Because of the year of its publication, the book did not cover most of the history concerning the breaking of the German Enigma machine, which became public knowledge during the 1970s. The book finishes with a chapter on SETI. Kahn and Macmillan eventually agreed to remove some material from the manuscript, particularly concerning the relationship between the NSA and its counterpart in the United Kingdom, GCHQ.
Kahn's publisher, Macmillan and Sons, handed over the manuscript to the government for review without Kahn's permission on 4 March 1966.
Ī committee of the United States Intelligence Board concluded that the book was "a possibly valuable support to foreign COMSEC authorities" and recommended "further low-key actions as possible, but short of legal action, to discourage Mr. The NSA considered various options, including writing a negative review of Kahn's work to be published in the press to discredit him. The book was to include information on the NSA and, according to Bamford, the agency attempted to stop its publication. He began writing it part-time, and then he quit his job to work on it full-time. Kahn, then a journalist, was contracted to write a book on cryptology in 1961. The Puzzle Palace (1982), written by James Bamford, gives a history of the writing and publication of The Codebreakers. William Crowell, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency, was quoted in Newsday magazine: "Before he (Kahn) came along, the best you could do was buy an explanatory book that usually was too technical and terribly dull."
The Codebreakers is widely regarded as the best account of the history of cryptography up to its publication. Overview īradford Hardie III, an American cryptographer during World War II, contributed insider information, German translations from original documents, and intimate real-time operational explanations to The Codebreakers. The United States government attempted to have the book altered before publication, and it succeeded in part. The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing ( ISBN 0-9) is a book by David Kahn, published in 1967, comprehensively chronicling the history of cryptography from ancient Egypt to the time of its writing.
0 kommentar(er)
