riebling, Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11: How the Secret War Between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (New York: Touchstone, 2002), 3–15; John Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).

  “a chunky enigmatic man” Ibid.; see also John Bryden, Best-Kept Secret: Canadian Secret Intelligence in the Second World War (Toronto: Lester, 1993), 66.

  “no conception of offensive” Ibid., 67.

  216 In July 1941, Roosevelt Thomas F. Troy, “Donovan’s Original Marching Orders,” Studies in Intelligence 17, no. 2 (1973): 39–67, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol17no2/html/v17i2a05p_0001.htm.

  216 “incomparably better” British Security Coordination, The Secret History, 471–72.

  “The whole system” Ibid.

  a husky, apple-cheeked colonel James Chadwick, “Frederick John Marrian Stratton, 1881–1960,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 7 (November 1961): 280–93.

  217 looked like Santa Claus ESF interview with Benson.

  The British operated Bob King, “The RSS from 1939 to 1946,” November 22, 1944.

  He wanted assistance “History of USCG Unit #387,” Foreword.

  others relied on “turning grilles” Ibid., 68–84.

  made special devices and tools Jones, “History of OP-20-GU.”

  218 “Fireside Chat” radio speech Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat 16: On the Arsenal of Democracy,” December 29, 1940, University of Virginia Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-29-1940-fireside-chat-16-arsenal-democracy.

  36 minutes and 56 seconds Ibid.

  Hitler responded Associated Press, “ ‘God With Us Up to Now,’ Hitler Says: Victory Sure in 1941 Army Men Are Told,” The Brownsville Herald, December 31, 1940.

  climbed into the blacked-out streets Associated Press, “Charred London Greets ’41 With Cry ‘To Hell With Hitler,’ ” Washington Post, January 1, 1941.

  January 4, 1941 Ronald Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple: Life of Colonel William F. Friedman, Who Deciphered the Japanese Code in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), 158.

  the Neuropsychiatric Section Mary W. Standlee, Borden’s Dream: The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. (Washington, D.C.: Borden Institute, 2007), 214, 299–304, 334–36.

  219 keeping the mentally ill out of the army William C. Porter, “Psychiatry and the Selective Service,” War Medicine 1 (May 1941): 364–71.

  processing rather than healing Major M. R. Kaufman (physician assigned to Neuropsychiatric Section at Walter Reed), “The Problem of the Psychopath in the Army,” in Proceedings of the Annual Congress of Correction of the American Prison Association 89 (1942): 128–38.

  presumed to be less stressful William C. Porter, “The Military Psychiatrist at Work,” The American Journal of Psychiatry 98, no. 3 (November 1941): 317–23.

  220 interfered with his ability to function Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 159.

  “the patient was isolated” Ibid.

  “mood swings” ESF to Ronald Clark, March 9, 1976, box 13, folder 30, ESF Collection.

  221 sailed across the Atlantic Robert L. Benson, “The Origin of U.S.-British Intelligence Cooperation (1940–1941),” Cryptologic Spectrum 7, no. 4 (1977): 5–8.

  “anxiety reaction” Ibid., 159.

  discharged him on March 22 Ibid.

  honorably discharged Ibid.

  temporary employee “ ‘Court-martial’ proceedings against William F. Friedman,” box 13, file 14, ESF Collection.

  CHAPTER 3: THE HAUPTSTURMFÜHRER AND THE FUNKMEISTER

  223 No code is ever completely solved ESF interview with Pogue, 79.

  224 “one of the most active” U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, memorandum, re: Siegfried Becker, Francis E. Crosby to FBI Director, February 15, 1944, RG 65, box 18, 64-27116, NARA.

  a “deft Teutonic hand” Francis E. Crosby, “Memorandum for the Ambassador,” February 4, 1944, RG 65, box 18, 64-27116, NARA.

  He held the rank Richard L. McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage: Nazi Diplomats and Spies in Argentina, 1933–1945” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio University, 2009), 22.

