THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 24, 1937.
LEARNING SECRETS IS
By LOUIS MANSFIELD To-day plots and counter-plots between nations flash across world in a hundred radio codes.
the
A The Government that can lis- ten in and decipher these mes- -Bages soon knows its friends and
its enemies.
Whitehall maintains its Black Chamber for this work.
Fleet NOME months ago the SOM
practised a series of anti-sub- marine exercises off Malta. After of they had exploded a number depth-charges Italian submarines started "to pop up like.corks."
Malta was surrounded by them! To most people this was mere coincidence. But thirty men in the Black Chamber, as Whitehall's Cryptographic Bureau is known, knew it would happen. It was all part of a carefully thought out plan.
You see, they had managed to solve the highly secret Italian High Seas Code and were able to read all the fleet orders
Behind heavily-barred and close ly-guarded doors in Whitehall these thirty men work in feverish haste, day and night, tearing apart the
TRADE!
confidential diplomatic. codes of working for our Legation” ran other Governments and "learning the translation which I saw. "He secrets of vital interest to British must think he is working for some diplomacy.
political party........
con-
THEIR
Such codes are easily "broken. The Bureau knows that all groups starting 0000 must mean words be- ginning with A, while those num- bered among the fifty thousands be- gin with W or Y.
Numbers midway between the two indicate M words.
Diplomats are notoriously care- "He must find out whère the
After that an ordinary diction- the highly, confidential secret documents and the less about
Phrases like "You are to wait in- things they say in their supposedly fidential correspondence are kept ary is all that is needed.
and find ways and means to steal "safe codes."
structions," and "The British Gov- or copy some of them....”.
are quickly identified Do you remember Radek, who vernment," are
their position in the list. was recently sentenced for treason from the numbers, which indicate in Russia?
Foreign Governments are, too. Frequently the Fleet and whole bodies of troops are moved in con- sequence of the secrets learned in this way,,
If these men wished, they could tell you what Japan's next move is going to be in China.
But they won't. They won't even admit knowing anything about it!
the man.
The other numbers can then be
solved.
book-make use codes.
If you ask a member of the Bureau who Radek is he'll probably compared with the words already Because of this many Govern- declare he has never even heard of
our own-which Yet, as far back as 1919, Radek ments, including
another former Bolshevist, sticks firmly to a 10,000-word code and
of "disarranged" Bukarin, were being mentioned in Soviet Nor will they admit having de- secret spy reports which ciphered a famous document, some agents were sending to their Gov- years ago, in which a certain Government. ernment transmitted a strict set of orders to its representative con- cerning the placing of spies in the Embassies of other Governments!
But the document exists, never theless.
"He must not know that he is
BOOKS
THEATRE, by
T
Somerset Maug-
28
They all have their problems and ham (Heineman, 7s. 6d).
these problems are worked into one She was a great actress and a lively story. successful one. Off the stage well as on, she matched her every small gesture, knew just what ef- fect she was making with the flut- ter of a single eyelash.
In an expansive moment, her son said to her, "There isn't a real you, Julia. You're
of just a bundle shams."
Perhaps but she knew how to love, even if, in her marriage ás well as her affairs, she always had to set the pace, almost do the court- ing.
It was her conceit that almost let how Somerset her down-and Maugham laughs at it, quietly, but very comfortably.
He laughs at her terrific self-im- portance, her constant posing, her middle-aged “pash" on a youth. Yet he makes of her a most attrac- tive character with a humorous philosophy of living.
.
K
*
A NEW KIND OF HEROINE
A cat and a real one with fur and four legs and a tail.
de
some
And these are only two names from a list of hundreds which the Cryptographic Bureau has on file. You see, for years past they have been carefully intercepting and coding the secret reports of hundreds of German, Italian Russian spies operating in England
It is only by keeping a constant watch on the diplomatic messages of other nations that we are able to learn who are our friends and who are our enemies.
and
How do they do it, these wizards of the Black Chamber?
Diplomatic messages are, en- ciphered by means of a code book which is really a list of words, and phrases each bearing a number.
When sending a report the repre- sentative looks up each word and phrase, and notes down the appro priate numbers.
And was she a heroine! She took Sometimes these books are made the Rev, Theodore Whitten firmly up in alphabetical order from A-Z, hand and. showed him just and the accompanying numbers run where he and his teachings were from 00001 upwards to fifty or sixty
thousand.
in
wrong.
She had good material to work on in spite of the dog collar be- cause The Rev. had taken Holy Or- ders "because those are the only kind of orders that need not be very rigorously obeyed."
But
you
have
would never thought that she would have had such success at humanising the negative Reverend. Perhaps it was because she was such an amorous-" ly-minded cat.
Whatever the reason The Cat And the Curate, by Charles Gilson
(Melrose, 78. 6d.). is a particul: ly happy book guaranteed to cheer Yoc won't forget her long after you up even if the weather lets you you have regretfully said good-bye down.
to her and her solitary steak and final piece of ingenuous conceit.
"Six Marriages" by Florence Kilpatrick (Harrap, 78. 6d.),
Murder in Blue, by Clifford Whit- ting (Hodder and Stoughton, 78. 6d.).
To all crime-book fans, Mr. Whit ing seems to say: "So you like a spot of murder, do you? Then you shall have it.”
That means six wedding-rings on six different féminine fingers. But on one finger the thin platinum ring Lord, no. Let's have a couple meant just nothing.
Nothing in one murder to get excited about, he seems to think.
and Gillian's marriage was companionate affair-live to
first and see if you can hear each other afterwards
The other five wives were all people that you and I meet every
nice gory ones
at that two vicious attempts, and round it all off wit a nice suicide.
It started off with a policeman- nice kind of chap-being four with his head battered in.
It ended with a surprise villain another policeman-and a wed -the money-greedy wife, the ding, But that had little to do ambitious wife, the wife of a man with the murders. It merely sho who is beneath her in breeding and that you can help catch a man- intellect, the wife who lives for killer and still find time to fall in nothing but housekeeping
love.
In these the words are distri- buted here and there at will so that the numbers do not indicate the
words: Here is a copy of a alphabetical order of official British Foreign Office code which was in use some years ago.
Vamage in an
Fleet approves withdrawal pro- posed amendment, Stop. Object joint conditions. Stop. Desirous abandon guns hunan. Stop.
In this particular code it would be:
4033 4056 4057 4080 4059 4034 4008 4081 4097, 4034 4010 4029 4015 4054 4034.
Nevertheless, a message of this type can also be deciphered.
By collecting a number of mes- sages, the Bureau is able to make out phrases, like "The Minister then said," and I shall inquire.”
That code has now been dropped by Britain,
Yes, they could tell some drama- tic stories.
But they won't! Their job is to tell
em!:
Cook
by
Gas
learn secrets. Not