Black Man Spy: Decoding History with Dr. Thomas Cheetham on Bletchley Park's Secrets

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They had some idea there was a German attack coming.
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There was some big German air raid due. They thought
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the target was London because they didn't really have any
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information on where they were going to go. But what
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Bletchley Park had been doing at this point in the war,
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they'd been making their contribution to what we call the
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Battle of the Beams, the navigational radio beams used by
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the German bombers to find their targets. They were reading
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messages between those beam stations and the people running them.
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They understood the German systems. They were able to jam them,
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confuse the Germans, make them miss their targets. But also,
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when the beams turned on, they could send aircraft up
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to find the beams and work out where they were intersecting.
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The thing is, they do that with Coventry about three
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hours before the raid starts, but you can't do anything
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with three hours warning. You know, you can't leave anti-aircraft guns.
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You can't evacuate the city. If you try to evacuate
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Coventry just before an air raid, you just leave the
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streets full of people who are going to get annihilated.
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This is Black Man Spy. Hi, I'm Malcolm Nance, and
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this is Black Man Spy. My guest today is Dr.
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Thomas Cheatham, the Chief Research Officer at Bletchley Park, the
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historic site in the UK where British World War II
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codebreakers worked and developed the origins and the fundamental understanding
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and breaking of the famous Enigma machine, of the Enigma code.
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He has written extensively on Bletchley Park and broadened the
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understanding of British codebreaking and signals intelligence in World War II.
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Let's welcome Dr. Thomas Cheatham to Black Man Spy. All right,
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Thomas Cheatham, welcome to Black Man Spy. I'm glad to
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see you. I'm glad we got you because you and
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I are going to be at the same event tonight.
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And in fact, if we had put this off to tomorrow,
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which would have been no fun, we could have sat
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in the same, you know, coffee bar or someplace and
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done this show. But I wanted to get this out
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before we had the Bletchley Park, new U.S. Friends of
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Bletchley Park event. And my followers on Black Man Spy,
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which is about 190-some-odd thousand followers on YouTube, They know
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about Bletchley Park now because, one, I talk about it
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all the time. Two, I did live streaming from Bletchley
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Park at the 1940s weekend in June, where I went into,
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you know, everybody there gets enrolled. And I came in
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the uniform of a U.S. Army sergeant, right? Tech sergeant
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who was who in that role would only have been
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a courier. from the U.S. Army Signals Intelligence liaison in London. And,
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you know, so I came up, I had a leather
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briefcase and had a grand old time and met Laura
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and some of the other heavies at Bletchley Park, of
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which I've been a life member of the Friends of
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for more than a decade now. It had to have
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been more than a decade, and I have two bricks,
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one for myself and my late wife on the code
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breakers wall, because as everybody knows, I was a Navy
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cryptologist for 20 years. Then after that, I was an
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intelligence contractor working all over the Middle East, North Africa,
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South Asia. My earliest, earliest memories, there were two books
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that I read very early on. One was one that
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is just almost mandatory to read in the Navy called
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Double-Edged Secrets, which was by the deputy commander of U.S.
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intelligence in the Pacific in World War II. And in that,
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he made a reference to Enigma. And before I ever
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got into the armed forces, I was reading about this
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in the first books that came out, the Enigma Code
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and things like that. That became fascinating to me. And
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it literally steered me towards cryptology as a cryptologic linguist,
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which I have recently learned Alan Turing was not a linguist.
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You know, I used to make this joke. What is he,
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just a German linguist? But in fact, was just an
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incredible mathematician. So you must be incredibly honored to be
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working out at Brechley Park. Does it just like overcome
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you every day?
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We always learn something new. You know, there's always something
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interesting going on. And, you know, yeah, the story is
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vast and it touches on so many different things right
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across Europe. British society, really. It's really hard to go
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to any sort of event and not have somebody there
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who has some connection to Bletchley Park, family or professionals.
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You know, it's a massive effort. It's almost 9,000 people
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by 1945. It's a huge organisation. A really large chunk
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of the nation's intellectual resources, so to speak, go into code-breaking.
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So the tendrils spread very, very widely through the through
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the British society, but also the wartime story, there isn't
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really a part of World War II where Bletchley Park
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doesn't have some impact, positive or negative. You know, here's
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where the Siggins made its contribution or here's where it
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could have made a contribution but didn't. And both questions
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are interesting. So we really have, we could be here
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for a very, very long time exploring all of the
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diverse cultures ramifications of this story on the war I
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mean when the story came out in the 1970s it
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was going to be necessary to go back and rewrite
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the histories of the war because all of them had
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been written without any awareness that the British had been
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breaking and the Americans of course had been breaking high
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grade German ciphers for most of the war and it
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puts a different complex on everything.
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I have a quick question. So could you just quickly
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give a finger thumbnail sketch outline of Bletchley Park? It's
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north of London, near a town of Milton Keynes. It's
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an actual metro. It's its own train stop. Right. And
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and just give this American audience an idea of what
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Bletchley was and what they did.
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Well, let me start with what it is now. We're
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about half an hour outside of London. We're easy to
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get to, you know, we're right there. And I'm quite
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often asked, like, are you still operational?
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Do you work for the government?
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No, no, no. We're a museum and charity now. We're
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open to everybody every day. So do come and see us. Um,
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we try and keep the story of the code breakers alive.
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And we do that in the place where it actually
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happened that we have that great, uh, advantage. I mean,
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most museums are not based in building where what they're
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describing actually took place, but we have time huts. We
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have wartime office buildings. We have the mansion itself. It's
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all still there. It's been there since, um, well, the
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estate comes from, from the 1880s. That's when the house
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was first built, but from 1938, it's bought by the government. And, um,
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It's used as an intelligence center initially for quite a
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few different purposes, eventually gets taken over for code breaking.
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The agency in question is the Government Code and Cipher School,
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or GCNCS for short. That's obviously a cover name. It's
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Britain's code breaking agency. And a great advantage really Britain
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has from the beginning of the war is that it
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has one agency that does this stuff. Nazi Germany has
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about eight different SIGINT agencies. The U.S. has Army, Navy,
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and I think State Department as well, all doing this stuff.
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The U.S. Coast Guard is where you can probably add
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to that list. So you have this diversion of effort.
