by DAVID KAHN
786 “Doubtless nothing”: quoted Friedman, “Poe,” 266.
787 “In the notice”: quoted Friedman, “Poe,” 268.
787 keyphrase cipher: Friedman, “Poe,” 268-270; Gaines, 103.
787 “A Few Words on Secret Writing”: printed in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. A. Harrison (New York, 1902), XIV.
788 “It may be roundly”: quoted Wimsatt, 776. AWM (March 25, 1840), 2:6, (April 22, 1840), 2:3.
788 “scraps of erudition,” sources: Wimsatt, 767-771.
788 “in his own intellect”: quoted Wimsatt, 769.
788 Thomas episode: Friedman, “Poe,” 272-276; Wimsatt, 756-759, 764-765, with facsimile.
788 Blair article: William Blair, “Cipher,” in Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1819), VIII, unpaged. DNB for Blair.
789 Poe’s borrowings from Blair: Wimsatt, 771-775, with facsimile.
789 “Out of a thousand”: quoted Friedman, “Poe,” 277.
789 sources for “The Gold-Bug”: William Bittner, Poe: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1962), 184-185; Hervey Allen, Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1927), I, 209-220.
789 publication history of “The Gold-Bug”: Bittner, 185-186; Famous Stories of Code and Cipher, ed. Raymond T. Bond (New York, 1947), introduction to “The Gold-Bug”; Edgar Allan Poe, Oeuvres en Prose, trans. Charles Baudelaire, ed. Y.-G. LeDantec, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), 1081.
790 last cryptographic publication: Wimsatt, 759.
790 correspondence, “I have lost”: Wimsatt, 759-760.
790 absurdities and errors: J. Woodrow Hassell, Jr., “The Problem of Realism in The Gold Bug,’” American Literature, XXV (May, 1953), 179-192; Bittner, 185; Edward Wagenknecht, Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 102-104, bibliography, 241.
791 narrative drive of “The Gold-Bug”: Allen, II, 566; Hassell, 192; Wagenknecht, 104.
791 “I cannot keep,” “How beautiful”: Poe, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1032.
791 “As we follow”: Wimsatt, 779.
792 Poe glamorized cryptology: Wimsatt, 778.
792 success of “The Gold-Bug”: Allen, II, 565-566.
792 Lewis Carroll: frequency list under “Alphabet Cipher” in Modern Library edition of his complete works.
792 “Popular interest”: Friedman, “Poe,” 266.
793 Thackeray: The History of Henry Esmond, Book III, ch. 8.
793 Jules Verne: William F. Friedman, “Jules Verne as Cryptographer,” Articles; Lange & Soudart, Annexe IX, 311-322; Charles W. R. Hooker, “The Jules Verne Cipher,” The Police Journal, IV (January, 1931), 107-109; Voyage au Centre de la Terre (1864), chs. 2-5; La Jangada (1881); Mathias Sandorff (1885), Part I, chs. 1, 3, 4.
794 Sherlock Holmes: in A. Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1938), the cryptogram and solution in “The Valley of Fear,” Part I, ch. 1, appears at 904-907, in “The ‘Gloria Scott,’ ” at 429 and 436-437. The light flashes are in “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” 1066 and 1073, and the word puzzle in “The Musgrave Ritual.”
796 cryptologists sneer: Fletcher Pratt, “The Secret Message of the Dancing Men,” in Profile by Gaslight: An Irregular Reader about the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, ed. Edgar W. Smith (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944), 274-282 at 275; Bond’s introduction to the story in his anthology, Famous Stories of Code and Cipher.
796 dancing-men sources: Albert J. Myer, A Manual of Signals, new ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868), 281; U.S. Patent No. 1,267,640; E. T. Bourg, 181-182. Pratt theorizes that Watson eliminated the real cipher from the story he told and inserted in its place the dancing men, whose 1,568 arm and leg positions form the cipher symbols of a small code in which Holmes recorded a secret account of Moriarty’s gang. He bases this upon the equivalence between the 1,568 possible positions and the statement that Bazeries, after solving a nomenclator of Antoine Rossignol (which Pratt calls Rossignol’s “Great Cipher,” which it was not), “reported that the possible total of characters was exactly 1,568.” This statement is false: Bazeries never said any such thing. (Émile Burgaud and Commandant Bazeries, Le Masque de Fer [Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1893], 257-289.) Nor, in point of fact, is the possible total 1,568. End of theory.
797 errors: original publication is A. Conan Doyle, “The Return of Sherlock Holmes. III: The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” The Strand Magazine, XXVI (December, 1903), 602-617. [Edgar W. Smith], “Addendum,” The Baker Street Journal, V (new series) (April, 1955), 90-91; Bond’s introduction.
