by DAVID KAHN
57 “Please go out,” Miles, Marshall call back: 9:4524-5.
57 Kramer orders folders, S.I.S. decrypts: 8:3908-9, 9:4017, 37:1084.
57 INGO DENPO: 36:83, 9:3970-1.
58 Kramer at White House: 11:5481.
58 Kramer perspires, corrects INGO DENPO: 9:4109, 9:3971, 36:343, 349.
58 Safford estimates, GY log: 33:779, 37:1084.
59 delay: Grew, 497; Butow, 391.
59 Grew sees Togo: Grew, 486-487; Togo, 219-220.
60 Marshall sees 1 p.m. message: 3:1108-9, 33:822, 9:4546-7, 15:1633.
60 Stark: 5:2184.
60 Marshall message: 15:1640.
60 scrambler: 3:1173, 1289, 1212-3, 29:2313, 2:934. See “Censors, Scramblers, and Spies” chapter for German solutions.
60 transmission of warning message: 14:1409-10, 3:1523, 23:1102-3, 27:109, 29:2311, 34:33, 22:237-238; Thompson, 9-10.
61 “I passed solemnly”: Togo, 223.
62 “To,” “Tora”: Fuchida, 947-948.
62 “The Japanese envoys”: Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), II, 1095-7.
62 Togo exonerates, talking point: Togo, 210-213; Butow, 383.
63 IMFTE charge: IMTFE, Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (November, 1948), Appendix A-6. Violation of the Third Hague Convention was made a part of many of the counts, including the chief ones accusing the Japanese leaders of waging wars of aggression.
64 Fuchikama delivery: Lord, 174-175; PHA, 7:3163-4, 11:5297.
65 destruction of U.S. codes: 16:1950-5; Letter of Grew to William D. Mitchell, Box 5, Records of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, NA, RG 128.
66 Honolulu burning: 22:192, 23:873, 28:1545, 10:5109, 5114.
66 “Nothing coming”: 37:983, 996. The message in question (37:1001-2) seems, however, to be properly encoded. Worksheets at 38:181, 257; ciphertext at 38:237; plaintext at 12:269.
66 solves others: 37:996.
66 Kramer breaks out charts, Marshall comment: 36:345, 3:1138.
66 Kühn system not used, he imprisoned: 35:320, 331, 13:639; Don Whitehead, The FBI Story (New York: Random House, 1956), 344.
67 winds execute: 18:3327.
67 F.D.R. speech: Report, 443.
67 “contributed enormously”: Report, 232.
Chapter 2 THE FIRST 3,000 YEARS
71 Egyptian cryptography: three articles by Etienne Drioton, “La cryptographic égyptienne,” Revue Lorraine d’Anthropologies, VI (1933-1934), 5-28; “Essai sur la cryptographic privée de la fin de la XVIIIe dynastie,” Revue d’Egyptologie, I (1933), 1-50, at 1 for Khnumhotep’s tomb, and 49-50 for reasons for the use of cryptography; “Proéedé acrophonique ou principe consonantale,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’égypte, XLIII (1943), 319-349. Price E. Newberry, Beni Hasan, I, Archeological Survey of Egypt, ed. F. L. Griffith (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1893), 2, 56, for description of Khnumhotep’s tomb and inscription; the author refers to the scribe’s many “blunders.” H. W. Fairman, in two articles (“Notes on the Alphabetic Signs Employed in the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of the Temple of Edfu,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte, XLIII (1943), 193-310, and “An Introduction to the Study of Ptolemaic Signs and Their Values,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientate, XLIII (1945), 51-138, esp. at 52-54) vigorously attacks the whole idea of hieroglyphic cryptography. I have tried to take into account those of his criticisms which seem valid. But too many other Egyptologists consider the inscriptions in question cryptographic for the cryptography to be, as Fairman says, “a figment of the imagination” of Drioton. See the many references in Drioton’s articles; see also Gustave Lefebre, Grammaire de l’Égyptien Classique, 2nd ed. (Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1955), 38-39; Eric Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (Copenhagen: Gad, 1962). I am grateful to Eric Young of the Department of Egyptian Art of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for calling my attention to Fairman’s works and for clarifying some hieroglyphic obscurities for me.