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In Britain, it's all done in one place, and that's
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a real advantage. So you have, it's a civilian organization
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at its core, but you have Army, Navy, and Air
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Force personnel on hand doing their specialist work, and they
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can all cooperate, share information together. Share personnel a lot
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of the time, double up on communications facilities and all
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the things that the organization needs logistically. And that's a
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great advantage. That's one of the reasons why it's so efficient.
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So they start off in the start of the war.
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They're already set up with about 150 people. working on
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all sorts of different things, not just the Enigma cipher
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that everybody's heard of, but it's very diverse. And one
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of my bugbears really is that it's not all about Enigma,
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even though that's the big one. That's what brings people
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to us. But I'm always anxious to stretch and there's
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so much else going on. And it just grows and
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grows and grows from that point on. By the end
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of the war, there's almost 9,000 people working there. It's
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an enormous pace. It's a 50-fold expansion over about six years,
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which is mind-blowing, really. It's more than any organisation really
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wants to do and causes the management no end of
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trouble keeping these people fed and housed and getting them
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into work every day, let alone doing anything useful in
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the office. But it's very, very effective. Some of the
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big lessons we can learn from Bletchley Park are about
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how you run an organisation, how you quickly expand, how
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you incorporate new talent, and deal with that sort of
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exponential growth, because there are very few examples of that
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being done well, but that's a great one.
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The counterintelligence, just the clearance of people had to be
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absolutely phenomenal. And I think that there's a big difference
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between the way the British handle counterintelligence and the way
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that the Americans did. First off, we do not have
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a law okay, like your Official Secrets Act in the
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United States that will send you to prison or execute you.
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We don't have that. We have, you know, we rely
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a lot more on trust and then verified with, you know,
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polygraphs and things like that, background checks, which, which, but,
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from what I glean that in English society, they took
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the official secrets act very, very seriously.
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There's a very strong culture of secrecy, very effective. And
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we're always, we're very often asked, how was it all
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kept secret? How do you possibly get all these people
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to keep their mouth shut? Um, My first counter to
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that is like, well, it still works today. You don't
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know what's going on at GCHQ or in the NSA
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because they're told not to tell you. So it is
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clearly possible to get people to keep secrets.
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Right.
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But it's also in the wartime culture as well. The
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culture of wartime Britain is deferential. And there is an
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awareness in public amongst everyday people that this idea of
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loose lips sink ships. If you learn something about what's
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going on, you don't tell anyone about it. If you
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see troops walking down the street, you don't mention it
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down the pub later on. You just keep things to yourself.
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And I think that's how people don't understand nowadays when
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they expect everything to be passed over social media in
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people's everyday lives. But during wartime, you know, there is
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an expectation that you keep, obviously, war-related activity to yourself.
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And it doesn't really matter whether you're working in an
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agency like GCCS or any other sort of war work.
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And then you lay on top of that the Official
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Secrets Act, which is not exactly signed when people arrive
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because everybody is subject to it, whether they sign up
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to it or not. But they do get people to
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sign a paper saying, I understand the provision for the
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Official Secrets Act. I understand what the ramifications will be
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if I breach a trust that's been placed in me.
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They go through, what's interesting is they go through a
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few different iterations of this. and start with a very
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wordy and legalistic form and end the war with a
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very simple one that anyone can understand. And it has
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lots of examples of situations you might be in where
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you're asked questions and what you might say in response
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to them. So they understand that being able to point
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across to people is more important than the legal threat
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hanging over them. And it is about trust. It is
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about trust because when people do break the rules and
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they do break the rules, inevitably some people do go astray.
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They're never prosecuted for it. They don't cart them off
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and put them in prison. Nobody's ever really threatened with,
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there's a technical capital punishment hanging over this, but nobody's,
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that never happened. When people do make mistakes, they bring
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them in and they say, you've really messed up here.
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Don't let it happen again. And they exaggerate, they stress
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what might happen But they always let people off with
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a slap on the wrist because they know once you've
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messed up once, you're not going to do it again.
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And also, if you let people leave, then they're more
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of a risk. So you keep them in the agency,
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you keep an eye on them, and you try to
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cower them into being more secretive in the future. But
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you don't just hit them with the kind of legal
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hammer straight up, if you can avoid it. Yeah.
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Well, that is mind-boggling to me. I mean, I held
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a top-secret SCI special access clearance program for a quarter
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of a century. And when you, you know, I want
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the hammer, okay? I expect the hammer. And then, you know,
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you get characters like Edward Snowden. But that's the modern world.
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We want to stick back to your history of this
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facility in World War II, which literally fascinating to me.
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To me, it's almost like a mecca. You know, as
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a codebreaker, the first time I went to Bletchley, you know,
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I could have salaamed five times a day at this
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place and, you know, saw things. One of the first
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books I ever read when I joined the military was
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hut six. And even for a very long time, as
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I was going through the school of cryptologic intelligence, I
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had a hard time processing, processing the history, not the
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technical aspects, but the whole thing of collection, right? You
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collect enemy communications, they're encrypted. Then you have to process
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those through a series of teams that will do various
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code breaking, then getting it down to a machine that
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you have to work out how it actually works. And
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so I learned quite a bit. As a matter of fact,
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I really found out just last year when I went
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there last year that I didn't really know much about
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the Lorenz. you know, machine. And I'm like, what? There
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was a machine above the machine. It was like the
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Enigma of the Enigma machine.
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Here's the thing about Enigma, Malcolm, is that the Germans
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know that it's not very good. You know, we put
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it on a pedestal now. It's this amazing Nazi cyber machine.
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It's from 1930. 1930 is when they bring it in.
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It's old hat. The Allies have much better rotor machines.
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The Germans, no Enigma is old, but they have 35,000
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of these in service. They can't replace them all, so
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they're stuck with it. They're early adopters, and they have
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an early adopter problem. So, yeah, the Lorenz is their
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high-command teleprinter cipher, which is another level of complexity, again, far,
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far tougher and far more advanced. And that's the reason
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why Bletchley Park ends up using the first computers, because
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they need them.
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To break the rest. Yeah, and we're going to talk
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about those, the bombs, because I had a situation where
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when I was a mid-level young collector at NSA, I
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was assigned to NSA back in the 80s. Because as
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a cryptologic collector in the Navy, we're out in the field.
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We go all over the place, ships, airports. submarines I've
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collected from hotel rooms, back of pickup trucks, all sorts
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of weird places. But I went into the new headquarters
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building of NSA, which was built in the late 1980s,
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copper line, beautiful building, because I served in the old
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original building, nasty pipes in the ceilings, all that stuff.
