History Science as an Art of Cutting Out

Usually, inconvenient truths are cut out of history, constructing a convenient lie. But sometimes circumstances force the cutting out of a firmly established deception. It is desirable to understand how such circumstances arise. And how they contribute to the return of truth to history.

In the early months of 2023, the NSA Center for Cryptologic History very quietly, without any media notification, released a new substantive study [1]. Titled "From the Ground Up" it narrates the inception, key figures, and early successes of American military cryptology at the dawn of the 20th century.

The author of this extensive and detailed monograph is Betsy R. Smoot, a lady well-known among historians of crypto-services. She worked in the NSA's operational units from 1983 to 2007, initially as an intercept analyst, then in management positions, and from 2007 until recently as a research scientist at the NSA Center for Cryptologic History.

Betsy Smoot's new work definitely deserves increased attention for several reasons. First, because well-known historical facts are presented in this book quite differently from how they have been traditionally recounted.

Second, the narrative includes facts and figures whose historical significance was previously deliberately downplayed or ignored. Third, the history has now been carefully purged of pages that were previously interpreted as self-evident truth but are revealed by newly emerging documents to be deliberate and provable falsehoods.

Fourth, and finally, after all these amendments and clarifications to the historical picture, the "founding father" of American cryptology turns out to be completely different from the one unanimously indicated by historians until recently...

But the most interesting aspect here is not even this. Nor is it that, as a result of the undertaken modifications, the usually hidden tricks and apparatus of this unnoticeable kitchen were incidentally – and quite distinctly – revealed. From this, it becomes clear and evident "when, why, and for what purpose" authorities suddenly needed to quietly adjust the history here.

Even more interesting is something else. Thanks to the current review of the early history of American cryptology, excellent opportunities open up for a significant revision of established misconceptions across a whole range of different sciences. Starting from the history of theatre, literature, and Shakespeare studies, and up to philosophy, physics, and the science of consciousness...

To properly highlight the nuances in this vast and layered picture, the story should begin with the topic of the "father of American cryptology." More precisely, with how this "father" was just recently swapped right before everyone's eyes – and the respectable public noticed nothing.

The texts and covers of the NSA official magazine, Cryptologic Quarterly, could serve as a suitable basis for demonstrating this instructive trick. This agency's quarterly publication usually bears a classification marking on the cover and is intended strictly for internal use. However, at the turn of 2014-2015, it was decided to make one issue per year publicly available and openly post it on the NSA's website (details about the context and motives of this step can be found here).

In particular, in 2017, such a non-secret issue was number 3, which, among other publications, contained an article by the already familiar Betsy R. Smoot titled "The Cryptologist’s War: How World War I Helped Weave the “Cloak” of Cryptologic Secrecy" [2]. Literally one of the very first paragraphs of this article begins with the phrase "William Friedman, the true father of American cryptology...", and all subsequent exposition relies on this assertion as an axiomatic and well-known fact.

A year and a half later, in early 2019, another open issue of Cryptologic Quarterly [3] featured on its cover a large photograph capturing a retirement ceremony in the conference hall of the NSA first headquarters in Arlington. The caption to the photograph explains what is happening:

This photo document is particularly interesting because the CIA Director Allen Dulles's attendance at the NSA ceremony to personally pay his respects to the "father of cryptology" was far from coincidental, of course. The accompanying article in the magazine completely ignores this intriguing nuance – and not without reason. But it's more convenient to discuss the grand crypto-endeavors that took place then in the super-secret joint project of CIA and NSA spies with the direct involvement of William Friedman a bit later.

Continuing with the chronology of contemporary publications from intelligence service historians, it's important to highlight the year 2020. Prompted by the CIA, events occurred in the cryptographic world that, in the view of outsiders, are if at all connected to William Friedman, then very insignificantly. However, shortly after these events, in 2022, a new biographical book from NSA historians is published with a rather unexpected title: "Parker Hitt: The Father of American Military Cryptology" [4].

Moreover, the author of this work, which subtly replaced one "father" with another, is none other than Betsy R. Smoot... Who appears to be the NSA's main, if not sole, specialist on the early history of this intelligence service.

Regarding who Colonel Parker Hitt was (and why there's practically nothing written about him in internet encyclopedias), the story could indeed be quite fascinating. But perhaps another time, as the focus here is not on him.

But on the fact that in Betsy Smoot's latest book, "From the Ground Up: American Cryptology during the First World War" the memorable William Friedman is mentioned, of course, but not once as the "father." And there are numerous direct references to the author's previous work, "Parker Hitt: The Father of American Cryptology"...