797 tables of arm and leg positions: three articles in The Baker Street Journal (new series): Remsen TenEyck Schenck, “Holmes, Cryptanalysis and the Dancing Men,” V (April, 1955), 80-90; Robert H. Pattrick, “A Study in Crypto-Choreography,” V (October, 1955), 205-209; Howard R. Schorin, “Cryptography in the Canon,” XIII (December, 1963), 214-216. Other studies of Holmes’s cryptology are David Shulman, “Sherlock Holmes: Cryptanalyst,” The Baker Street Journal, III (1948), 233-237; Lord Donegall, “Baker Street and Beyond,” The New Strand, I (August, 1962), 1048-1050, II (February, 1963), 1717-1720.
798 Westrell Keen: Robert W. Chambers, The Tracer of Lost Persons (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1906), chs. 9 and 10.
798 Colonel Quaritch, Q.V.: (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1911), chs. 4 and 39. W. Lionel Fraser, All to the Good (London: Heinemann, 1963), 59, for Haggard’s niece and nephew in Room 40.
799 Magnificent Obsession: (1929), chs. 5 and 6.
799 O. Henry: in Bond.
799 Tagore: Cited in Anil Baran Ganguly, Sixty-Four Arts in Ancient India (New Delhi: English Book Store, 1962), 173.
799 The Mystery of the Sea: (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902), frontispiece, ch. 12, Appendices A-D.
799 Christie, Bentley, de la Torre, James: all in Bond.
799 Have His Carcase: (1932), ch. 26.
799 Panic: (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1944).
800 From Russia, With Love: (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957).
800 Dishonored: Pratt, Secret & Urgent; cited also (under film’s other title, X-27) by M. Berry, “De la Cryptographie Musicale,” Revue Internationale de Criminalistique, X (1938), 212-224.
800 The Secret Code: advertising material for the series, in my possession.
800 Elgar’s Enigma: Irving Kolodin, “What is the Enigma?” Saturday Review, XXXVI (February 28, 1953), 53, 55, 71.
801 Jacob Lawrence coded title: “Birth of a Nation,” Time, LXIX (January 14, 1957), 82.
Chapter 22 RUMRUNNERS, BUSINESSMEN, AND MAKERS OF NONSECRET CODES
PAGE
802 rumrunners’ use of radio and codes: Malcolm F. Willoughby, Rum War at Sea (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 105-106; an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, letter of December 17, 1931, to Secretary of State, in folder “Radio Stations, Illicit,” Box 20, Records of U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence Division, NA, RG 26. This folder is henceforth cited simply as “ ‘Radio Stations, Illicit.’ ”
803 hundreds of messages accumulate: Elizebeth Smith (Mrs. William F.) Friedman, “History of Work in Cryptanalysis, April, 1927-June, 1930,” NA, RG 26, at 1. Cited henceforth as “E. S. Friedman.”
803 Prohibition hires Mrs. Friedman, intercept stations: Lieutenant Commander F. J. Gorman, “Memorandum for the Commandant,” October 10, 1930, NA, RG 26, at 2. Cited henceforth as “Gorman.”
803 Mrs. Friedman solves, Housel: E. S. Friedman, 1-3.
803 growth of rumrunners’ cryptography: E. S. Friedman, 3-5.
804 $10,000 a year: Gorman, 4.
804 retired lieutenant commander, Gulf and Atlantic groups make up own codes: Mrs. Friedman, interview, December 2, 1962.
804 “Some of these,” “At no time”: E. S. Friedman, 3.
804 “anchored in harbor” system and message: E. S. Friedman, 6-8.
804 “In this case”: E. S. Friedman, 7.
804 Mrs. Friedman’s offices: Mrs. Friedman, interview, December 2, 1962.
806 12,000 messages solved, customers: E. S. Friedman, 5-6.
806 month in Houston: E. S. Friedman, 4.
806 Meals: Willoughby, 108, 110.
806 CG-210: Willoughby, 109-112; Gorman 2-3. Dates of Friedman’s service from his Army biography.
806 “This intercepted material”: Gorman, 1.
806 radio-intelligence unit: Willoughby, 112-113; Gorman, 5-6 for recommendation.
807 headquarters cryptanalytic unit: “Memorandum Upon a Proposed Central Organization at Coast Guard Headquarters for Performing Cryptanalytic Work” and “Memorandum for Commander Gorman Upon the Personnel for a Proposed Central Organization at Coast Guard Headquarters for Performing Cryptographic and Cryptanalytic Work,” NA, RG 26. Both memoranda are undated and unsigned, but their content, style, purpose, and addressee make it highly likely that Mrs. Friedman wrote them, and I have incorporated this assumption in my text. “For the past several years,” “Fuel maintenance alone,” in “Memorandum upon a Proposed Central Organization” at 2, 7.