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And I just went down one hallway and I saw
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that there were these giant covered, you know, things. And
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I said, oh, I said, what's down here? And there
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were interpretation boards, all right, of what was going to
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go down there. And I saw it said, you know,
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like Bletchley Bomb, B-O-M-B-E, right? And I thought, I've heard
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about that. And no one's around. So I just ripped
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the plug off the top of it, pulled the whole
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things down. And it was a corner of the new
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headquarters building that was about to become a mini museum.
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And they had one of the original bombs there. And
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I'm like, holy shit, I know what this is. This
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is like, hey, Moses, you left your staff, right? I mean,
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just walking down the hallway. And this section of the
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building wasn't open. The door was open. Going through the
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security gate was open. But it was back in the
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old days when you could just rip off plastic and
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look at, you know. you know, highly encrypted, you know,
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highly secretive World War II things, but just utterly amazing.
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So could we technically just touch on the history of
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how Enigma, which was the German enciphering machine, which was
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a civilian machine, if I'm not mistaken.
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That's correct.
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At the front and the poles. were the key people.
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And I missed your event in July. I think it
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was 27 July of the Polish breaking of the, you know,
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or first roadways into Enigma. Can you tell us about
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how the Enigma machine first got caught or got there
303
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and then got to you? Because you guys, be honest
304
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with me, you got shitloads of them at Bletchley Park.
305
00:18:10.779 --> 00:18:13.980
Very long story short, it's developed as a commercial machine
306
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in the late 1910s, you know, then World War I.
307
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In the mid-20s, there are sort of simpler models coming about.
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And the inventor, Arthur Sherbius, he's trying to sell them
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to banks and big businesses. And he sells a few,
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but not very many. He only really has much success
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when the German military pick them up. By that time,
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by the way, Chauvin is dead. He's been run over
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by a carriage. But his invention goes up. It's picked
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up by the German military in about 1927. And eventually
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they roll it out across the Army, Navy and Air Force.
316
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And they improve the design. So the British have taken
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a look at the commercial enigma in 1926.
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And.
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They bought a machine in Berlin, and they decide that
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it's not very good, it has certain weaknesses, and they're
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not going to adopt it. The Germans take a different
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point of view, and they try and improve on the design,
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so they add, crucially, they add a plug board to
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the front of the machine. So if you look at
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the type of counties of Enigma, the plug board is
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what makes it really hard to crack before World War II,
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for the British at least. The Polish, though, they're the
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ones who do make progress. They have a little bit
329
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of information about the German machine from espionage by the French.
330
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They're able to use that to break into the German
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military enigma. At the end of 1932, a Polish mathematician
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called Marian Riewski leads that effort. And yes, the reason
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we held that weekend recently is to commemorate the criminalization
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contribution of the Polish because without their work in the
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30s Bletchley Park would have had very little to go.
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On for the benefit of the audience this is a commercial.
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Enigma machine so you can see the plug board on
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the front with those wires the.
339
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Commercial machine is pretty much identical without the plug board
340
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So you.
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Fast forward to 1938 and this is when the Polish
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hand their findings over to the British and when they
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come down to Bletchley Park they have a good idea
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of how they're going to break Enigma already because the
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Polish have handed them the solution really on a silver platter.
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It's absolutely crucial. The first few months of work at
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Bletchley are completely driven by Polish techniques. And it's only
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with the Battle of France, May 1940, the Germans changed
349
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their procedures. The Polish techniques become obsolete. By that point,
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the British have learned enough about the machine and about
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the traffic to keep breaking it. But they would never
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have got a foot in the door if it hadn't
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been for the Polish. So that's why we would commemorate it.
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Brilliant. You know, in the movie Imitation Game, which if
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anybody has not watched that movie, you need to watch
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00:21:00.069 --> 00:21:04.470
it for two reasons. One, So really understand Alan Turing
357
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is a real genius, right? So much a genius. He's
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on your money now.
359
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He is.
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He's on the 50-pound note. The 50-pound note. Every time
361
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:16.220
I see it, I'm like, man, that guy's amazing. In
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00:21:16.339 --> 00:21:20.640
my world, from naval cryptology, his equivalent was a guy
363
00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:24.450
named Joseph B. Rochefort, who was the guy who broke,
364
00:21:24.569 --> 00:21:30.599
was breaking, hand-breaking Japanese naval codes. at the same time,
365
00:21:30.619 --> 00:21:34.640
but they weren't as sophisticated as the German codes. But,
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you know, Turing himself, his history comes out in the
367
00:21:39.769 --> 00:21:43.250
premise of The Imitation Game is that he was homosexual.
368
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And later on in his life, he was arrested. That
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would lead them to find out what he did in
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the war. At least that's the premise of the movie.
371
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And because of the laws in England, you know, he
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later would take his own life. But his genius was
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hidden somewhere. in all of these official secrets. But the
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00:22:05.849 --> 00:22:08.089
question I want to ask you, I've dined to ask
375
00:22:08.130 --> 00:22:10.089
you this question. I didn't want to wait for tonight.
376
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In the movie, they have the famous meeting between him
377
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and Commander Denison, who is the commanding officer of the
378
00:22:17.819 --> 00:22:24.339
entire effort, a Royal Navy officer. And he's kicking Turing
379
00:22:24.579 --> 00:22:28.180
out because Turing is being really flip about, you know,
380
00:22:28.789 --> 00:22:30.650
You know, what do you have to offer me? It's like,
381
00:22:30.670 --> 00:22:32.390
I don't speak German. I don't do any of this.
382
00:22:32.470 --> 00:22:35.769
I do mathematician. And, you know, and Dennis is like,
383
00:22:35.849 --> 00:22:39.309
I just kicked the top German linguist in England out
384
00:22:39.329 --> 00:22:41.559
of his office. You know, what do you have to
385
00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:45.839
bring to me? And then, you know, he hits him with, well,
386
00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:49.859
this place is clearly to break Enigma. And he just...
387
00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:54.660
Is that true? Did that actually happen? Did that conversation happen?
388
00:22:54.680 --> 00:22:58.619
Was it more sophisticated than that? Was he more upcoming earlier?