Moreover, not only Friedman's role and place but also significant circumstances of the history that accompanied this man's emergence in the realms of state cryptography are subjected to substantial revision. Since in Smoot's new book almost (but not) all characters who had a personal influence on the formation of military cryptology in the USA are dedicated special sidebars, there's such an sidebars for William F. Friedman. And if one reads this text attentively enough, something truly remarkable is discovered.

It would be beneficial to present the entire relevant fragment of the book here, but for the sake of brevity, we will limit ourselves only to the part that tells the story of the young biologist-geneticist Friedman's introduction to the world of cryptography at George Fabyan's Riverbank Laboratories. Since this colorful story has not been told in this form before, the quotation will be verbatim:

George Fabyan had a thriving cryptanalytic enterprise in Geneva, Illinois, at the time the United States entered the war. Riverbank Laboratories employed two people who would, after the war, become stars of the nation’s cryptologic community — William Frederick Friedman (see sidebar) and Elizebeth Smith. They married just weeks after the United States entered the war in 1917.

Although the work of Riverbank’s cipher department concentrated on Elizabethan ciphers, particularly Francis Bacon’s biliteral cipher, Fabyan, a patriotic man, was quick to volunteer the minds of his unique workforce to the government.

Sidebar: William Frederick Friedman

[…] He received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in genetics in 1914 and stayed on as a graduate student in the College of Agriculture. When in May 1915, his academic supervisor shared with him a letter about a position running the Department of Genetics at Riverbank Laboratories under George Fabyan, Friedman accepted.

Although his work first involved genetics, he was coopted to use his amateur photography skills to assist another project on the estate. While taking photographs of documents, he met and later married Elizebeth Smith who was working in Riverbank’s Cipher Department. William was intrigued by her work on Elizabethan-era ciphers, and soon he was working alongside her.

Despite the fact that Riverbank began doing war-related code and cipher work for the government, William was not content to remain on the home front and struggled to get an army commission. Fabyan did not want to lose his star cryptologist and blocked his efforts, but Friedman prevailed and finally arrived in France as a second lieutenant in July 1918.

Both in the quoted fragment and elsewhere the book mentions George Fabyan's Riverbank Laboratories, there are a number of points that radically differentiate this new work from all other similar texts. Written not only by NSA historians but essentially by all other cryptology historians over the last half-century. Since the famous book by David Kahn, The Codebreakers (1967), up to the most recent times, this well-known story has always been told quite differently.

Prompted by William Friedman himself and his ardent admirer David Kahn, it was taken for granted that the deciphering venture of the "eccentric millionaire" (as he is commonly called) George Fabyan at Riverbank before the U.S. entered the war could in no way be "a thriving cryptanalytic enterprise".

Because, according to the very authoritative testimony of the famous cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman in their 1957 book [5], they did not decrypt any such ciphers in ancient books at Riverbank at all. Nor did they even discover any. And all the so-called Baconian ciphers in Shakespeare's First Folio and other Elizabethan-era books were exclusively the products of the wild imagination of Mrs. Gallup and the rich eccentric, the owner of the laboratories, George Fabyan, who, by the way, knew absolutely nothing about cryptography…

With such a version of events firmly established by the Friedmans, a crucial and indisputable fact always remained completely unexplained. Upon the U.S. entering the war, Fabyan, who "knew nothing about cryptography," not only offered the U.S. government the use of the already developed professional skills of his cryptanalysts for free but also almost immediately implemented this idea fruitfully.

Thus, his Department of Ciphers' cryptographers not only successfully began decrypting the enemy's secret communications for various government departments but also trained and prepared three classes of cryptanalytic officers for the army, totaling over 80 individuals. Because the American army simply did not yet have its own professionals for breaking ciphers at that time. Indeed, in these matters, the U.S. authorities truly had to start "from the ground up"...

Now, with the release of the new book by Betsy R. Smoot, it's quite clear that the NSA has decided to restore historical truth here. Not only by removing Friedman's deliberate falsehood about George Fabyan from history but also by mentioning in neutral and objective terms the pre-war (really successfully developing) cryptanalytic project of Riverbank Laboratories around Bacon's ciphers in ancient Elizabethan-era books.

With such a more balanced approach to history, it naturally followed that in Betsy Smoot's monograph, in a separate chapter about Fabyan and his Riverbank, there was also room for the remarkable document known as the "Knowledge is Power" photograph (related to the famous maxim of Francis Bacon).

The caption and explanations in the text for this photograph are as follows:

The photo: Riverbank class, March 1918, posed to form a cipher that reads “Knowledge is power”. See text for details. Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Foundation (Item F-560 Friedman Panorama, William F. Friedman Papers, George C. Marshall Foundation Research Library)

Details: This large February class at Riverbank is captured for all time in the photo above, taken in front of the Aurora Hotel in March 1918 and known as the “Knowledge is Power” photograph. Newly trained officers and the civilian staff, 76 in all, form a cryptogram using the biliteral Bacon cipher. Each letter is represented by a pattern formed by five people facing either the camera or another direction — the two phases of the cipher.

