The Woman Who Smashed Codes

During the Second World War, an American woman figures out how to sweep the globe of undercover Nazis. The proof was on paper: Four thousand typed decryptions of clandestine Nazi messages that her team shared with the global intelligence community. She had conquered at least forty-eight different clandestine radio circuits and three Enigma machines to get these plaintexts. The pages found their way to the navy and to the army. To FBI headquarters in Washington and bureaus around the world. To Britain. There was no mistaking their origin. Each sheet said “CG Decryption” at the bottom, in black ink. These pieces of paper saved lives. They almost certainly stopped coups. They put fascist spies in prison. They drove wedges between Germany and other nations that were trying to sustain and prolong Nazi terror. By any measure, Elisebeth was a great heroine of the Second World War.

The British knew it. The navy knew it. The FBI knew it. But the American public never did, because Elizebeth wasn’t allowed to speak. She and every other codebreaker who worked on ULTRA material was bound by oath to keep the ULTRA secret. Even if she had been free to discuss her triumphs, explaining them to the public would have taken some time.

J. Edgar Hoover did not have these constraints. His power allowed him to manipulate the press and disclose secrets without consequence. And because his agents were old-school detectives, not technical wizards like Elizebeth, Hoover was able to frame the Invisible War in terms of instantly familiar images: disappearing inks, saboteurs, hidden cameras, police raids on clandestine radio stations, gumshoes in snap-brim hats.

So this was the picture of the spy hunt that the public ended up receiving. They got Hoover’s story, not Elizebeth’s.

A fascinating story, this. Not because a woman – or a man – did it. But because humans, using papers, pencils, and their brains – and then later on, computers with vacuum tubes and punch cards – to break codes meant to be unbreakable.

In a way it reminds me of John Hersey’s “The Child Buyer,” where genius children are seized and used only for their brains’ computing power. Such thoughts are unthinkable these days, not because government is any less insidious, but because computers have beaten the human mind in the fairy tale world of Sorting Things Out.

The closest I come to this is sorting crossword puzzles.

Jason Fagone’s story is a good one on group dynamics as well as the ability to stretch one’s brains. He shows Elizebeth and her husband William, and then both working with different, small groups to sort problems out. When she was forced to work alone, or put in a position where working alone was preferable, she noted there was something missing. Though we generally put down group work, she showed how, with the right group working on the right project, working together is preferable.

I also appreciate how Fagone tells this tale without the golly-bob-howdy a WOMAN did this. He just tells her story.