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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.crypt
Subject: Re: Eastern Front/WWII Cryptography
Message-ID: <12068@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 05:01:52 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12068
Posted: Thu Feb 27 05:01:52 1986
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In article <869@spp2.UUCP> ross@spp2.UUCP (Jonathan Ross) writes:
>        [To Matt Weiner and Tom Tedrick: Please keep the debate on
>               the Net]

Sure.  Just spell my name correctly: Matthew Wiener.

>	It seems to me that it is not possible to definitively
> characterize the role of Cryptography in WWII. This is true, I feel, for 
> the following simple reasons. Too much relevant information still remains 
> classified. Too much real information was (is) shrouded in disinformation.

True, true, and true.  But it sure is fun to try.

>	Among the important secrets that still remains classified (at
> least as of the publishing of the book entitled, I believe, "_The
> Radar War_") is the design of the "computer" that Alan Turing used
> to break the German codes. I wish I could go into more detail here
> but I don't have any sources at hand.

Algorithms to break Enigma have been published in the journal _Cryptologia_.
Is that close enough?

>	With regards disinformation, until a few postings ago, I was
> under the (apparently) mistaken impression that Churchill did allow
> Coventry to be bombed unopposed, in order to keep the British
> cracking of the German code a secret. (note: I'd love to see sources
> on this if anyone knows of any).

The story is repeated in Winterbotham _The Ultra Secret_ and repudiated
with the correct explanation in Calvocaressi _Top Secret Ultra_.  The
British *had* decrypted the relevant messages.  But the name of Coventry
was in code ('Korn' if I remember correctly), and no one realized the
urgency of identifying what 'Korn' refered to until it was too late.

I should mention that the use of codes within the underlying text was
part of the difficulty of generating Ultra information.  It required
systematic accumulation of reams of intercepts to compare with each
other and with the actual battlefield and with POW interrogation.  The
declassified intercepts, for example, are not the literal decryptions,
but have been doctored so that most traces of the original codes are
removed.  [from Lewin _Ultra Goes to War_, Costello _The Pacific War_.]

>                                                     (Note: some have
> called into question the idea that Allied bombing was succesful at
> all- [from a lecture at Harvard University by John Kenneth Galbraith]).

So does Freemon Dyson in _Disturbing the Universe_, based on his own
involvement in the bombing.  (An EXCELLENT book, by the way.)

> who swear that Norden was the key to Allied bombing success. Now, I consider
> "_The Radar War_" and similar books ("_The Ultra Secret_", "_A Man
> Called Intrepid_", etc.) to be quite reliable sources, but when
> stacked up against eyewitness testimony, the accuracy of these books
> becomes questionable. I believe that many other pieces of
> "conflicting" or "questionable" information have been disseminated,
> with the best of intentions, by mostly reliable references. The fact 
> that such inaccuracies do occur makes the possibilty of arriving at
> solid conclusions quite difficult.

It is difficult.  Winterbotham's inaccuracy concerning Coventry is just
one example.  And he was in on most of Ultra.  Tom Tedrick's refusal to
accept A Foote's account of the Red Orchestra is not unreasonable.  This
question of what to believe and what not to believe is going to keep
interested people busy for a LONG time.

> "Ale Man, Ale's the stuff to drink
>	For fellows whom it hurts the think...
>
> ...And Malt can do more than Milton can
>	To justify God's ways to Man."
...
  "--I tell the tale that I heard told.
	Mithridates, he died old."

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720