389
00:23:00.269 --> 00:23:02.250
Well, one of the issues with the film is that
390
00:23:02.289 --> 00:23:07.369
Denniston is portrayed in quite an unfair way. He's this high-bound,
391
00:23:07.390 --> 00:23:10.730
sort of hard-nosed naval man. And he kind of really
392
00:23:10.869 --> 00:23:14.029
is setting things up for Turing to fail. And I
393
00:23:14.069 --> 00:23:18.410
think our evidence is that Denniston was really one of
394
00:23:18.430 --> 00:23:20.950
the nicest people anyone had ever met. And that was
395
00:23:21.029 --> 00:23:23.349
really his downfall. He's only in charge of the first
396
00:23:23.369 --> 00:23:25.859
half of the war, because when the organization gets bigger,
397
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:29.960
You need someone with a tougher managerial style. But Denison
398
00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:32.019
doesn't have that because he wants everybody to be friends
399
00:23:32.099 --> 00:23:34.420
and get on and cooperate well. And that worked really
400
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:39.150
well in Into Warriors. So the scene depicted by the
401
00:23:39.170 --> 00:23:43.430
film where you have that competition between them and Denison
402
00:23:43.490 --> 00:23:46.869
being quite patronising to Turing, I don't think that's really
403
00:23:46.910 --> 00:23:49.769
an accurate depiction at all. I think he had a
404
00:23:50.430 --> 00:23:53.730
full understanding of what it would take to break Enigma.
405
00:23:54.500 --> 00:23:57.339
He understood he needed people like Turing. One of the
406
00:23:57.359 --> 00:23:59.839
misconceptions is it's only when war breaks out that they
407
00:23:59.859 --> 00:24:02.859
start bringing in mathematicians, but actually the first mathematician joins
408
00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:08.150
GCNCS in the early 1930s. So Denison had an eye
409
00:24:08.250 --> 00:24:12.230
on these new machine ciphers for a very long time.
410
00:24:13.240 --> 00:24:14.920
And he was the one who went out and headhunted
411
00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:18.160
from the universities, found people like Turing, Gordon Welshman, who
412
00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:19.339
wrote the sixth book.
413
00:24:19.359 --> 00:24:21.839
The Invention, some of the key.
414
00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.759
Figures who would lead the organization in the war. Denison
415
00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:29.619
has to take credit for finding those people. and setting
416
00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:31.759
the organisation off on the right foot in terms of
417
00:24:31.779 --> 00:24:35.140
the personnel. He was a great codebreaker in World War I.
418
00:24:35.180 --> 00:24:40.079
He wasn't really a practical contributor to the work in
419
00:24:40.099 --> 00:24:42.559
World War II because he was from an earlier era
420
00:24:42.740 --> 00:24:46.890
of codebreaking. But in the way he set the organisation up,
421
00:24:46.990 --> 00:24:50.210
his contribution was absolutely invaluable. Whereas the film gives you
422
00:24:50.250 --> 00:24:52.609
the impression kind of Denniston had stepped aside and let
423
00:24:52.630 --> 00:24:54.230
you get on with it, everything would have been better.
424
00:24:54.269 --> 00:24:56.180
I don't think that would be true at all.
425
00:24:58.170 --> 00:25:02.700
Yeah, I just found it a fascinating exchange. And I said,
426
00:25:02.740 --> 00:25:04.799
you know what? Somebody had to write some drama.
427
00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:10.099
Into this. The way Turing is introduced to Enigma, it's
428
00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:12.740
a little bit of a mystery. We know he's working
429
00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:16.200
with GCNCS for a little bit of time before he's
430
00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:19.279
officially kind of recruited. I think he would have got
431
00:25:19.299 --> 00:25:21.960
pretty good information, though, full briefing about what Enigma was.
432
00:25:22.059 --> 00:25:23.640
And I think he would have spent the summer of
433
00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:28.250
1939 before war breaks out and thinking through the problem
434
00:25:28.569 --> 00:25:30.130
and that's why he's able to hit the ground running
435
00:25:30.150 --> 00:25:32.349
when he when when they turn up and get down
436
00:25:32.390 --> 00:25:35.130
to work um he turns up actually on the 4th
437
00:25:35.170 --> 00:25:39.049
of september 1939 and it's not very long a few
438
00:25:39.069 --> 00:25:43.390
weeks before they make some real breakthroughs.
439
00:25:42.690 --> 00:25:44.990
Um was that scene shot in the manor house or
440
00:25:45.029 --> 00:25:46.279
is that a set you know.
441
00:25:47.079 --> 00:25:50.220
They shot some of the film. The scenes in the
442
00:25:50.289 --> 00:25:55.049
bar in the film were shot in our mansion. But
443
00:25:55.170 --> 00:25:59.990
it was fairly limited, their use of the site. Yes, unfortunately.
444
00:26:00.029 --> 00:26:01.750
Another stage at home.
445
00:26:01.789 --> 00:26:07.450
Yeah, it's just may as well recreate it somewhere else. Yeah,
446
00:26:07.509 --> 00:26:11.859
that is Hollywood for you. Yeah, I just, first off,
447
00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:14.720
I always recommend people to watch it just so that
448
00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:18.460
you get an idea of, one, just the man was
449
00:26:18.509 --> 00:26:22.910
a genius. You know, I mean, just having to think
450
00:26:23.170 --> 00:26:26.809
of all the processes. He was a mathematician, but he
451
00:26:26.849 --> 00:26:29.950
had an engineer's mind. And he could actually turn these things,
452
00:26:30.390 --> 00:26:36.079
practical thoughts, into actual machines, which I always found just
453
00:26:36.099 --> 00:26:36.500
absolutely crazy.
454
00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:39.839
What Turing brought was that he was doing not pure mathematics.
455
00:26:39.880 --> 00:26:42.539
He was doing kind of practical mathematics. He was saying,
456
00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:44.200
how do you use this stuff to solve problems in
457
00:26:44.220 --> 00:26:47.509
the real world? At that point in time, that's pretty niche.
458
00:26:48.329 --> 00:26:50.730
He's what we would now call a computer scientist because
459
00:26:50.759 --> 00:26:52.430
we have computers and we know that you can use
460
00:26:52.450 --> 00:26:54.359
maths to do this stuff. But they don't have computers,
461
00:26:54.380 --> 00:26:56.019
so they don't really have a term for what he is.