73 Chinese cryptography: letters, Kwang-chih Chang of the Department of Anthropology, Yale University, June 25 and July 7, 1963, for “la wan”; Lien-sheng Yang, professor of Chinese history, Harvard University, July 20, 1963, for military code; Y. R. Chao of the Department of Oriental Languages, University of California, October 14, 1964, for impracticality of deformation of ideographs; Owen Lattimore, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Leeds, March 13, 1964. Chaoying Fang, interview at his office in Columbia University, November 18, 1963. None knew of any actual use of cryptography in pre-Western China. The Library of Congress reported, May 18, 1962, that the only evidence it could find for pre-Western Chinese or Japanese secret communications involved the recognition signs of secret societies, such as the Black Dragon Society; these are made with teacups or chopsticks; I have not included them. Chaoying Fang, “Yin-t’ang,” in Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, ed. Arthur W. Hummel, The Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), II, 927-929. The full citation for “Essentials from Military Classics” is Wu-ching tsung-yao, ch’ien-chi 15.12a-13b, in Ssu-k’u cKuan-shu chen-pen, ch’u-chi. For oral secrecy, Y. R. Chao, “Eight Varieties of Secret Language Based on the Principle of Fanchieh,” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, II (1931), 312-354, in Chinese; I have not read it.
74 Indian cryptography: T. C. H. Raper, assistant keeper, India Office Library, letters, March 2, April 1, May 21, June 17, 1964; these gave me all my references and include some translations of hitherto untranslated items. Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra, trans. Dr. R. Shamasastry, 4th ed. (Mysore: Sri Raghuveer Printing Press, 1951), Book I, chs. 12 and 16 (at pp. 21 and 31). Lalita-Vistara, or Memoirs of the Early Life of Sakya Sinha, trans. Rajendralala Mitra, Bibliotheca Indica (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1882-1886), ch. 10 (at 182-184). Ibid., notes at 186-187, and Raper, March 2, 1964, for Kāma-sūtra and Yaśodhara; Raper observes that Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation (reprinted New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1962), incorrectly uses the word “cypher” in connection with the preceding (44th) yoga. Anil Baran Ganguly, Sixty-Four Arts in Ancient India (New Delhi: The English Book Store, 1962), 168-174, for specific forms of secret communications. A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (1954, reprinted New York: Grove Press, 1959), 121, 183, mentions cryptography in its social context.
75 cuneiform cryptography: C. J. Gadd and R. Campbell Thompson, “A Middle-Babylonian Chemical Text,” Iraq, III (1936), 87-96, and letters, Dr. Benno Landsberger, January 27, 1964, and Dr. A. Leo Oppenheim, February 21, 1964, both of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, for glaze text. O[tto]. Neugebauer, ed., Astronomical Cuneiform Texts (Princeton, N.J.: Institute for Advanced Study, by Lund Humphries: London, 1955), I, 11, 161-163, for lunar-eclipse tablet. Erle Leichty, “The Colophon,” in Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1964), 147-154 at 152-153; Musée du Louvre, Département des antiquités orientales, Tablettes d’Uruk, ed. F. Thureau-Dangin, Textes cunéiformes, VI (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1922), No. 51, and F. Thureau-Dangin, “L’exaltation d’Istar,” Revue d’assyriologie, XI (1914), 141-158, for Ishtar tablet. France, Ministère de l’éducation Nationale et des Beaux-Arts, Textes Scolaires de Suse, ed. P. E. v. d. Meer, Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique de Perse, XXVII (Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1935), Nos. 233 and 234, for possible code lists. The references cited by v. d. Meer do not throw any light on this problem. I am greatly indebted to Dr. William W. Hallo, curator, Babylonian Collection, Yale University Library, who furnished me with these references and helped me with a number of details in letters of November 22, 1963, and September 8 and October 12, 1964, and at an interview, spring, 1964. E. Weidner, “Geheimschrift,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie, eds. Erich Ebeling and Bruno Meissn
er (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1964), III, 185-188, and R. Borger, “Geheimwissen,” Ibid., 188-191, cover the subject thoroughly but came to my attention too late for use.
77 Sheshach: almost any edition of the Bible will cite SHESHACH as a cipher for Babel or Babylon. The earliest traditional reference I could find was Midrash Rabbah, Numbers, 18:21, trans. Judah H. Slotki, eds. Rabbi H. Freedman and Maurice Simon (London: Soncino Press, 1939), 739. The commentaries on Scripture are endless, but among the best on SHESHACH that I have found are “Sheshach” in Encyclopedia Biblica, eds. T. K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1903), which proposes “editorial manipulation” as a probable answer; A. S. Peake, ed., Jeremiah and Lamentations, II, The New-Century Bible (New York: Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1912), 20-21. Both have extensive references. Later studies do not add anything. Dr. John Paterson, Drew University, letter, February 16, 1964, suggests that SHESHACH may be “a tour de force on the part of a late scribe.” “Jeux des Moines,” Intermédiate des Chercheurs et Curieux (May, 1958), cols. 389-391, for monks’ word games.