808 cryptanalytic unit comes into being: undated remarks by Lieutenant Commander Gorman following Admiral Billard’s speech in “Radio Stations, Illicit.”
808 Coast Guard radiomen: Willoughby, 113.
808 Maurice Tracy: Willoughby, 114-115.
808 John Manning: “Memorandum Upon a Proposed Central Organization,” 4, 5; Willoughby, 114.
809 1FJ case: Lieutenant Frank M. Meals, letter, February 27, 1931, re special investigation No. S233, in “Radio Stations, Illicit.”
809 Highland Avenue case: Lieutenant Frank M. Meals, letters of January 24 and February 16, 1931, re special investigation No. S232, in “Radio Stations, Illicit”; New York Journal (January 20, 1931). The same folder contains a number of records of other cases involving codes, and Thomas M. Johnson, “Secrets of Bootleggers’ Grapevine,” Popular Mechanics, LVIII (November, 1932), 744-747, gives a picture of a rumrunner’s codebook.
809 Mrs. Friedman’s other solutions: Leah Stock Helmick, “Key Woman of the T-Men,” The Reader’s Digest (September, 1937), 51-55; Royal Canadian Mounted Police, letter, February 21, 1963.
810 Coast Guard intercepts Consolidated messages, others seized: Lieutenant Commander F. J. Gorman, “Memorandum” to Commandant, July 8, 1933, NA, RG 26.
810 raid of April 11, 1932: “Wireless Station Operator Called in Rum Ring Trial,” New Orleans Times-Picayune (May 2, 1933), 1, 12. I am grateful to Donald E. Newhouse for helping make newspaper clippings of the case available to me.
810 “That a secret code or codes”: District Court of the United States of America for the Eastern District of Louisiana, United States vs. Albert M. Morrison et al., Criminal Case No. 7255, indictment, 9.
811 “brains of the ring”: “Wireless Station Operator Called in Rum Ring Trial.”
811 Kelly messages: Criminal Case 7255, Exhibits XI to X32. The two cited are X6 and X7.
811 Mrs. Friedman’s testimony: Criminal Case 7255, Transcript, 141-174, at 141-143 for qualification. Cited henceforth as “Transcript.”
811 code system used: This was reconstructed from the intercepts and plaintext by W. M. Bowers of Clarksburg, West Virginia, to whom I am most grateful. For the rumrunners compiling their own vocabulary, Mrs. Friedman, interview, December 2, 1962.
811 solution of messages: Transcript, 150, 154.
811 “elicits a conclusion”: Transcript, 145.
811 “This is not”: Transcript, 147.
812 Gex cross-examination: Transcript, 163-166.
813 Morrison sentence: United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, United States vs. Albert Morrison et al., Case 16, 981, Warrant on Sentence.
813 “I am taking the liberty”: copy attached to Lieutenant Commander F. J. Gorman, “Memorandum” to Commandant, July 8, 1933, NA, RG 26.
814 I’m Alone case: United States, Department of State, “I’m Alone” Case: Joint Interim Report of the Commissioners and Statements of the Agents of Canada and the United States Pursuant Thereto with Supporting Affidavits, Publications of the Department of State: Arbitration Series No. 2 (6) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935), at 183-196, Document 12, “Affidavit of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, of November 30, 1934, Describing the Decoding of the ‘Carmelha,’ ‘Mocana,’ and ‘Harforan’ Telegrams”; Katherine A. Kellock, “She Breaks Up Smugglers’ Plots by Decoding Their Notes for Uncle Sam,” Washington (D.C.) Star (July 22, 1934); Helmick, 54-55; Willoughby, 128-130.
815 Teapot Dome: Senate, Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, Leases Upon Naval Oil Reserves, Hearings, 68:1 (GPO, 1924), with Friedman testimony at Part 10, 2483-7, 2515-21, 2548-51. Pertinent McLean testimony at 2680, 2692-5, 2688-9, 2709.
816 Justice Department code: my reconstruction.
816 “means of a codebook”: Leases Upon Naval Oil Reserves, Hearings, 2486.
816 “that whenever an agent”: Ibid., 2503.
817 code testimony revitalized interest: Burl Noggle, Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920s (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1962), 131-132.
817 Gyldén solution, results: Gyldén papers in my possession; “Skottsaker smugglarbåt,” Stockholm Aftonbladet (September 27, 1934), 1.
