Hi, Omni

I hope that this will prove to be a cinch for you.

According to David Kahn (The Codebreakers), whenever Roosevelt was
communicating with his ambassadors in London, Paris and Moscow on
?matters of utmost secrecy?, he used the Navy Department?s
cryptosystems. Kahn also quotes Churchill as saying:

QUOTE 

I sent my cables to the American Embassy in London which was in direct
touch with the President at the White House through special coding
machines.

UNQUOTE

Kahn surmises that these machines were ?naval? and ?probably one-time
tape devices manufactured by the Teletype Corporation?.

Can you get a fix on whether the machines were 'one-time tape devices
manufactured by Teletype Corporation'?

More importantly, whoever the manufacturer, when were they introduced
and did they use 'one-time' encryption?

Have a great day!

Bryan

---

Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 23 Feb 2004 10:33 PST

Bryan --

I wanted you to know that I'm looking into this one, though I don't
recall ever reading of one-time use encryption machines.  Certainly it
would make sense, given the valuable information that the U.S. and
U.K. were generating from both Enigma and Purple (Japanese) ciphers. 
However, I think that something like that would have stuck, even in my
memory.

Please let me look into it between my work activities this week and
I'll see what I can turn up.  I used to know some Teletype and Extel
(a Teletype spinout during the 1970s) people and am wondering if they
might have some sources that I don't have.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

---

Clarification of Question by probonopublico-ga on 23 Feb 2004 12:04 PST

Hi, Omni

Great!

Take all the time you need.

I'm glad I've titillated your interest.

Generally, there seems to be more of this sort of thing available in
Bush Country than in Blair Land.

Warmest regards

Bryan

---

Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 23 Feb 2004 18:09 PST

Bryan --

I'm curious to know if a book called "British Security Coordination:
The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45,"
published by Fromm International in 1999 has ever seen the light of
day in the U.K.?  Any British spy activity in the U.S. would have been
illegal, but it was clearly tolerated and supported during the war by
both Franklin Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover.

The book has an introduction by Nigel West but was apparently prepared
as an official British government document at the end of the war under
the orders from William Stephenson.  The initial draft was done by
Gilbert Highet, who worked for Stephenson (and who was married to
Helen MacInnes, the spy novelist).  The first draft was apparently
deemed "too dry" by Stephenson, so was re-written by Tom Hill and
Roald Dahl.  Eventually some 20 copies were printed in Canada, 10
going to Winston Churchill and another ten going to safe deposit
boxes; one to the Canadian government; and possibly one to the White
House.  Later Tom Hill was ordered to burn all copies under his
control.

However, at least a half-dozen copies survived -- and apparently
Stephenson relied on the BSC history in writing "A Man Called
Intrepid."

Why is this important?  

First, because I'm curious to know if British security laws have
prevented it from seeing the light of day?

Second, because it has an extensive description of Telekrypton, a
first generation machine for encrypting cable communications between
the U.K. and the U.S.  It was later succeeded by Rockex I and Rockex
II (designed at BSC offices in Rockefeller Center).

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

---

Clarification of Question by probonopublico-ga on 23 Feb 2004 23:16 PST

Omni ... You are a GENIUS AMERICAINE and, from now on, you may
officially use the letters GA after your name.

Evidently, (from Freddy's Comment) the book was published on both
sides of the Atlantic but, for some reason that eludes me, I've got a
copy of the American edition, so it contains all the usual spelling
mistakes.

I've had a quick flick through and, as you say, there's a lot of stuff
on the Telekrypton device but (at first glance) this was apparently
introduced later than I had hoped.

However, I will take a more detailed look later and advise.

In any event, you have certainly more than answered my question, so
please post an answer.

Warmest regards

Bryan

Bryan --

Aha -- that explains the dual copyright on my American version of the
book.  St. Ermin's Press published it in 1998, probably in the U.K.,
and then Fromm International published it here in 1999.

I'm surprised that the information on Telekrypton and Rockex met your
needs for this question.  But pleasantly surprised!

My librarian tells me that a book published in 2000 on the OSS and CIA
discusses the use of one-time encryption pads by field agents as early
as World War II:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385492936/103-1794680-7669421?v=glance

I will be checking it today and report back.

However, I'm also going to have to write notes to all of the Roald
Dahl fansites to let them know that he wrote something more
substantial than "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

---

Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 25 Feb 2004 07:21 PST

Bryan --

The CIA was using a one-time pad to encipher messages post-World War
II; as you'll see from searches below the OSS (the CIA's predecessor)
was using them too during the war.  Interestingly enough, a Google
search using that term and Roosevelt (and eliminating a famous Soviet
spy case) finds several references to Churchill-Roosevelt
communicating using some type of one-time pad.  References are to a
disc with one-time encoding -- and they apparently used it for voice
communications.

