The Reader Of Gentlemen's Mail
By David Kahn
2004
First Published
3.79
Average Rating
364
Number of Pages
One of the most colourful and controversial figures in American intelligence, Herbert O. Yardley (1889-1958) gave America its best form of information, but his fame rests more on his indiscretions than on his achievements. In this highly readable biography, a premier historian of military intelligence tells Yardley's story and evaluates his impact on the American intelligence community. Yardley established the nation's first codebreaking agency in 1917, and his solutions helped the United States win a major diplomatic victory at the 1921 disarmament conference. But when his unit was closed in 1929 because "gentlemen do not read each other's mail", Yardley wrote a best-selling memoir that introduced - and disclosed - codemaking and codebreaking to the public. David Kahn describes the vicissitudes of Yardley's career, including his work in China and Canada, offers a capsule history of American intelligence up to World War I, and gives a short course in classical codes and ciphers. He debunks the accusations that the publication of Yardley's book caused Japan to change its codes and ciphers and that Yardley traitorously sold his solutions to Japan.
Avg Rating
3.79
Number of Ratings
33
5 STARS
21%
4 STARS
48%
3 STARS
21%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads
Author
David Kahn
Author · 12 books
David Kahn is a historian who writes on military codebreaking. He earned a D.Phil in modern German history from Oxford University in 1974 under the supervision of the then-Regius professor of modern history, Hugh Trevor-Roper. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
