The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking [Hardcover]

David Kahn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300098464 | ISBN-13: 978-0300098464 | Publication Date: February 9, 2004

One of the most colourful and controversial figures in American intelligence, Herbert O. Yardley (1889-1958) gave America its best form of information, but his fame rests more on his indiscretions than on his achievements. In this highly readable biography, a premier historian of military intelligence tells Yardley's story and evaluates his impact on the American intelligence community. Yardley established the nation's first codebreaking agency in 1917, and his solutions helped the United States win a major diplomatic victory at the 1921 disarmament conference. But when his unit was closed in 1929 because "gentlemen do not read each other's mail", Yardley wrote a best-selling memoir that introduced - and disclosed - codemaking and codebreaking to the public. David Kahn describes the vicissitudes of Yardley's career, including his work in China and Canada, offers a capsule history of American intelligence up to World War I, and gives a short course in classical codes and ciphers. He debunks the accusations that the publication of Yardley's book caused Japan to change its codes and ciphers and that Yardley traitorously sold his solutions to Japan.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Instantly recognizable to buffs of intelligence history, Herbert Yardley became infamous in 1931 for telling a tale out of school. His The American Black Chamber romped through the exploits of the State Department's Cipher Bureau, which Henry Stimson abruptly closed in 1929, fastidiously intoning, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." Despite his notoriety-- Yardley's book ignited a furor in the halls of power, and he was blacklisted from further work in American intelligence--Yardley has not been the subject of a biography until now. Kahn tells Yardley's story with a cool eye for his reputation as a codebreaker (Kahn is the author of both general and technical works on cryptology). More important from the reading standpoint, Kahn has a decidedly interesting, angular personality to work with. Yardley was boastful and prone to exaggerating his accomplishments, a habit he accentuated in his projects to parlay his original expose into moneymaking entertainment schemes, including potboilers, Hollywood scripts, and radio dramas. Balanced and meticulous in its assessments, this biography will appeal to intelligence aficionados. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

". . . carefully crafted . . . meticulously researched . . . first to show Yardley as a living, breathing person with all the faults [of] humanness." -- Cipher A. Deavours, American Scientist

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (February 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300098464
• ISBN-13: 978-0300098464
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Kahn, a recently visiting historian at the National Security Agency, is the world's leading expert on the history of cryptology, and the author of Hitler's Spies, Seizing the Enigma, and Kahn on Codes, as well as articles in numerous popular and technical journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Modern History from Oxford. An editor at Newsday, he lives in Great Neck, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Forgotten Intelligence Innovator, April 14, 2004

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A loud figure in a quiet business, August 8, 2004

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F. R Anscombe (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking (Hardcover)

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 (not the author). 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 government secrets entrusted to him. 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. of course 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 poker. Not many authors write one popular book, let alone two, so Yardley seems to have been a talented person, in some respects.

Kahn seems to speculate that Friedman envied Yardley's success with women. No evidence that this would be a basis for Friedman's dislike of Yardley is provided. To a genuinely loyal patriot like Friedman, why would he be jealous of the likes of Yardley? 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, even if not a flashy author or self-centered cad.

Kahn refers to Yardley's "immortal legacy" of introducing codebreaking in the U.S. I am unpersuaded. Codebreaking would have come to the U.S. regardless of participation by Yardley. By his writings, Yardley may be appreciated, I suppose, for contributing to pop culture. This book persuades me that Yardley's service on behalf of his nation was trivial and self-serving. Yet I am glad to have read this book. It is well-written, well-researched, and pleasantly concise.

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for IC historians and professionals, March 22, 2010

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J. Bisher - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking (Hardcover)

Few people understand the roots of US intelligence and crytology as well as Dr. David Kahn. His biography of Herbert O. Yardley is a tribute to an energetic pioneer of modern intelligence, an intelligence hero of the Great War and a struggling Depression-era author and reluctant contractor. It's time that the Intelligence Community extend its corporate memory beyond Wild Bill Donovan and embrace Herbert O. Yardley, whose energy and foresight paved the way for NSA in particular, and for The Community in general. His personal and professional stories should be heard and digested by his successors, who, it is presumed, would weed out a workaholic Average Joe of Yardley's earthly vices with a quick Life Style Poly. No one knows Yardley like Kahn, and every American should get to know Herbert Yardley...