462
00:26:56.519 --> 00:26:59.660
But he has that practical approach. As I say, Denniston
463
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:03.920
picking up on that, realising from his previous university contacts
464
00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:05.660
that Turing is the sort of man who will really
465
00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:07.680
get Steve into a problem and make him make progress
466
00:27:07.700 --> 00:27:11.940
with it, is really important. Very, very few people with
467
00:27:11.980 --> 00:27:15.029
those skills. And as you say, Genius is the word,
468
00:27:15.549 --> 00:27:19.450
because he's able to just have insights into problems like this,
469
00:27:19.470 --> 00:27:23.400
which nobody else can. And that's crucial. You know, the
470
00:27:23.420 --> 00:27:26.880
people at Bletchley Park, they're not all on Turing's level.
471
00:27:26.900 --> 00:27:29.740
They're not all genius. Most of them are brilliant people.
472
00:27:29.980 --> 00:27:32.099
You know, they're smart people, but they are like you
473
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:35.440
and me. And I'm always saying to our visitors that
474
00:27:35.460 --> 00:27:37.269
most of you would find a place at Bletchley Park
475
00:27:37.369 --> 00:27:39.509
doing something or other. But what you need is you
476
00:27:39.549 --> 00:27:41.789
need a figure like Turing ready to pioneer the work.
477
00:27:42.410 --> 00:27:44.390
and work out what you need to do to break
478
00:27:44.450 --> 00:27:47.410
into these cycles. Then you can kind of formalize those procedures.
479
00:27:47.789 --> 00:27:51.809
You can build the machines or set out your working
480
00:27:51.849 --> 00:27:56.210
arrangements so that a mere mortal really can do them.
481
00:27:56.529 --> 00:27:57.950
And then you turn it into a sort of production
482
00:27:57.990 --> 00:28:01.109
line where messages come in, they go through these processes,
483
00:28:01.150 --> 00:28:05.009
the individuals do their particular parts, and out comes decrypted
484
00:28:05.069 --> 00:28:08.210
traffic and eventually translated messages that go out to commanders.
485
00:28:09.130 --> 00:28:14.329
Mm-hmm. Well, it's absolutely brilliant. And again, I view Bletchley
486
00:28:14.349 --> 00:28:18.990
Park as a mecca. I've worked at Fort Meade. I've
487
00:28:19.009 --> 00:28:21.210
been in some of the places of the greats here
488
00:28:21.289 --> 00:28:26.690
in US Navy cryptology. But when you go to Bletchley Park,
489
00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:29.539
you just think about not just, as you say, the
490
00:28:29.579 --> 00:28:36.190
enormous effort, the impact on everything. Yeah. And then, you know,
491
00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.210
when you go to a place like the Churchill War Rooms,
492
00:28:38.990 --> 00:28:41.730
and you think about how, I think it was the
493
00:28:41.769 --> 00:28:46.259
bombing of Bristol, that Churchill had very advanced knowledge that,
494
00:28:46.539 --> 00:28:48.259
you know, no worries of Birmingham. Bristol.
495
00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:49.859
I feel like it was Coventry.
496
00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:54.480
Coventry. Why am I thinking of Bristol? I just literally
497
00:28:54.539 --> 00:28:59.769
drove through Coventry and thought, oh, it's the bombing of Coventry. Yes,
498
00:28:59.789 --> 00:29:02.670
you're absolutely right. The bombing of Coventry, Churchill had advanced
499
00:29:02.829 --> 00:29:03.789
knowledge and knowledge.
500
00:29:05.049 --> 00:29:07.410
They did have a certain amount of advance knowledge. I
501
00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.369
have to say, Malcolm, this is a bit of a
502
00:29:09.609 --> 00:29:14.190
myth that Churchill let Coventry be bombed to protect the
503
00:29:14.230 --> 00:29:19.009
secret of breaking Enigma. They had some idea there was
504
00:29:19.029 --> 00:29:20.809
a German attack coming. There was some big German air
505
00:29:20.829 --> 00:29:24.950
raid due. They thought the target was London because they
506
00:29:24.990 --> 00:29:28.240
didn't really have any information on where... or one way
507
00:29:28.259 --> 00:29:30.069
they were going to go. But what Bletchley Park had
508
00:29:30.089 --> 00:29:32.769
been doing at this point in the war, they'd been
509
00:29:32.809 --> 00:29:34.509
making their contribution to what we call the Battle of
510
00:29:34.529 --> 00:29:38.450
the Beams, the navigational beams, radio beams used by the
511
00:29:38.490 --> 00:29:41.579
German bombers to find their targets. They were reading messages
512
00:29:41.619 --> 00:29:45.259
between those beam stations and the people running them. They
513
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:48.809
understood the German systems. They were able to jam them,
514
00:29:49.269 --> 00:29:52.430
confuse the Germans, make them miss their targets, but also
515
00:29:52.450 --> 00:29:56.809
they When the beams turned on, they could send aircraft
516
00:29:56.869 --> 00:29:58.970
up to find the beams and work out where they
517
00:29:58.990 --> 00:30:03.680
were intersecting. The thing is, they do that with Coventry
518
00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:06.279
about three hours before the raid starts, but you can't
519
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:09.200
do anything with three hours warning. You know, you can't
520
00:30:09.220 --> 00:30:12.059
move anti-aircraft guns. You can't evacuate the city. If you
521
00:30:12.079 --> 00:30:14.519
try to evacuate Coventry just before an air raid, you
522
00:30:14.539 --> 00:30:16.089
just leave the streets full of people who are going
523
00:30:16.109 --> 00:30:19.559
to get annihilated. There was very little that could be done.
524
00:30:20.039 --> 00:30:25.190
And that's the reality of it. The advanced intelligence just
525
00:30:25.230 --> 00:30:27.670
wasn't of the sort you could use. But you're right
526
00:30:27.690 --> 00:30:31.329
that this all matters because of impact, because of the
527
00:30:31.369 --> 00:30:33.720
decisions you make as a result. Breaking codes is all
528
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:35.920
well and good, but unless someone can use the intelligence,
529
00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:37.220
then it's all a waste of time.