77 Leb Kamai: The earliest traditional reference that I could find is Targum Jonathan, Jeremiah 51:1; I am indebted to Harry Sherman for a translation of the latter. “Leb-Kamai” in Encyclopedia Biblica suggests that the encipherment could be “the trifling of a scribe in athbash,” but could also be a corruption of other words.
77 atbash: The system seems never to be explained in the traditional literature, only used. It is used in: Babylonian Talmud, Seder Mo’ed, Shabbath, 104a, trans. Rabbi H. Freedman, ed. Rabbi Isidore Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1938), 501-502; Babylonian Talmud, Seder Mo’ed, Megillah, 6a, trans. Maurice Simon, ed. Rabbi H. Freedman (London: Soncino Press, 1938), 29, note 11 to Rashi’s interpretation; Palestinian Talmud, Ta’anith, III, 67a; Pesikta Rabbati, 43:181b, for the translation of both of which I am indebted to Harry Sherman. I am grateful to Dr. Abraham J. Heschel, professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, for these references. For discussions, see “Cryptography,” Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, and Solomon Gandz, “Hebrew Numerals,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, IV (1932-1933), 53-112 at 89, 94.
78 albam: notes to the Midrash Rabbah, Soncino edition, at 739, explain albam.
78 TABEEL: Despite the Midrash Rabbah, neither “Tabeel,” Encyclopedia Biblica, nor George B. Gray and Arthur S. Peake, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons), 118, even mention a cipher, regarding it as a corruption or a contemptuous epithet.
79 Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego: James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary of the Book of Daniel, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927), 112-123, 128-130.
79 atbah: Babylonian Talmud, Seder Mo’ed, Sukkah, 52b, ed. Rabbi I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1938), 249. Notes give a clear explanation.
79 handwriting on the wall: Daniel 5. Montgomery, 262-264, is the clearest explanation; Gordon, interview, spring, 1963. Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nizikin, Sanhedrin, 22a, ed. Rabbi I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1935), 121-122, suggests that the writing was in atbash or a transposition as a possible explanation for the difficulty of solution; no evidence exists to support either hypothesis. See also John D. Prince, Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin (Baltimore, 1893), and E. G. Kraeling, “The Handwriting on the Wall,” Journal of Biblical Literature, LXIII (1944), 11-18.
80 Homer: Iliad vi. 168ff. Trans. E. V. Rieu (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1950), 120. “Deciphered” is not to be taken literally, of course. I have recently learned that Chr. Johnen, Geschichte der Stenographic (Berlin, 1911), says, 106-111, that the oldest Greek cryptographic text is that of the Acropolis stone, fourth century B.C.
81 Herodotus: i.123-124; v.35; vii.239. Trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1954), 498 for Demaratus story.
82 skytale: Thucydides i.131; Plutarch Parallel Lives: Lysander xix.4-7; Xenophon Hell. iii.3(8). The seventh-century-B.C. poet Archilochus uses the term “skytale” to designate an apparently nonsecret communication in No. 224 of his Fragments, trans. André Bonnard (Paris: Société d’édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1958); see also Introduction at lxxi. For other uses of the term, see “skytale” in Liddell & Scott, Greek Lexicon.
82 Aeneas: xxxi. For commentary, Hermann Diels, Antike Technik (Leipzig: Teubner, 1920), ch. 4.
83 Polybius: Histories x.43-47.
83 Caesar: Gallic Wars v.48.
84 Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars: Julius 56, Augustus 88.
84 Caesar’s more complicated ciphers and Probus’ treatise: Aulus Gellius Attic Nights xvii.9.
84 cryptography not uncommon: C. Iul. Victor Ars rhet. 17 de epist., ed. C. Halm Rhet. lat. min. (Leipzig, 1863), 448. For other references to cryptology in classic literature, see Viktor Gardthausen, Griechische Palaeographie, (1879, reprinted Leipzig: Verleg von Veit, 1911), vol. II, part III, ch. 4, “Kryptographie”; W. Süss, “Über antike Geheimschreibemethoden und ihr Nachleben,” Philologus, LXXVIII (June, 1922), 142-175; Edgar C. Reinke, “Classical Cryptography,” The Classical Journal, LVIII (December, 1962), 113-121.