817 complicated criminal codes rare: M. Girerd of Interpol, interview, August, 1965, said that he could recall no case in which smuggling rings had used cryptograms. In this connection 1 might note here that almost none of the articles on cryptology in criminological journals discuss any actual cipher systems used by criminals. They simply review the basic elements of cryptology, giving perhaps a single example—which in most cases might even be fictitious—of a monoalphabetic substitution, or some hobo’s signs. Better than most, however, are Don L. Kooken, “Cryptography in Criminal Investigations,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, XXVI (March, 1936), 903-919, XXVII (May-June, 1936), 75-96; Edmond Locard, Les Faux en Écriture et leur Expertise (Paris: Payot, 1959), ch. 7, “Écritures Secrètes,” 369-389; Francisco Garcia de Parada, “Criptografia,” Investigación, XXVIII (December, 1960), 38-40, XXIX (February, 1961), 57-59, (March, 1961), 57-59, (June, 1961), 51-53. Edmond Locard, Traité de criminalistique, VI, L’Expertise des Documents Écrits (Seconde Par tie) (Lyon: Joannès Desvigne & Cie., 1937), “Les Correspondances secrètes,” 831-931; he offers some juicy real-life cryptograms at 866-871.
817 Voyatzis system: Robert Rice, The Business of Crime (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1956), 116-117.
817 ORDERING 19: Donald Fish, The Lawless Skies: The Fight Against International Air Crime (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962), 174, picture opposite 65.
818 Abraham P. Chess solutions: Dan Paonessa, “Code Detective,” Coronet, XXXVI (August, 1954), 35-37; “Codes Are Fragile,” Spring 3100, XXXIII (April, 1952), 10-12, with many illustrations of the policy codes.
819 post-Chess N.Y.P.D. cryptanalysts: Joseph G. Martin, deputy commissioner, letter, November 29, 1965.
819 F.B.I. Cryptanalytical and Translation Section: personal visit, April 16, 1963. Not to be confused with the F.B.I. Coding Unit in Room 4642 of the Justice Department building.
819 “Cryptosystems involving bookmaking”: untitled memorandum prepared for me by the F.B.I., January 8, 1962, and later condensed as “FBI Cryptanalysts Decipher ‘Bookie’ Codes and Ciphers,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, XXXI (July, 1962), 15-17, (August, 1962), 15-17, (September, 1962), 28-29.
820 bookie cryptosystems: Ibid.
821 pornographic film code: “Identify 300 Sin Film Girls; Cops Break Code, Start Hunt,” New York Daily News (March 24, 1959), 1,3; telephone call to prosecutor.
821 knock cipher: used even in Estonia—William Tomingas, Vaikiv Ajastu Eestis (New York: Eesti Ajaloo Instituut, 1961), 327-328.
821 employment codes: “Coded Bias Notes Barred by State,” The New York Times (September 11,
1962); Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster, Some of My Best Friends … (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1962).
821 electrical price-rigging codes: “5 Big Electrical Concerns Charged with Bid Rigging,” The New York Times (February 17, 1960), 1:2-3; “Price-Rigging Electric Execs Get Shock: Jail,” New York Daily News (February 7, 1961), 2:1-2; William L. Maher, Chief, Middle Atlantic Division, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice, letter, March 13, 1961, quoting District Court of the United States of America for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, United States vs. General Electric Co. et al., Criminal Case 20235, indictment, §11h, and transcript, 245.
821 card sharks: Frank Garcia, Marked Cards and Loaded Dice (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 79-83.
822 cheating at world bridge tournament: The New York Times; “Un bridgeur fume un cigare: ‘Je suis en train de tricher, prouvez-le, ”France-Soir (August 10, 1965).
822 Kotzbeck jargon code: “Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Deals in Ye Olde Vice,” New York Sunday News (February 19, 1961).
822 specialized languages: Macalister, Secret Languages of Ireland, 136, for Shelta; “Language Codes,” Fraternal Order of Police Journal (November, 1933), 12, 18-19, for Medical Greek; “Secret Languages,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, for Langos and Todas; personal experience for Pig Latin; Jenny Hauck for King Tut language; Iona and Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Children (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1959), “Secret Languages,” 320-322. Other works on secret languages, which I have not seen, are G.-S. Colin, Le parler enfant in de Rabat et de Tangier’, R. Iversen, Secret Languages in Norway (1944-1950).
822 argot: Pierre Guiraud, L’Argot, Que sais-je, No. 700 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), with bibliography.
823 English argot: Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of the Underworld (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1950).
823 thieves in Peshawar: Gottlieb William Leitner, Section I of linguistic fragments discovered in 1870, 1872 and 1879 … relating to the dialect of the Maggadds and other wandering tribes, the argots of thieves, the secret trade-dialects and systems of native cryptography in Kabul, Kashmir and Punjab … (Lahore: Punjab Government Civil Secretarial Press, 1882), xiv.