  “a sign of our loyalty” U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, memorandum, Subject: Johannes Siegfried Becker, Francis E. Crosby to J. Edgar Hoover, November 22, 1944, including British translations of documents belonging to Becker, RG 65, box 18, 64-27116, NARA.

  by direct or indirect steps Crosby, “Memorandum for the Ambassador.”

  “disliked his manner” “CSDIC Preliminary Interrogation Report on Heinrich VOLBERG,” February 25, 1946, Records of the Security Service, KV2/89, TNA.

  359,966 McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage,” 211.

  five foot ten U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Radio CEL, Albrecht Gustav Engels, Was., Et Al., Brazil—Espionage,” RG 38, CNSG Library, box 77, NARA, 36.

  225 impregnating the wife McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage,” 236.

  grotesquely long fingernails Charles F. Hemphill Jr., “Re: Johannes Siegfried Becker,” April 5, 1944, RG 65, box 18, 64-27116, NARA. “Subject has very unusual fingernails, in that they curve straight down over the tips of his fingers. HANS MUTH stated that this characteristic is so pronounced that they appear to be deformed.”

  225 a Jewish retirement home David Kahn, Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 266.

  five hundred people Ibid.

  German for “informer” McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage,” 185.

  insufficiently ruthless Katrin Paehler, “Espionage, Ideology, and Personal Politics: The Making
and Unmaking of a Nazi Foreign Intelligence Service” (Ph.D. diss., American University, 2002), 46.

  according to an SS handbook Ibid., 215–16.

  “no qualifications whatever” Theodor Paeffgen interrogation by Henry D. Hecksher, September 10, 1945, RG 65, box 183, NARA.

  226 Gestapo thug named Kurt Gross Hedwig Elisabeth Weigelmayer Sommer interrogation by Boyd V. Sheets, RG 65, Classification 64 (IWG), box 211, 11, NARA; see also W. Wendell Blanke, “Interrogation Report of Karl Gustav Arnold,” November 20, 1946, 13, NARA.

  gladly told U.S. interrogators Ibid.

  a Jewish man from Holland Ibid., 59–60.

  “He was an intelligent person” Ibid., 22.

  227 trunkful of explosives McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage,” 231–32.

  he abandoned the sabotage Sommer interrogation, 15.

  carrying a revolver McGaha, “The Politics of Espionage,” 185.

  a broad-shouldered German U.S. Department of Justice, “Radio CEL,” 59–61.

  jittery mechanical engineer “The Starziczny Case,” in Stanley E. Hilton, Hitler’s Secret War in South America 1939–1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), e-book, location 1948; see also U.S. Department of Justice, “Radio CEL,” 124.

  lived with his Brazilian mistress Ibid.

  “the only real professional” U.S. Department of Justice, “Radio CEL,” 58.

  228 the SS Windhuk Sommer interrogation, 17.

  speaking to an American Utzinger interrrogation.

  “acted according to his own lights” Ibid., 26.

  229 “in pursuit of his ends” Utzinger interrogation, enclosure no. 3.

  Vladimir Bezdek Vladimir Bezdek, Official Personnel Folder, National Personnel Records Center, National Archives at St. Louis, requested September 2016.

  229 read dictionaries in his free time Lekan Oguntoyinbo, “Vladimir Bezdek: Retired WSU Professor, Linguist,” Detroit Free Press, May 19, 2000.

  up and running in South America U.S. Department of Justice, “Radio CEL.”

  230 an alphanumeric label “History of USCG Unit #387.”

  JOSE, or JUAN Most of the Brazil decrypts from 1941 and 1942 are in RG 457, subseries SRIC, box 3, SRIC 1793–2591, and box 5, SRIC 3723–3983, NARA; see also Hemphill Jr., “Re: JOHANNES SIEGFRIED BECKER;” U.S. Department of Justice, “Radio CEL.”