530
00:30:37.259 --> 00:30:40.730
Yeah. That thought of the Battle of the Beams, which
531
00:30:40.789 --> 00:30:45.579
is actually we're talking about telemetry here. Right. And having
532
00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:48.559
a cross bearing on wherever your target is to guide
533
00:30:48.599 --> 00:30:52.039
these night fighting aircraft there and then counter jamming these
534
00:30:52.099 --> 00:30:55.839
things or jamming, counter jamming these things. That's just one
535
00:30:55.859 --> 00:30:58.869
of those things you don't just don't hear about. You know,
536
00:30:59.009 --> 00:31:01.839
for the length of time that World War II went on, right,
537
00:31:02.220 --> 00:31:04.640
even in the run-up to World War II, you know,
538
00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:12.319
it's just the enormous human effort effort to cover every
539
00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:20.900
aspect of everything is mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling how much human
540
00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:23.569
effort went into it. Because right now, everything we do
541
00:31:23.769 --> 00:31:28.049
is processed, right? Or we like to think it is. But,
542
00:31:28.130 --> 00:31:31.519
you know, getting down to giving the decision-maker a you know,
543
00:31:31.779 --> 00:31:37.660
this consumable, actionable intelligence. And seeing that in World War II,
544
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.940
three hours is no warning. Now, I had an incident
545
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:45.099
where Fort Meade saved my life. And we were like
546
00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:47.920
looking at our watch like, oh, I can actually tell
547
00:31:47.940 --> 00:31:49.960
you because it's in my memoir. It took two years
548
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:53.599
to clear my memoir. And the NSA just cleared like everything.
549
00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:56.559
Go ahead, put it all out there. But we had
550
00:31:56.579 --> 00:31:58.630
been given advance warning on a ship coming to sink us.
551
00:31:59.619 --> 00:32:02.569
And by the third hour, we're like, when are they
552
00:32:02.650 --> 00:32:08.579
showing up? We're ready to be attacked. And They came
553
00:32:08.660 --> 00:32:11.039
in the fourth hour because, you know, they were Iranians.
554
00:32:11.079 --> 00:32:13.859
So they were really slow about it. They're having tea
555
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.539
and dates or whatever it is that they do. And
556
00:32:16.619 --> 00:32:20.529
they promptly attacked us because we were a little slack. But,
557
00:32:20.710 --> 00:32:23.690
you know, if it wasn't for the nondescript, I call
558
00:32:23.710 --> 00:32:26.710
the little old ladies who destroyed Iran. Right. Fort Meade
559
00:32:26.750 --> 00:32:30.750
has like GCHQ and in Bletchley Park and it's thought
560
00:32:30.950 --> 00:32:34.130
you would never look twice at these people. There is
561
00:32:34.230 --> 00:32:37.319
no special look about them. They're the people who are
562
00:32:37.339 --> 00:32:41.480
down in the Tesco's or, you know, just walking the streets.
563
00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:46.390
And that's what's just so utterly amazing. In my family,
564
00:32:46.410 --> 00:32:53.329
my wife's mother she was a Morse intercept operator, but
565
00:32:53.390 --> 00:32:55.869
we were not sure whether she was, you know, in
566
00:32:55.950 --> 00:32:59.759
one of the outstations for Bletchley Park. She was Morse fluent,
567
00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:03.039
you know, born in England, Morse fluent, and we're still
568
00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:06.140
tracking her down. She doesn't come up on the roster there. But,
569
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:07.180
you know, as I told my wife.
570
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.460
I'd be very happy to help you work that all out.
571
00:33:10.099 --> 00:33:12.809
Well, we just want to figure out where she was assigned,
572
00:33:12.849 --> 00:33:15.450
because she may not have been assigned to Bletchley Park. But,
573
00:33:15.690 --> 00:33:18.210
you know, she could copy. I mean, I know Morse.
574
00:33:19.049 --> 00:33:23.430
She was a a vicious demon, right? Copying is the
575
00:33:23.470 --> 00:33:28.579
most important, take it from me, intercept operator. Getting copy
576
00:33:28.740 --> 00:33:30.700
is the hardest thing in the world. And one of my,
577
00:33:30.740 --> 00:33:32.819
I call them Nance's laws in my book, where I
578
00:33:32.900 --> 00:33:36.220
stole all the laws of being a good cryptologic intercept
579
00:33:36.339 --> 00:33:40.859
operator is if you can't get the words, get the numbers, right?
580
00:33:41.380 --> 00:33:43.759
Which is because everything comes out into five digit or
581
00:33:43.799 --> 00:33:48.890
five letter codes, if it's really important. And I actually
582
00:33:48.910 --> 00:33:51.670
had a program where we were teaching SEAL platoons how
583
00:33:51.730 --> 00:33:55.819
to high-speed number drills, high-speed letter drills, and they could
584
00:33:55.839 --> 00:33:58.240
barely speak 20 words of Arabic. We were like, don't
585
00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:01.140
worry about it. If you get this, please write it
586
00:34:01.160 --> 00:34:02.309
down and get it back to us.
587
00:34:02.339 --> 00:34:04.160
There's a fantastic story I've read about. This is a
588
00:34:04.180 --> 00:34:08.889
voice interception, but there was a particular Wren, so women's
589
00:34:08.909 --> 00:34:12.369
Royal Naval intercept operator, who could take down perfect German.
590
00:34:12.389 --> 00:34:14.969
She didn't speak a word of the language. She just
591
00:34:15.010 --> 00:34:20.159
had a knack for picking up the phonetics of German
592
00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:23.670
in a way that the transcripts were word perfect, even
593
00:34:23.690 --> 00:34:27.909
though she didn't speak it. which is pretty incredible, but they, they, they,
594
00:34:27.949 --> 00:34:29.949
these people who were doing the interception, they deserve a
595
00:34:29.969 --> 00:34:31.289
lot more credit than they normally get.
596
00:34:31.949 --> 00:34:35.190
Oh yeah. Well, you know, the.
597
00:34:34.469 --> 00:34:37.219
Whole effort in its own right compared to Bletchley Park,
598
00:34:37.260 --> 00:34:38.659
they do their own thing. You know, they generate their
599
00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:40.900
own intelligence. They already feed into Bletchley Park in some
600
00:34:40.940 --> 00:34:44.360
cases as a, a side task for, for what they're
601
00:34:44.380 --> 00:34:47.139
really focusing on. Um, they're absolutely vital and their work
602
00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:49.349
is so skillful being able to tune into the enemy
603
00:34:49.389 --> 00:34:54.119
radio nets and, um, Through all the, you know, using
604
00:34:54.139 --> 00:34:57.440
wartime radios, which are really, really unreliable, you can barely
605
00:34:57.460 --> 00:34:59.920
keep track of the signal. You'll constantly have to retune
606
00:35:00.179 --> 00:35:02.989
your set to lock on to what you're listening in on.
