The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking

Rating:
Summary: A loud figure in a quiet business
Review: A biography of Herbert Yardley is welcome. David Kahn has done a remarkable job unearthing many aspects of the life of an obscure figure in American history. Kahn is a fine, readable writer, in this book no less than in prior ones. I very much enjoyed his Seizing the Enigma (1991).

My lack of enthusiasm for this book centers on Yardley. During the 1920s, Yardley enjoyed a comfy salary heading a U.S. government cipher office in New York, where he might laze for an hour a day. In contrast, William F. Friedman, working for the Army, wrote about cryptanalysis, studied statistics, and evaluated the usefulness of tabulating machines, forerunners of computers. When the Hoover Administration reduced funding to his office, Yardley wrote a book, melodramatically called the American Black Chamber, which revealed the world of coded communications and U.S. efforts to read foreign communications. In so doing, he sold secrets to which he was privvy. Thereafter, he went Hollywood, contributing to screen plays. During 1938-39, he was employed by China to work on Japanese communications; his service was uninspired. Because Yardley had proven to be indiscreet, the U.S. did not make use of him during World War II, during which code-breaking was an important element in Anglo-American success. In 1957, Yardley published his second best-selling book, this one on playing poker. Not many authors write one popular book, let alone two.

Kahn speculates that Friedman envied Yardley's success with women. No evidence that this would be the basis for Friedman's dislike of Yardley is provided and it seems unlikely. In any event, Friedman and many others within the British and U.S. intelligence agencies rendered extraordinary, educated, hardworking service in the years leading up to and beyond the Second World War. Friedman would be the much more important figure for history.

Kahn refers to Yardley's "immortal legacy" of introducing codebreaking in the U.S. Codebreaking would have come to the U.S. regardless of the coincidental early participation by Yardley. By his writings, Yardley may be justly appreciated for contributing to popular culture. This book persuades me that Yardley's service to his nation was minor and thoroughly self-serving.

Because of particular interests, I happen to be glad to have read this book. It is well-written, well-researched, and pleasantly concise.

Rating:
Summary: A Forgotten Intelligence Innovator
Review: Despite its current reputation, there were times when American intelligence (meaning spying) was an unalloyed success. For many, the most interesting part of the spy business is signals intelligence, tuning into or breaking into foreign messages and decoding them. There has been signals intelligence of some sort ever since there has been international conflict, but the field took off when messages could be transmitted wirelessly. Anyone could pick up the signal, so the trick was to encode it; the counter-trick was to crack the code. Cryptographers and other spies already know and respect the name of Herbert O. Yardley. He isn't well known by others, but almost fifty years after his death, he has gotten a full, instructive biography, _The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking_ (Yale University Press) by David Kahn. Kahn is the perfect teller of this tale, having written both articles for scholarly journals as well as popular books about intelligence matters. There is not a great deal of detail about the procedures of decryption, which are described only generally, but there is a unique American life here. According to Kahn, Yardley better than anyone foresaw how important cracking signals could be to American intelligence. He created the first permanent agency to intercept messages and break them. He was "the most colorful and controversial figure in American intelligence," and his controversial actions are fully included here.

Yardley came to Washington DC in 1914, working as a telegrapher in the State Department. He was fascinated by the messages that came in and out, and determined that he would give his life to cryptography. His efforts within the Army Signal Corp were effective, but more important even than the wartime accomplishments was that Yardley convinced the Army and State Department to continue signal intelligence after Armistice Day. He believed that the stream of international communications could indicate the attitudes and plans of nations who were our friends as well as our foes. He was right; his work ensured that America knew what the aims of the Japanese were at the arms limitation talks in 1921, saving the government millions of dollars and buying some years of peace. Those who thought that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail" eventually closed his bureau down. Yardley was, at different times in his life, to make up cryptogram puzzles for magazines, to go into the invisible ink business, to write novels, to write screenplays for Hollywood, to run a restaurant, and to attempt commercial orange-juice distillation, as well as to become decoder-for-hire for Canada and China. He made a hit with his first book in 1931, The American Black Chamber, which caused immediate furor, about his government decryptions. He showed what his bureau had done, and the reading public was very much interested. He was accused of treason, but Kahn shows that Yardley was merely trying to make big money, at which he never was very successful. It was his main character flaw: "Yardley was a rotter, not a traitor."

