William Friedman - Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Purple Code

Shortly after World War I began, William Friedman went to work for a private research company. Friedman’s interest was genetics, and he was hired as director of the genetics department.

At work, he met a young lady who was in the ciphers department. She had a most intriguing project: to determine whether Francis Bacon was the real author of the works attributed to Shakespeare. Friedman became involve dramatically and intellectually. He married the woman and became a crypt-analyst. It was a love match that would change history, for a quarter of a century later, Fried-man would break the Japanese Purple Code.

Chief Cryptanalyst

William Friedman was born in 189l in Kishenev, a town in Bessarabia, then part of Czarist Russia. He came to America when he was 2 years old. In 1914, he graduated from Cornell University, where he had majored in genetics. The following year, Friedman got a job with a research firm owned by one George Fabyan.

It was Fabyan who believed that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare. What is more, Fabyan believed that this could be proved by crypt-analysis of the bard’s works. The young woman hired to prove Fabyan’s theory got Friedman so fascinated by ciphers that he became a cryptographer himself. In a short time, Friedman was made head of the ciphers department.

During World War I, Fabyan offered the U.S. Army the use of his cipher department to train personnel in cryptanalysis. Friedman ran the operation. After the war, the Army Signal Corps offered Friedman a job, heading up its new Code and Cipher Section. In 1921, Friedman moved to Washington to start his new assignment.

Radio began to take on growing importance in government communications. So the Signal Intelligence Service was created, headed by Friedman. The new unit would intercept messages by radio as well as by wire.

In 1934, Friedman discovered that IBM was developing useful machines for mathematical analysis, and he snapped one up for use in the decoding process. Little did he dream of the future potential for computers in his work.

A year later, he was replaced as director of the unit but continued working as the chief cryptanalyst.

Unlocking the Japanese Secret

In the early 1930s, Nazi Germany was the potential threat. By the middle of that decade, Japan was a new power to be reckoned with. In 1937, Japan created a diplomatic code called Purple, using a machine with many switches and intricate wiring. Two typewriters were hooked in, one to feed messages in, the other to take mes-sages out. A code book indicated which keys had to be pressed for use on a particular day. In addition, two codes were available each day, one for normal secret messages and the other for extremely important, super-secret messages. The system was so complex that the Japanese believed that it was unbreakable.

Friedman went to work to unlock the secrets of Purple. As day after frustrating day went by, the possibility of conflict in the Pacific became greater. Finally, on September 25, 1940, Friedman broke the Japanese Purple Code. Though it was used primarily for diplomatic messages, it transmitted valuable military and naval information as well.

A Source of Vital Information

Once the code was cracked, Operation Magic began. This involved not only decoding Japanese messages, but translating them into English, then distributing them to key civilian and military officials. All had to be done in the strictest secrecy.

Friedman had been working as a civilian, but he was also in the reserve. In 1943, he was put on active duty as a colonel. Magic was of obvious importance in the Pacific, but it was just as important in the European war. Before December 7, 1941, the U.S. Navy largely overlooked the Japanese interest in Pearl Harbor, but it did not make the same mistake during the war. Magic was vital in the Battle of Midway, clearly indicating the strategy of the Japanese fleet. It was also helpful in pinpointing the time and place where Admiral Yamamoto (Number 6) would be inspecting Japanese installations, which would cost the admiral his life. As far as Europe was concerned, the Axis partners exchanged information on both political and military affairs. Such data was of significant value to the Allies.

An Unlikely Hero

After the war, the great code-breaker continued doing cryptanalysis for new undercover government agencies.

When William Friedman died in 1969, there were no great public ceremonies in his honor. That quiet man who had worked so diligently at figuring out puzzles and ciphers and mysteries was as unlikely a hero as Shakespeare—or Bacon—could ever imagine. But he will go down in history as the man who broke Purple, one of the great victories of World War II.