Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cheviot!brian From: brian@cheviot.uucp (Brian Randell) Newsgroups: net.crypt,net.politics Subject: Re: Enigma and the Eastern Front again Message-ID: <607@cheviot.uucp> Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 08:56:19 EST Article-I.D.: cheviot.607 Posted: Sat Mar 1 08:56:19 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Mar-86 19:24:46 EST References: <12021@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: brian@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell) Organization: U. of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. Lines: 44 Keywords: more references, etc. Xref: lsuc net.crypt:144 net.politics:3504 As a recent subscriber to this newsgroup, I am concerned at the uncritical faith that many correspondents seem to have in much of the extremely dubious "literature" that has appeared in recent years regarding code-breaking and its impact on WW II. Though my own efforts as a historian have been limited to studying the origins of computers (which have interesting links with the WW II codebreaking activities in the UK), and I make no claim to being a military historian, I find little difficulty in distinguishing between scholarly books by professional modern historians, which have received detailed favourable reviews by knowledgable reviewers, from sensationalist popular accounts. In the first category I would for example place the Hinsley volumes I have referred to earlier, and also: Christopher Alexander: "Secret Service: The making of the British Intelligence Community", Heinemann, London (1985) and perhaps Ronald Lewin "Ultra Goes To War: The secret story", Hutchinson, London (1978). In the second category, over and above such pseudonymous "authors" as Nigel West, pride of place surely goes to William Stevenson (spelling?), author of "A Man Called Intrepid" and Antony Cave Brown, author of "Bodyguard of Lies", whose allegations about Churchill and the Coventry Raid, for example, have been thoroughly refuted, yet nevertheless have caused great anger to professional historians, leave alone distress to the families of those involved, whether actively, or merely as citizens of Coventry. Unfortunately, the more sensational the story, the more often it gets repeated. To end, let me just repeat that I would very much urge anyone interested in this topic to study the Hinsley volumes om "British Intelligence in the Second World War" - they are not light reading, and it is a pity that (for defensible reasons) few individuals are identified personally, but until I am given good reason to think otherwise, I will continue to regard these as by far the best source for assessing the impact of the Bletchley Park work on WW II. (This is not to say that they cannot be faulted with respect to assignment of credit between the Polish and the British crypto- graphers for the early breaking of Enigma.) I will be very interested in other peoples opinions on these volumes. -- Brian Randell - Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne ARPA : brian%cheviot.newcastle@ucl-cs.arpa UUCP : !ukc!cheviot!brian JANET : brian@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot