Re: Book review: Codebreakers, the Inside Story of Bletchley Park

Another book with some insight into Bletchley Park is
"Cloak and Gown" (I forget the author), about the relationship between
Yale academics and the OSS, the WW2 predecessor to the CIA.

Among the various Yalies who went into the OSS was James Jesus Angleton,
who spent a lot of time at Bletchley analyzing information that might
be useful for US Army and covert OSS activities, and trying to support
counterintelligene work by correlating the information from intercepts
of German understanding of US and British plans with the Allied
sources and users of those plans, to try to find leaks, traitors,
moles, spies, and other types that counter-spook spooks worry about.

Besides the Enigma interceptions themselves, the big secret the OSS
and British intelligence were paranoid about protecting was that all the 
known German spies in Great Britain had been caught and 
turned for disinformation use (or killed); almost everything Germany
was getting from its spies was bogus.

		Bill

bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204 wrote:
> 
> Another book with some insight into Bletchley Park is
> "Cloak and Gown" (I forget the author), about the relationship between
> Yale academics and the OSS, the WW2 predecessor to the CIA.

That's by Robin Winks. I have a copy, in hardback, that I found some
years back in a used book store. Lots of good stuff about the central
role Yale has played.

> Among the various Yalies who went into the OSS was James Jesus Angleton,
> who spent a lot of time at Bletchley analyzing information that might
> be useful for US Army and covert OSS activities, and trying to support
...

A friend of mine, Buddy Diamond, developer of the "NFL Challenge" PC
game of some years back, worked with James J. Angleton on a kind of
"CIA Challenge" training game. I met Buddy at the 1988 Crypto
conference, and he was the main reason I got invited to the Hackers
Conference that year (and thereafter, as is the norm). Oh, he went to
Yale, and this had a lot to do with the CIA getting in touch with him.

--Tim May


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Another book that has not been mentioned is "Alan Turing the Enigma" by
Andrew Hodges.  It gives, what I think, is a good analysis of Turing's
work, alot of which is still classified, what role Hut 6 played (theater 
traffic analysis, bombe development, and other projects after Hut 6) , and 
his subquent role in the development computing.

Hodges does a good job of putting Turing in historical and 
mathematical/cryptological perspective.

Alas, like some of the books that are sugguested, it is recently out of 
print ( look for it in the remainder/used book stores).


Dan

> Another book with some insight into Bletchley Park is
> "Cloak and Gown" (I forget the author),

"Use the source, Luke!"

% telnet locis.loc.gov

         L O C I S :  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS INFORMATION SYSTEM

          To make a choice: type a number, then press ENTER


  1   Library of Congress Catalog           4   Braille and Audio

  2   Federal Legislation                   5   Organizations

  3   Copyright Information                 6   Foreign Law

...

b cloak and gown
To choose from list, see examples at bottom.                      FILE: LOCI
Terms alphabetically close to:CLOAK AND GOWN

B01 Cloak & gown//(TITL=3)
B02 Cloak and dagger//(TITL=3)
B03 Cloak and dagger fiction//(TITL=2)
B04 Cloak and Dagger in Predator and Prey//(TITL=1)
B05 Cloak and gavel//(TITL=1)
B06+Cloak and gown//(TITL=3)
B07 Cloak for the dreamer//(TITL=1)
B08 Cloak of Aesir//(TITL=1)
B09 Cloak of competence//(TITL=1)
B10 Cloak of consciousness//(TITL=1)
B11 Cloak of darkness//(TITL=2)
B12 Cloak of friendship//(TITL=1)

---EXAMPLES: s b6         (SELECTs line b6; creates a SET for each term type)
             f b6-b8/b10  (FINDs b6-b8 and b10; combines sets, displays result)
             r b6         (RETRIEVEs term on b6; searches text in some files)
             r subj=b6    (RETRIEVEs term type specified; e.g., SUBJ, TITL)

f b1/b6

ITEMS 1-3 OF 3                 SET 3: BRIEF DISPLAY                FILE: LOCI
                                (DESCENDING ORDER)
1. 88-672288: Winks, Robin W.  Cloak and gown : scholars in America's secret
     war /  London : Collins Harvill, 1987.  607 p. ; 24 cm.
     NOT IN LC COLLECTION
2. 88-30560: Winks, Robin W.  Cloak & gown : scholars in the secret war,
     1939-1961 /  New York : Quill, 1988.  p. cm.
     CIP - NOT YET IN LC
3. 87-7683: Winks, Robin W.  Cloak & gown : scholars in the secret war,
     1939-1961 /  1st ed.  New York : Morrow, c1987.  607 p., [16] p. of
     plates : ill., ports. ; 25 cm.
     LC CALL NUMBER: JK468.I6 W48 1987