One year before his death, Yardley published _The Education of a Poker Player_, full of anecdotes about poker games in which he had played as well as practical advice about how to win. It is regarded as a classic, and is still in print and is admired by serious gamblers and penny ante basement players. It was a good way for Yardley to bow off the world's stage, but is not his lasting monument. When it came time to start busting codes again as World War II loomed, no one had to be convinced that cryptanalysts were good sources of power. Yardley, the first American governmental cryptographer, had done his part to make America stronger through signal intelligence. He was an important and flawed figure who deserves more recognition; he has, surprisingly, had no biography written before, and Kahn's detailed and readable book will always be the definitive one on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: A Forgotten Intelligence Innovator
Review: Despite its current reputation, there were times when American intelligence (meaning spying) was an unalloyed success. For many, the most interesting part of the spy business is signals intelligence, tuning into or breaking into foreign messages and decoding them. There has been signals intelligence of some sort ever since there has been international conflict, but the field took off when messages could be transmitted wirelessly. Anyone could pick up the signal, so the trick was to encode it; the counter-trick was to crack the code. Cryptographers and other spies already know and respect the name of Herbert O. Yardley. He isn't well known by others, but almost fifty years after his death, he has gotten a full, instructive biography, _The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking_ (Yale University Press) by David Kahn. Kahn is the perfect teller of this tale, having written both articles for scholarly journals as well as popular books about intelligence matters. There is not a great deal of detail about the procedures of decryption, which are described only generally, but there is a unique American life here. According to Kahn, Yardley better than anyone foresaw how important cracking signals could be to American intelligence. He created the first permanent agency to intercept messages and break them. He was "the most colorful and controversial figure in American intelligence," and his controversial actions are fully included here.

Yardley came to Washington DC in 1914, working as a telegrapher in the State Department. He was fascinated by the messages that came in and out, and determined that he would give his life to cryptography. His efforts within the Army Signal Corp were effective, but more important even than the wartime accomplishments was that Yardley convinced the Army and State Department to continue signal intelligence after Armistice Day. He believed that the stream of international communications could indicate the attitudes and plans of nations who were our friends as well as our foes. He was right; his work ensured that America knew what the aims of the Japanese were at the arms limitation talks in 1921, saving the government millions of dollars and buying some years of peace. Those who thought that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail" eventually closed his bureau down. Yardley was, at different times in his life, to make up cryptogram puzzles for magazines, to go into the invisible ink business, to write novels, to write screenplays for Hollywood, to run a restaurant, and to attempt commercial orange-juice distillation, as well as to become decoder-for-hire for Canada and China. He made a hit with his first book in 1931, The American Black Chamber, which caused immediate furor, about his government decryptions. He showed what his bureau had done, and the reading public was very much interested. He was accused of treason, but Kahn shows that Yardley was merely trying to make big money, at which he never was very successful. It was his main character flaw: "Yardley was a rotter, not a traitor."

One year before his death, Yardley published _The Education of a Poker Player_, full of anecdotes about poker games in which he had played as well as practical advice about how to win. It is regarded as a classic, and is still in print and is admired by serious gamblers and penny ante basement players. It was a good way for Yardley to bow off the world's stage, but is not his lasting monument. When it came time to start busting codes again as World War II loomed, no one had to be convinced that cryptanalysts were good sources of power. Yardley, the first American governmental cryptographer, had done his part to make America stronger through signal intelligence. He was an important and flawed figure who deserves more recognition; he has, surprisingly, had no biography written before, and Kahn's detailed and readable book will always be the definitive one on the subject.