Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 (Paperback)

by Leo Marks (Author) "In January 1942 I was escorted to the war by my parents in case I couldn't find it or met with an accident on the..." (more)
Key Phrases: country section heads, silk codes, next sked, Duke Street, Free French, Baker Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
At the age of 8, Leo Marks discovered the great game of code-making and -breaking in his father's London bookshop, thanks to a first edition of Poe's The Gold-Bug. At 23, as World War II was being played out in earnest, he hoped to use his strengths for the Allies. But Marks's urgent, witty memoir, Between Silk and Cyanide, begins with his failure to get into British Intelligence's cryptographic department. As everyone else on his course heads off to Bletchley Park ("the promised land"), he is sent to what his sergeant terms "some potty outfit in Baker Street, an open house for misfits." In fact, the Special Operations Executive's mandate was, in Churchill's stirring phrase, to "Set Europe Ablaze," and Marks's was to monitor code security so that agents could could report back as safely as possible. When he arrived, the common wisdom was that it was easiest for men and women in the field to memorize and use well-known poems.

Unfortunately, since the Germans had equal access to the classics--"Reference books," Marks quips, "are jackboots when used by cryptographers"--Marks thought agents should write their own poems (or use his) instead, several of which are cheerily obscene. After all, no son or daughter of the Fatherland could ever know the rest of a verse that began "Is de Gaulle's prick / Twelve inches thick," and continued on in a similar, shall we say, vein. But Marks soon felt that original doggerel was just as dangerous, since even slight misspellings could render messages indecipherable and risk agents' lives. His first solution? WOKs (worked-out keys) printed on silk. An operative would use one key, send the message, and immediately tear off the strip. Marks had a hard time proving that swaths of silk would save his people from swallowing their "optional extra," a cyanide pill. His efforts were dead serious, but often landed him in comic terrain.

In one of the book's great set pieces, Marks visits Colonel Wills--surely the model for Ian Fleming's Q--in order to sort out the best ways to print his code keys. Before solving this minor problem (invisible ink!), Wills showed Marks several new projects--one of which involves an exotic array of dung, courtesy of the London Zoo. This gifted gadgetmeister planned to model life-sized reproductions of these droppings and pack them with explosives, personalized for all parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. "Once trodden on or driven over (hopefully by the enemy) the whole lot would go off with a series of explosions even more violent than the ones which had produced it," Marks explains.

Despite such larky sentences and sections, the author never loses sight of the importance of his vocation, and Between Silk and Cyanide is as elegiac as it is engaging. Marks knows when to cut the laugh track, particularly as his book becomes a despairing record of agents blown--lost to torture, prison, the camps, and execution. Readers will never forget the valor of Violette Szabo, Noor Inayat Kahn, and the White Rabbit himself, Flight Lieutenant Yeo-Thomas. Poem-cracking, as Marks again and again makes clear, was far more than a parlor game. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
A well-paced war diary, Markss memoir traces the strategically vital creation of secure codes for Allied agents operating in Nazi-occupied territories. Marks was in his early 20s during the war, a civilian with military rank in Britains elite Special Operations Executive, a prodigy immersed in a pasty world of subterranean old men. Though Marks rarely ventured out of his basement office, his book builds a delicate tension as he describes working frantically to develop codes that the Nazis could neither crack nor imitate, as they did with the standard Allied poem code. Markss contributions to such historically significant events as the destruction of Norsk Hydro, the heavy water plant on which the Germans pinned their hopes for atomic weapons, and to the concealment of preparations for D-Day, are effectively balanced against such workaday concerns as finding quantities of silk onto which codes could be photographed. Although Markss account is more anecdotal than researched, his unique position as chief developer of Britains secure communications, along with an impishness that led him to break De Gaulles secret French code (off-limits to the non-French Allies) or rib his older compatriots (Davies nodded so hard he almost lost a jowl) give his book an authoritative and laconic punch.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068486780X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684867809
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (97 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,854 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Making codes in WWI, June 8, 2000

By	Richard S. Sullivan (Santa Fe, New Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)

First off I need to say that this was a fun read. The book was entertaining and informative. The author, Leo Marks, then in his early twenties, writes about his experiences as head of the British code section for the group who devised, sent and received, and translated codes for the men and women who went into Nazi occupied Western Europe to spy.

Marks, a man who is now nearly 80, should be commended for putting down this rare piece of history in writing, as most of the records of the London code group have long since been destroyed, his memory is all we have.

Ok, now this is a strange book. There is no doubt that is was written by Marks himself as no ghost writer could have concocted such a weirdly written text. It's annoying at first but one soon becomes used to it. For example, when describing a briefing he gave to a somewhat hostile audience:

"Mounting a mile long platform an inch at a time, I confronted a large Nubian with crossed arms, which turned out to be a blackboard. He had colored chalk chalks on his person where lesser men had testicles, and I wrote my messages on his chest in block capitals which were twice their normal size as I had half my normal confidence."

We have smiles parachuting from his eyes to his lips; he remembers the excitement and thrill of using the same loo that Churchill used; he remembers and recalls the figures (nothing to do with coding) of many of the women who he writes about. (He is a man of the 40's!) There is a gem on nearly every page. No ghost writer could ever concoct this menagerie.

We do learn a lot about the coding business, especially in making the codes. We learn about the men and women who volunteered to spy, organize, and become part of the Resistance. Who used the codes and their wireless sets to send back information. A daring-do occupation as most of these agents were quickly captured and executed by the Nazis. Or as Marks might say, "They had the life expectancy of a crew in a yellow polka-dotted tank in combat."

We learn that they fingerprinted the agent's Morse code keying, as each had their own peculiar style, and this could be a tip off if the the agent had been captured and Nazis had broken the code and were doing the keying.

Most books on this subject concentrate on the breaking of codes. We also learn some of the tricks of the espionage trade. There are quips about lethal toilet paper, (scatology is his thing!) and of agents blithely being sent in when some higher ups in London knew the cover had been blown and Nazis would likely be the greeting party.

Like any memoir that creates living and breathing scenes from events over half a century ago, it is hard to imagine that the writer could remember each frown, shrug of the shoulder, or other parts of the scene in such vivid detail. We'll write it off as poetic license.

It is a very personal book, made even more so by Marks "distinctive" style. It's a good read and I give it 4 stars, taking one away for slightly annoying writing style.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, October 31, 1999

By	JEROME R. ROSENBERG ([e-mail]) "jrresq" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)

In the official history of the Special Operations Executive, "SOE in France" published in 1966 with amendments in 1968, Mr. Marks on page 241 is described as "The philosophically-minded Mr. Marks, head of the deciphering section ...." and he was all of 23 years old. I am not directly or indirectly related to Mr. Marks and would be delighted to spend any afternoon with him at my local Bistro. Even though I deplore cigars, if he is still smoking, I would make the proper arrangements. I just returned from Europe and read "Between Silk and Cyanide" over the Atlantic. I couldn't put the book down. My first mission on returning was to check today's NY Times Book Review for the listing of best sellers. I could not believe that this epic failed to make the list. By the way, Mr. Marks, if you read this, my security code is "Bill" Williams.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting Reading, December 2, 1999

By	Whitney Blankenship (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)

I came across Marks' book at the Imperial War Museum in London. I have a fascination of all things World WarII and loved this book. I too devoured during the trans-atlantic flight home. As an American History teacher, I intend to use Mr. Marks book as an introduction to codes during my World War II unit. This is one of the best books I have read since "The Magicians War" by David Fisher (it chronicals the effors of Oscar Maskelyne to provide camoflauge for the British Army in Northern Africa).