607
00:35:03.409 --> 00:35:06.210
And the enemy don't want to be heard, so they're
608
00:35:06.369 --> 00:35:11.250
kind of trying to get a volume. And you have
609
00:35:11.289 --> 00:35:15.159
all this interception. And I've heard it described as, it's
610
00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:17.579
like eavesdropping on a conversation at the other end of
611
00:35:17.619 --> 00:35:20.949
a crowded ballroom. You know, it is that hard. But
612
00:35:20.989 --> 00:35:24.349
you can tune your ears to pick out that signal
613
00:35:25.070 --> 00:35:27.619
and translate it into something that a code breaker can
614
00:35:27.980 --> 00:35:30.619
then break. It's incredible.
615
00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:33.260
Well, let me assure you that as somebody who has
616
00:35:33.300 --> 00:35:37.059
gotten decades of copy, I can hear across a room
617
00:35:37.340 --> 00:35:40.070
with a lot of people. Your mind has a way
618
00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:43.610
of putting it, you know, a pencil beam onto, you know,
619
00:35:43.630 --> 00:35:48.340
we call it listening through. But back then, it was Morse,
620
00:35:48.500 --> 00:35:53.010
and the whole world was Morse code. Messages, sometimes 10,
621
00:35:53.010 --> 00:35:57.469
20 different outstations on the same frequency at various parts
622
00:35:57.510 --> 00:36:01.389
of the world where you're getting a stratospheric skip, and
623
00:36:01.429 --> 00:36:04.969
you're trying to get some... you know, let's just say,
624
00:36:05.369 --> 00:36:12.530
obviar clandestine transmitter that might be holed up in Siena, Italy, right?
625
00:36:13.050 --> 00:36:15.570
And you've got a million other pieces of Morse going
626
00:36:15.650 --> 00:36:19.570
on it. But I think the movie showed this quite well,
627
00:36:20.150 --> 00:36:24.619
that sometimes, not sometimes, everybody who copies can identify who
628
00:36:24.639 --> 00:36:29.739
you're copying. And back in those days, it was about keystroke, right?
629
00:36:30.179 --> 00:36:34.110
How well, how hard or how light or your techniques
630
00:36:34.150 --> 00:36:38.389
that you use for hitting the telegraph key. And some
631
00:36:38.429 --> 00:36:43.119
guys were pounders, other guys were really featherlights. And of course,
632
00:36:44.119 --> 00:36:48.150
some are stupid. So because some guys would repeat their
633
00:36:48.289 --> 00:36:51.750
like the rotor setting key for that day. And if
634
00:36:51.789 --> 00:36:55.429
you missed it and you repeated it the next day
635
00:36:55.530 --> 00:36:58.110
because you forgot what day it was because you pulled
636
00:36:58.150 --> 00:37:02.489
a 12 hour shift. I've done that. You know, there's
637
00:37:02.530 --> 00:37:05.150
the guy or the woman on the other end who's like,
638
00:37:05.650 --> 00:37:10.570
this is literally what we say. Dumbass. We've got you.
639
00:37:11.090 --> 00:37:11.889
You're caught caught.
640
00:37:12.699 --> 00:37:15.380
If you want to know how they break these ciphers, yeah,
641
00:37:15.480 --> 00:37:16.420
that's the reason why.
642
00:37:17.800 --> 00:37:19.480
Yeah, the women who are cops.
643
00:37:19.500 --> 00:37:22.480
The enemy make every mistake under the sun with Enigma
644
00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:25.619
and with every other system as well to give, to
645
00:37:25.639 --> 00:37:28.940
actually park a way in. They understood that these ciphers,
646
00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:31.809
if used properly, would have been unbreakable, you know, with
647
00:37:31.829 --> 00:37:34.210
the technology of the time. But they're never used properly.
648
00:37:34.769 --> 00:37:36.900
It's the only way they get anywhere. It still makes it,
649
00:37:36.929 --> 00:37:39.409
it's still incredibly difficult to make progress, but it's only
650
00:37:40.429 --> 00:37:43.039
viable in the first place. Because the Germans make a
651
00:37:43.059 --> 00:37:43.739
lot of mistakes.
652
00:37:46.019 --> 00:37:51.389
Amazing history. Interesting, crazy, interesting stuff. Now, tell my listeners,
653
00:37:51.889 --> 00:37:54.849
tell us about this new U.S. Friends of Bletchley Park
654
00:37:55.829 --> 00:37:57.349
and how they can get involved in it.
655
00:37:58.179 --> 00:38:00.699
Well, we have many supporters in the US. We've just
656
00:38:00.739 --> 00:38:03.420
set up a charity called the American Friends of Bletchley
657
00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:07.079
Park to make it easier for them to support us.
658
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:13.949
That's the event tonight we're holding to publicise that. But
659
00:38:15.849 --> 00:38:17.710
you can find it on the web if you want
660
00:38:17.730 --> 00:38:21.550
to support us. Google American Friends of Bletchley Park. And,
661
00:38:23.329 --> 00:38:25.389
you know, this really is an American story as much
662
00:38:25.429 --> 00:38:30.349
as it is a British one. Really, the foundation of
663
00:38:30.369 --> 00:38:33.489
the special intelligence relationship, which still exists today with our
664
00:38:33.530 --> 00:38:36.730
country's sharing intelligence, all comes out of signals intelligence as
665
00:38:36.829 --> 00:38:40.630
a part. And Americans are a fundamental part of this effort.
666
00:38:40.650 --> 00:38:44.070
There's about 250 of them working intellectually. They run interception.
667
00:38:44.090 --> 00:38:47.889
They run machines in the UK and in the US.
668
00:38:48.590 --> 00:38:50.889
The machines in the US have been built in the US.
669
00:38:51.570 --> 00:38:54.150
They're a faster, more advanced design than what the Brits
670
00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:57.380
are capable of doing. And, of course, many of the
671
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:01.579
users are Americans as well. All the big American commanders,
672
00:39:01.619 --> 00:39:05.929
your Eisenhowers, your Bradleys, Pattons, they're all receiving ultra from
673
00:39:05.969 --> 00:39:09.130
Bletchley Park. And they're being treated by the Brits exactly
674
00:39:09.150 --> 00:39:12.090
the same as the British generals. You know, they have
675
00:39:12.130 --> 00:39:14.389
a right to this information. They use it very effectively.
676
00:39:14.429 --> 00:39:18.110
They become experts in the news. So it's a vital
677
00:39:18.150 --> 00:39:21.090
part of America's wartime story as well as it is Britain.
