Customer Reviews

The Man Who Broke Purple: The Life of Colonel William F. Friedman, Who Deciphered the Japanese Code in World War II

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This is not the story of the breaking of the WWII Japanese Purple cipher; rather it is a biography of the man chiefly responsible for this, William F. Friedman. I was hoping for some information about how the Purple cipher was broken, but the book contains very little about this (less than half a page, which says little more than the fact that the cipher was broken). The book describes Friedman's life - from birth to death, with only one chapter devoted to the WWII years. The book makes it clear that his contributions to US cryptology, and cryptanalysis (a term that he coined) in general, went far beyond the breaking the Japanese cipher. It describes how he became a cryptologist, his work to make cryptology more of a science, how it dominated his life and how it contributed to several mental breakdowns. It is clear that he was an important leader of the US military cryptographic effort and an adviser to the fledgling NSA, but in later years he felt (with much justification) that his contributions were often overlooked and that he was treated as an ignored old fossil. Nonetheless, he was given important overseas assignments involving contacts with allied cryptographic services, which are alluded to, but unfortunately not explained in the book. The book describes not only his work on behalf of the US, but also many other interesting outside code breaking exercises, such as work to see if there were secret codes in the works of William Shakespeare, which might point to someone else (chiefly Sir Francis Bacon) as being the actual author. (He felt that there were no such codes.) The book also discusses the work of his wife Elizebeth (an unorthodox spelling that her mother chose to prevent her being called Eliza), who was a cryptographer of note in her own right, working for the US Coast Guard and numerous other governmental and non-governmental entities.

The writing is factual, straightforward, and clear, but lacks the details that make a biography read more like a novel. For those who dislike made-up conversations between real people and detailed historical descriptions of various places, this will be a plus. Others may find the story flat and not very exciting. I recommend this book to those interested in history, especially WWII, American history and cryptology history. There is some general information about codes ciphers and the breaking of such, but I do not think enough to satisfy those who are primarily interested in the mechanics of codes and ciphers, as opposed to the history of this subject. Those who are primarily interested in how the Purple cipher was actually broken will be disappointed and I therefore do not recommend the book for that audience. (It is not clear that there is any general, non-classified, reference to how the Japanese Purple cipher was broken. If any reader has information about a general reference that contains this information, I would appreciate it if they would write a comment directing me to it. Thanks.)

This is pretty much it if you want to learn anything about the early years of William F. Friedman, and a the same goes for his later years. This book covers quite a bit of detail of Friedman's early career at Riverbank Labs, his relationship with sponsor George Fabyan, and the contributions of Friedman's equally hard-working and intelligent wife Elizebeth. The strained relationship between the Friedmans and Fabyan is, as far as I know, thoroughly covered in no other source. Friedman's contributions to America's security and dominance in signal intelligence during and after the second world war is little known by most, and acknowledged by even fewer. This book serves to at least partially rectify this omission.

That said, the book gives short shrift to Friedman's actual WWII activities, especially the breaking of the eponymous "Purple" cipher machine. Perhaps this is best: Kahn's "The Codebreakers" is a much more thoroughly detailed and researched source of this material. Likewise, the contributions of Frank Rowlett, Abraham Sinkov, and Solomon Kullback, among others, is barely mentioned. Again, refer to Kahn, or Rowlett's "The Story of Magic". And don't expect any technical analysis of Friedman's accomplishments, which would be out of place and of little interest to most readers.

I do wish, though, that Friedman's later years were covered in more detail. His dissatisfaction with the NSA and their obsession with absolute secrecy is an interesting part of this remarkable man's life. The NSA's "reclassification" of many of his papers, even those that had been available publicly for decades (such as his work with the Index of Coincidence)frustrated him to no end, and their constant rebukes of Friedman after he would give a lecture or presentation on something that was already well known seem overly mercurial. This eventually brought Friedman to question his own work, and THAT story would have benefitted from a more detailed telling. Perhaps it wasn't possible ... the book was published after Friedman's death, though his wife was still available to tell some of the tale.

I still heartily recommend this book, the only biography of Friedman that I know of.