Jason Fagone

If you've ever enjoyed working puzzles, this book will get you hooked. It is a fascinating biography of Elizebeth Smith whose work breaking codes in WWI started her on a life-changing path. Born in Indiana, she went looking for adventure in New York City after earning a degree in literature and found herself dragged back to Illinois by an eccentric millionaire to decipher the secret messages hidden in Shakespeare's works. Fortunately for her, WWI broke out just as she was realizing there show more were no such messages and the millionaire promoted her skills to his contacts in the War Department. Without training but with a strong ability to detect patterns, she and her co-worker basically wrote the book on cryptography while deciphering messages between Germany and Mexico, and related to the uprising in India, despite not knowing which language any particular message might be written in.
The thorough research done by the author provides extensive historical details that make the story come alive through the decades. He had access to interviews of her by the National Security Agency and to her diaries, letters, and other writing archived at the Virginia Military Institute. Using her words, we see her as a saucy young woman with a love of language. As an example: this description of the budding romance between her and William Friedman--"a small, persistent tilt in his direction, like a plant bending toward a patch of sun." show less

I guess it says something about why we have such highly polluting, fuel inefficient motor vehicles that many copies of this well-written and interesting book sit unread on my library's shelves. Nominally, this is a book about a multimillion dollar contest to develop an extraordinary car in both fuel efficiency and pollution control while still meeting much of the driving capabilities we expect from "normal" cars. The author follows multiple contestant teams through the long process of show more developing and testing their entries. The author gets us to know the heart of the people involved as well as the technical, financial, and political hurdles they must overcome. In the end, the reader has a deep connection with them all. More to the point, the reader has a much better understanding of what it takes for anyone to build a product, find a niche, and all the other aspects of taking parts of the real world and turning them into something of benefit. As the author says about one of the contestants, "I only know he can't be killed. Bomb everything to rubble and watch him gather scrap. The Internet goes dark and he lights a match. And not him alone, but all ingenious kin: every kid in a shop, every girl and guy in a garage, every hacker and maker with no hope of bailout by bank or by nation." show less

This was a fascinating biography of a woman who had a profound effect on codebreaking and who almost managed to be totally overlooked. Elizebeth Smith was a Quaker schoolteacher hired by an eccentric millionaire to work on his odd theory about William Shakespeare's plays. He believed that they were written by Francis Bacon, and the proof lay in obscure marks found in an early printing of the plays.

The search for proof that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays was only one of the many show more experiments going on at Riverbank. Also there working on genetic research was an American Jew named William S. Friedman. The two formed a friendship and then a romance and a duo that is directly responsible for the United States' codebreaking agencies.

Elizebeth and William worked on various codes which allowed Elizebeth, working for the Coast Guard, to track down and capture rum runners and other local criminals, and William to be instrumental in breaking the codes sent by America's enemies during World War I.

While William's work is well known and celebrated, Elizebeth's was lost in file cabinets and classified by the nascent NSA. But her role in breaking codes and locating Nazis in South America was vital to the war effort in World War II.

There are lots of take-aways for me. I didn't form a good impression of J. Edgar Hoover and the early years of the FBI. He was quick to claim credit for other people's successes. As this quote says: "It's not quite true that history is written by the winners. It's written by the best publicists on the winning team."

I came away from this story with really impressed at how a man and woman working with pencil, paper, and brains could do so much to solve so many puzzles. I was also impressed by Elizebeth's modesty in that she didn't think what she did was all that special. show less

Knowledge itself is power.

So said Francis Bacon in 1597, but it was to become the byline of Elizebeth and William Friedman, America's top cryptanalysts during the world wars. A husband and wife team, the Friedman's decoded more spy transmissions, broke more Enigma and Purple machines, and wrote more how-to papers than any other cryptographers in the country of their time. Historically most of the credit was given to William, but recently unclassified records show that Elizebeth's work was show more equal to and perhaps greater than (and certainly longer running) than her more famous husband.

In 1916 Elizebeth was in Chicago trying to drum up a job in literature or research. Something unusual, she told the librarian at the Newberry. She was there to see a First Folio of Shakespeare that was on display. The librarian introduced her to George Fabyan, a textile tycoon who was obsessed with finding secret messages in the Shakespeare texts proving that Francis Bacon was the true author. He hired her to work on this project and took her to Riverbank, his estate outside Geneva, Illinois.

Riverbank was a fascinating place. Fabyan had built a sort of scientific commune with numerous labs, renowned scientists, and research projects in a wide array of fields, from acoustics to genetic engineering. Although Elizebeth dunked the Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship, through the project she met a young genetic botanist, William Friedman, who would become her partner in life and work. When WWI broke out, America had no cryptographers, and Fabyan offered up Riverbank and the Friedmans for government use. Before long all encrypted messages intercepted by any branch of the US government were finding their way to the Friedmans. They not only broke codes, but wrote papers documenting their methods, and taught military personnel the basics of cryptology.

After the war, William continued to work for the army, but Elizebeth was recruited by the Treasury Department, specifically the Coast Guard, who had all the internal listening posts. She became the head cryptologist there and spent the 1920s and 30s breaking the codes of rum runners and drug dealers. The intelligence she provided led to the arrest of large rings in both America and Canada. She testified in numerous court trials and became known as the "Key Woman of the T-Men" and "Lady Manhunter." Later she would call these years, target practice, for the invisible war of 1939-45.

As fascism increased worldwide and America tried to stay out of the war, FDR and others in his administration became increasingly concerned about the threat of fascist governments in the Western Hemisphere. If the Nazis gained a foothold in South America, they would be within striking distance of the US itself. So Elizebeth's ears were trained on Nazi spies based primarily in Brazil and Argentina. She and her Coast Guard team began breaking codes, including three Enigma machines, that proved the Nazis were trying, sometimes successfully, to orchestrate coups and establish fascist governments in countries like Bolivia. In addition, she monitored channels that were providing US ship movements to Germany. This intel would save countless ships and sailors from Nazi U-boats. Although the nascent FBI's chief, J. Edgar Hoover, would claim all the credit, it was Elizebeth and her team that broke the Nazi spy ring in South America.

After the war, Elizebeth, like all cryptologists, signed an agreement of secrecy. She never spoke about her work to anyone for the rest of her life. She spent the ensuing decades tending her ailing husband and ensuring that his legacy was not forgotten. She died, unrecognized and poor, in 1980. Fortunately, her papers finally came to light when some Coast Guard records were declassified, and she started to get the recognition she deserved. She was an amazing woman, and this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the foundation of American cryptology or codebreaking during the world wars. With almost 100 pages of notes and references, the book is well-researched and is a prime example of good narrative nonfiction. show less