678
00:39:22.659 --> 00:39:25.559
Yep, absolutely. I just think it's great. And, you know,
679
00:39:25.579 --> 00:39:29.570
you guys, I always recommend if, you know, whatever events
680
00:39:29.590 --> 00:39:31.929
they're going to be holding here, go to them. As
681
00:39:31.949 --> 00:39:34.000
you know, I was a member of the International Spy Museum.
682
00:39:34.059 --> 00:39:36.320
I was actually on the board of advisors for 10
683
00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:39.039
years at the Spy Museum. Old joke that I used
684
00:39:39.079 --> 00:39:41.760
to tell at the Spy Museum, came to the first meeting,
685
00:39:42.840 --> 00:39:46.619
the room is almost all CIA people. And I come
686
00:39:46.639 --> 00:39:48.829
in black eyed. And I go, oh, I get it.
687
00:39:48.900 --> 00:39:51.360
This actually happened. I go, oh, I get it. I'm
688
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:55.070
the diversity hire. And you can hear everybody go, and
689
00:39:55.110 --> 00:40:01.730
I go, I'm the only SIGINT guy here. And they
690
00:40:01.750 --> 00:40:04.570
were like, oh.
691
00:40:04.710 --> 00:40:05.349
That's a good one.
692
00:40:05.409 --> 00:40:08.969
So it was true. I was the only SIGINT there
693
00:40:08.989 --> 00:40:12.159
in the entire place. Everybody's a human intelligence guy. I
694
00:40:12.179 --> 00:40:12.980
don't know if it's.
695
00:40:12.940 --> 00:40:15.750
Sexy nowadays, but it certainly wasn't sexy during the war.
696
00:40:17.639 --> 00:40:19.480
I'm going to send you my memoir if you want
697
00:40:19.739 --> 00:40:27.139
to read the advance copy. It is stupidly sexy. They
698
00:40:27.260 --> 00:40:32.860
actually cleared the first words that I ever intercepted, which
699
00:40:32.909 --> 00:40:35.710
was in Lebanon, and it was a stream of obscenities.
700
00:40:36.849 --> 00:40:40.769
which was very common over there. But I encourage everybody
701
00:40:40.829 --> 00:40:45.250
to go to Google American Friends of Bletchley Park and join.
702
00:40:45.550 --> 00:40:48.949
Get one of these. Sexy, sexy. This never leaves my wallet.
703
00:40:49.289 --> 00:40:50.949
You know why? Because I went there two years ago
704
00:40:51.090 --> 00:40:52.550
and it took a half hour for you to find
705
00:40:52.590 --> 00:40:54.739
my membership because I kept going, are you sure you
706
00:40:54.780 --> 00:40:57.019
don't have your card? And I go, I just crossed
707
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.119
the Atlantic. And now I keep the card in my wallet.
708
00:41:00.219 --> 00:41:03.139
So I may have to make an emergency visit to
709
00:41:03.159 --> 00:41:06.340
Bletchley Park for something fun. Well, Thomas, I am so
710
00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:08.380
glad to see you. I'll see you tonight. And if
711
00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:12.010
I had known you've been coming, I would have asked
712
00:41:12.050 --> 00:41:15.329
you to bring at least a six pack of station exhale.
713
00:41:16.650 --> 00:41:20.170
So which you need to start selling these things here
714
00:41:20.809 --> 00:41:24.119
in the States. You know what I'm saying?
715
00:41:24.179 --> 00:41:26.019
We'll have to have you on our podcast when you
716
00:41:26.280 --> 00:41:27.079
next come over as well.
717
00:41:28.110 --> 00:41:30.730
Well, that would be a blast. Oh, yeah. Going over
718
00:41:30.769 --> 00:41:36.500
there to do my annual hodge to Bletchley Park. Absolutely.
719
00:41:36.579 --> 00:41:38.800
I really appreciate it. So thank you so much for
720
00:41:38.820 --> 00:41:42.699
coming on to Black Man Spy and I'll see you later. Well,
721
00:41:42.739 --> 00:41:45.559
that was fascinating. I hope to come back and give
722
00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:48.380
you a follow up on to what I learned at
723
00:41:48.420 --> 00:41:51.969
the American Friends of Bletchley Park. Like I said, I
724
00:41:52.030 --> 00:41:54.309
keep my word and I just put I think I
725
00:41:54.349 --> 00:41:58.550
just put my my card back in my wallet. But
726
00:41:58.719 --> 00:42:04.809
I keep my– there it is– my Bletchley Park membership
727
00:42:04.869 --> 00:42:06.929
card in my wallet all the time. Because when I
728
00:42:06.969 --> 00:42:08.960
go to England, I like to jump on the train.
729
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:13.219
30 minutes. It takes you right to Bletchley Park. Walk
730
00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:15.159
out the train station, turn right, go to the end
731
00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:17.619
of the street, turn left. And you're at the front
732
00:42:17.659 --> 00:42:22.829
door of Bletchley Park. And– It is just a fascinating history.
733
00:42:23.230 --> 00:42:25.340
Here in the United States, we have our version, the
734
00:42:25.380 --> 00:42:29.880
National Cryptologic Museum at the National Security Agency. And the place,
735
00:42:29.900 --> 00:42:32.079
like I said, where I worked, I was on the
736
00:42:32.139 --> 00:42:35.820
board of advisors for 10 years at the International Spy Museum.
737
00:42:36.460 --> 00:42:41.800
So come and learn about how fascinating this history of
738
00:42:41.840 --> 00:42:45.829
code breaking was. And again, watch the movie Imitation Games.
739
00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:50.599
If you want to see the incredible history, dramatized quite
740
00:42:50.639 --> 00:42:55.530
a bit, of Dr. Alan Turing, who was the key
741
00:42:55.570 --> 00:42:59.369
driving force in breaking and making, as he said, practical
742
00:42:59.789 --> 00:43:03.389
the real-time code breaking of the Enigma machines in World
743
00:43:03.409 --> 00:43:07.440
War II. With that, I am going to see you
744
00:43:07.980 --> 00:43:11.480
from another venue next week. I'm moving outside of New York.
745
00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:14.559
And I want you to have a good time. And
746
00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:16.699
I will give you an update on what I learned
747
00:43:17.059 --> 00:43:19.719
from this event. So I will see you on the beach.
748
00:43:20.139 --> 00:43:20.480
Take care.