84 Cicero: Letters: ad Att. ii.14, 16, 17, 20, 23.
84 Yezidis, Tibetans, Nsibidi: David Diringer, The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, 2nd ed. (New York: Philosophical Library [1949?]), 296-299, 355, 148-149.
85 Thailand: O. Frankfurter, “Secret Writing in Siamese,” The Journal of the Siam Society, III (1902), 62-72. 85 Maldive Islands: Diringer, 393.
85 Malaya: R. A. Kern, “A Malay Cipher Alphabet,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, XXXVIII (1908), 207-211 and plate xvii.
85 Armenia: Prof. Werner Winter, “Armenian Cryptography: Notes on Some Samples in the Collection of H. Kurdian, Wichita, Kansas,” The Armenian Review, VIII (Autumn, 1955), 53-56.
86 Persia: Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist, ed. Gustav Flügel (Leipzig, 18711872), 14, for shah-dabiriya and raz-sahriya. I am grateful to Miss J. R. Watson, India Office Library, letter, November 4, 1964, for this reference and a translation. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā as-Sulī, Adab alkuttāb, ed. Muḥ. Bahjat al-Atharī (Cairo, 1341/1922-3), 186-187 for birds and lunar mansions.
86 St. Jeremias graffiti: J. E. Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara (1907-1908) (Cairo: Service des Antiquités de l’égypte, 1909), 67, 13, 58, 10. On Coptic cryptography in general, Jean Doresse, “Cryptographie Copte et Cryptographie Grecque,” Bulletin de l’Institut d’Égypte, XXXIII (1950-1951), 215-228.
86 oldest surviving cipher key: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Egyptian Expedition: The Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1926), II, item 616. Henry C. Fischer of the Department of Egyptian Art kindly made the ostracon itself—Accession No. 14.1.219—available for my inspection.
86 runes: R. Derolez, Runica Manuscripta: The English Tradition (Bruges: De Tempel, 1954), lx, 89, 133-146; Ralph W. V. Elliott, Runes: An Introduction (Manchester: University Press, 1959), 1-2, 43-44, 85, 107; George Stephens, The Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1884), III, 42-47.
88 ogham: R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Secret Languages of Ireland (Cambridge: University Press, 1937), 18-19, 28, 38-59; Auraicept na n-eces: The Scholar’s Primer, ed. George Calder (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1917), 272-299, 300-319; The Book of Ballymote [a facsimile], ed. Robert Atkinson (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy House, 1887), 311-314.
89 medieval cryptography: Bernhard Bischoff, “Übersicht über die Nicht-diplomatischen Geheimschriften des Mittelalters,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtforschung, LXII (1954), 27 pages listing nearly all known occurrences; Gardthausen. “Jeux des Moines” for a broader picture of scribes’ word and letter games.
89 St. Boniface: Wilhelm Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), 138-139 and Appendix VIII, “St. Boniface and Cryptography,” 290-294.
89 Sylvester II: Julien Havet, “L’écriture secret de Gerbert,” Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: Comptes-Rendus, 4th series, XV (1887), 94-112 at 97, 98. For quasi-cryptographic stenography, see his “La tachygraphie italienne du Xe siecle,” Ibid., 351-374, and Emile Chatelain, “La tachygraphie latine,” Revue des Bibliothèques (January-March, 1902), 40 pages.
89 Hildegard von Bingen: Bischoff, §60.
89 Dubthach: James F. Kenney, The Sources of the Early History of Ireland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929), I, 556; R. Derolez, “Dubthach’s Cryptogram,” L’ Antiquité Classique, XXI (1952), 359-375.
90 Bacon: Roger Bacon’s Letter Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art and of Nature and Concerning the Nullity of Magic, trans. Tenney L. Davis (Easton: Chemical Publishing Co., 1923), 39-41; William R. Newbold, The Cipher of Roger Bacon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928), 25-26. On the work in general, Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926-1958), II, 659-661.
90 Chaucer: The Equatorie of the Planetis, ed. Derek J. Price (Cambridge: University Press, 1955), Appendix I, “Cipher Passages in the Manuscript,” 182-187; 75, 77, 78, 79, 85, 87.
