VOICE ONE:
This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today we visit a small museum in the state ofMaryland. It is called the National Cryptologic Museum. It is filledwith information that was once very secret.
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VOICE ONE:
The little National Cryptologic Museum is on the Fort George G.Meade military base near Washington, D-C. It tells the story ofcryptology and the men and women who have worked in this unusualprofession. The word cryptology comes from the Greek kryptoslogos. It means “hidden word.” Cryptology is writing orcommunicating using secret methods to hide the meaning of yourwords.
VOICE TWO:
The museum shows many pieces of equipment that were once used tomake information secret. It also has equipment that was used in aneffort to read secret information. One unusual example is a kind ofbed covering called a quilt. Quilts are made by hand. They usuallyhave a colorful design sewn on them. One special kind of quilt wasused to pass on secret information.
In the early history of the United States, black people fromAfrica were used as slaves in the southern states. Slaves sewedquilts that had very unusual designs. These quilts really toldstories. The quilts were made with designs that told slaves how toescape to freedom in the northern states.
The museum has an example that shows a design that represents theNorth Star. Slaves knew they had to travel from the South to theNorth to escape to freedom. The quilt tells a slave to follow theNorth Star. Other designs in the quilt represent roads and a smallhouse.
History experts say about sixty-thousand slaves escaped tofreedom during the period of slavery. The experts do not know howmuch the quilts really helped, but they did provide neededinformation for those trying to escape.
VOICE ONE:
The Cryptologic Museum has several examples that show theimportance of creating secret information, or trying to read secretinformation written by foreign nations. Secret information is alsocalled code.
One of the most important displays at the museum shows Americanattempts to read Japanese military information codes during WorldWar Two. The Japanese Navy used special machines to change theirwritten information into secret codes. This coded information wasthen transmitted by radio to ships and bases. Much of thisinformation contained secret military plans and orders.
The leaders of the Japanese Navy believed no one could read orunderstand the secret codes. They were wrong. An American Navalofficer named Joseph Rochefort worked very hard to break theJapanese code. He did this in an effort to learn what the JapaneseNavy was planning.
Mister Rochefort did his work in a small building on the Americannaval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was early innineteen-forty-two. The American naval commander in the PacificOcean was Admiral Chester Nimitz. His forces were much smaller thanthe Japanese Naval forces. And the Japanese had been winning manyvictories.
((SOUND: High-speed Morse code))
VOICE TWO:
Joseph Rochefort had worked for several months to read the secretJapanese Naval code called J-N-Twenty-Five. If he could read enoughof the code, Mister Rochefort would be able to provide AdmiralNimitz with very valuable information. Admiral Nimitz could use thisinformation to make the necessary decisions to plan for battle. Bythe early part of the year, Mister Rochefort and the men who workedwith him could read a little less than twenty percent of theJapanese J-N-Twenty-Five code.
VOICE ONE:
From the beginning of nineteen-forty-two, the Japanese codecarried information that discussed a place called “A-F.” MisterRochefort felt the Japanese were planning an important battle aimedat “A-F.”
But where was “A-F”? After several weeks, Mister Rochefort andother naval experts told Admiral Nimitz that their best idea wasthat the “A-F” in the Japanese code was the American-held island ofMidway. Admiral Nimitz said he could not plan an attack or a defensebased on only an idea. He needed more information.
VOICE TWO:
The Navy experts decided to try a trick. They told the Americanmilitary force on Midway to broadcast a false message. The messagewould say the island was having problems with its water-processingequipment. The message asked that fresh water be sent immediately tothe island. This message was not sent in code.
Several days later, a Japanese radio broadcast in theJ-N-Twenty-Five code said that “A-F” had little water. MisterRochefort had the evidence he needed. “A-F” was now known to be theisland of Midway. He also told Admiral Nimitz the Japanese wouldattack Midway on June Third.
Admiral Nimitz used this information to secretly move his smallforce to an area near Midway and wait for the Japanese Navy. Thebattle that followed was a huge American victory. History expertsnow say the Battle of Midway was the beginning of the Americanvictory in the Pacific. That victory was possible because JosephRochefort learned to read enough of the Japanese code to discoverthe meaning of the two letters “A-F.”
((SOUND: Morse code))
VOICE ONE:
One American code has never been broken. Perhaps it never will.It was used in the Pacific during World War Two. For many years thegovernment would not discuss this secret code. Listen for a momentto this very unusual code. Then you may understand why the Japanesemilitary forces were never able to understand any of it.
((MUSIC: Navajo song))
You may have guessed that the code is in the voice of a NativeAmerican. The man you just heard is singing a simple song in theNavajo language. Very few people outside the Navajo nation are ableto speak any of their very difficult language.
At the beginning of World War Two, the United States Marine Corpsasked members of the Navajo tribe to train as Code Talkers.
VOICE ONE:
The Cryptologic Museum says about four-hundred Navajos served asMarine Corps Code Talkers during the war. They could take a sentencein English and change it into their language in about twentyseconds. A code machine at that time took about thirty minutes to dothe same work.
The Navajo Code Talkers took part in every battle the Marinesentered in the Pacific during World War Two. The Japanese were veryskilled at breaking codes. But they were never able to understandany of what they called “The Marine Code.”
For many years after the war, the American public did not knowabout the valuable work done by the Marine Navajo Code Talkers. TheUnited States government kept their work a secret and their languagecontinued to be a valuable method of passing secret information.
((MUSIC: Navajo song))
VOICE TWO:
The Cryptologic Museum has manypieces of mechanical and electric equipment used to change wordsinto code. It also has almost as many examples of machines used totry to change code back into useful words.
Perhaps the most famous is a World War Two German code machinecalled the Enigma. The word “enigma” means a puzzle or a problemthat is difficult to solve.
The German Enigma machine was used by the German military to passorders and plans. The United States, Britain, and the government ofPoland were all successful in learning to read informationtransmitted by the Enigma. It took thousands of people and costmillions of dollars to read the Enigma information. However, thetime, effort and money resulted in a quicker end to the war againstNazi Germany.
VOICE ONE:
The National Cryptologic Museum belongs to the United StatesNational Security Agency. The agency is usually called the N-S-A.One of the N-S-A’s many jobs is cryptography for the United Statesgovernment. The work of the N-S-A is not open to the public.However, the National Cryptologic Museum tells the story of the menand women who work at the N-S-A long after their work is no longersecret.
Each part of the museum shows the value of this secret, difficultand demanding work. Visitors say it is really fun to see equipmentand read documents that were once very important and very, verysecret.
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VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced byGeorge Grow. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Mary Tillotson. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS,a program in Special English on the Voice of America.