Here's the killer reference that I think you're seeking -- and it ties
to Telekrypton and Teletype:
"The Vernam One-Time Pad System" (John Douglass, 1996)
http://www.johnzyd.com/OneTimePad.pdf

James L. Flanagan, a former AT&T researcher, mentions it here:
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/sloan/ASSR_Oral_Histories/jflanagan_transcript.html

This web page on cryptography also mentions it (though I could only
get the HTML version of the page to load).  The references to this
article from 3 different books might confirm precisely what Churchill
and Roosevelt used:
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:28Jk2crNrJ0J:www.ma.umist.ac.uk/gb/UA392/manual/Crypto.pdf+%22one+time+pad%22+%2B+Roosevelt+-venona&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

OSS oral history mentioning one-time pads:
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter98-99/art03.html

---

The search also turned up an interesting page on World War II OSS
radios.  It has a detailed description of techniques used to foil
direction-finding equipment -- and comes close to answering your
question on "burst mode" transmission techniques.  Note in particular
the comments on "aperiodic" radios, which did frequency hopping.  I
can't recommend this site highly enough:
U.S. Clandestine Radio Equipment
http://militaryradio.com/spyradio/

Google search strategy:
"one time pad" + Roosevelt -Vernona

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

---

Request for Answer Clarification by probonopublico-ga on 25 Feb 2004 08:23 PST

Great, Omni

Many thanks for the further links ...

I'll check them later!

Bryan

---

Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 25 Feb 2004 09:38 PST

Great Bryan!

Best regards,

O.

Hi, Again, Omni

Once again you make it look so easy!

Many thanks.

Warmest regards

Bryan

Well, there seem to be two copies of the book called 
"British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British
Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45"
in the British Library:

Title:  British Security Coordination. the secret history of British
intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45. introduction by Nigel West
Organisation name:  British Security Coordination 
Subject:  British Security Coordination 
Subject:  World War, 1939-1945. Secret service. Great Britain 
Subject:  Espionage, British. United States. History. 20th century 
Publication details:  London. St Ermin's. 1998 
Description:  xxxvi,536p. facsims,map. 24cm 
ISBN:  0316644641. m 
Shelfmark:  YC.1998.b.4155 
Notes:  Includes index 
Notes:  Prepared by British Security Coordination officers in 1945 

Title:  British Security Coordination. the secret history of British
intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45. introduction by Nigel West
Organisation name:  British Security Coordination 
Subject:  British Security Coordination 
Subject:  World War, 1939-1945. Secret service. Great Britain 
Subject:  Espionage, British. United States. History. 20th century 
Place of Publication:  London. 
Publisher Name:  St Ermin's. 
Date of Publication:  1998 
Description:  xxxvi,536p. facsims,map. 24cm 
ISBN:  0316644641. m 
Shelfmark:  99/25540 
Notes:  Includes index 
Notes:  Prepared by British Security Coordination officers in 1945 
 

http://blpc.bl.uk/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316644641/202-7244077-5862229

Hi, Freddy

Great stuff, again, many thanks.

However, I am surprised that you and your boys didn't locate the third
copy sitting on a shelf in my own library. (Shelfmark: TopSecretStuff)

Or, were you simply being discreet?

Warmest regards

Bryan

The *one time pad seems to have been first used by a government in
1919, shortly after it was invented by *Vernam (though later improved
by *Mauborgne) when the new Weimar Republic Foreign Office adopted it
for some traffic. It began to be used by the Soviets sometime in the
late 20s or early 30s in response to two incidents of UK politicians
publishing information which made clear that Soviet encrypted messages
had been read by UK crypto folk. The people at *GC&CS were not happy
with their political masters actions, it is said. During WWII, FDR and
WC communicated using encrypted telephone circuits many times. The
encryption was at first a frequency band swap system developed at
*Bell Labs. The Germans were able to decrypt that and overheard it all
-- one of the German technicians had apparently worked at Bell Labs
before the War and was familiar with the system.
Later on, another Bell Labs encryption system (called by the US crypto
people (or the Army who liked names like this) *SIGSALY) was used to
encrypt FDR-WC radio telephone calls. It was a one time pad and worked
using large phonograph records with noise on them. At the sending end
the record was started, FDR (or WC) started talking, and the two
signals were electrically combined. At the receiving end, the record
was synchronized, electrically subtracted from the received signal,
and passed on to WC (or FDR).
The Germans invented some teleprinter cyphers (very much in the spirit
of Vernam's original idea) during the War; they were approximations of
the one time pad in the sense that the 'key material' used was not
entirely random as is required, but only almost random (mechanically
generated by a complex rotor arrangement). The British at *Bletchley
Park called them, collectively, the *Fish cyphers. One of the them, by
Lorenz Electric, called *tunny at BP, was used for important stuff the
BP folk wanted badly to read. The *Colossus (in two versions) was
invented by *Max Newman and colleagues of BP to help with decrypting
the Fish traffic, specifically tunny. It was the world's first
programmable, electronic, digital computer. And it worked. A good
portion of the tunny traffic was eventually being read at BP by War's
end.
All of the names marked with '*' here are the subject of articles in
the Wikipeida (wikipedia.org), which has an active group contributing
to cryptography related articles. You might wish to look into them. As
well, you might want to consult Battle of Wits by Budiansky which is a
responsible book (there are many which are not) on the specific
subject of WWII cryptography.

Best of wishes on your interest in crypto. wwg-ga

Hi, wwg

Very many thanks for your interesting & informative Comment.

Have you any ideas on:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=367133

Kindest regards

Bryan