Many details about the interesting circumstances under which this notable photograph was returned to the history of cryptology can be found in the extensive material "The Secrets of The Cryptographic Grave" (2018).

In discussing the current book by Betsy R. Smoot, it's worth noting that the new, more objective approach to historical facts has necessitated the reintroduction not only of Fabyan's and Riverbank's pre-war successes but also another significant, though previously ignored, element.

Among those key organizations and individuals who, in 1917-1918, had a notable influence on the establishment of military cryptology in the USA, there were much more experienced cryptologic services of two of the USA's allies, Great Britain and France. In particular, the sections of the book that discuss cooperation with the French army's Codes and Ciphers Bureau contain substantive information about personal assistance from General François Cartier, who headed this organization.

Thus, the following quotes are taken from the documents of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Moorman, commander of the American G2A6 unit, which was involved in radio intelligence and the cryptanalytic breaking of German ciphers as part of the AEF, i.e., the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

[In the official report on the activities of G2A6 - Final Report of the Radio Intelligence Section] Moorman described Cartier as “ready, willing, and able to help us at all times. His advice and assistance have been of the greatest service to us.”

In a postwar letter to Cartier, Frank Moorman proclaimed “we have considered you the father of our section and have never hesitated to appeal to you in difficulty. You have always been ready to help us and be able to overcome the obstacles, and without you our service would have lost a lot of value...”

With such a more accurate presentation of facts and documents, the previously known story of the early cryptology in the USA appears significantly different. In particular, the historical role and place of the individuals especially mentioned here, William Friedman (who served in G2A6 under Moorman's command) and General François Cartier, are noticeably altered.

The way the Friedmans, many years later in the mid-1950s, alongside denigrating Fabyan also very unkindly slandered General Cartier (taking advantage of the fact that the deceased cannot respond), is detailed in the book "4in1: Mask of Shakespeare, Mysteries of Bacon, Book by Cartier, Secrets of the NSA" (2022).

Now it's time to explore why the NSA suddenly needed to subtly rewrite the history of its achievements and replace the "father of American cryptology," while also giving due credit to the achievements of a somewhat obscure French general-cryptographer. Someone who had already been almost completely erased from the history of the 20th century...

Attentive readers surely must have noticed that earlier, in the discussion about the chronology of contemporary publications on the history of cryptologic services, the year 2020 and the specific "events" launched then with the involvement of the CIA were specially highlighted. But without any details on the essence of the events themselves.

All necessary details can be found in the analytical text "Total Hagelin, or Finita la commedia". In essence, if summarized in a few sentences, at the beginning of the 1950s, the two main US spy agencies, the CIA and the NSA, jointly initiated a grand-scale operation of cryptographic deception. By effectively recruiting the owner of the Swiss company Crypto AG, the world's leading supplier of commercial cipher machines, American intelligence gained access to the encrypted correspondence of diplomats, military, and special services from about 120 countries around the world. This included both neutral or unfriendly countries towards the USA, as well as its closest allies, including NATO members.

This was accomplished by secretly embedding cunning cryptographic weaknesses into the cipher machines, and this entire industry of grand espionage deception operated for over half a century, up until the 2010s. Notably, the most important figure, without exaggeration, who ensured the launch and success of this grand project, was "the father of American cryptology" William F. Friedman.

Friedman, closely acquainted with Crypto AG's owner Boris Hagelin since the 1930s, managed to persuade him into secret – and not without reward – cooperation with US intelligence at the dawn of the Cold War. In this operation, he essentially played two key roles – both as an access agent and as a recruitment officer.

All these secret affairs, naturally, remained a big secret of the intelligence services for a very long time. However, at the turn of 2019-2020, when Crypto AG had become completely spent material for the US intelligence services, the CIA, for some unnamed reasons, decided to suddenly disclose this operation, unofficially leaking informative documents to their people in the mainstream press.

At the NSA, as far as is known, there's always a negative attitude towards any such disclosures, complicating both the work for their own cryptanalysts and relations with partner intelligence services. However, in the story with the full disclosure of Crypto AG, it seems that the NSA's position didn't particularly interest anyone.

Regardless, after the exposés by American, German, and Swiss media, which appeared synchronously at the beginning of 2020, the key role of Friedman in the cryptographic grand deception of global scale was clearly revealed. Consequently, the title "father of American cryptology" applied to this individual started to sound, to put it mildly, somewhat ambiguous.

It seems that then, the official NSA historians were tasked with quickly finding another "father" for national cryptology. Someone with a cleaner biography, not as tarnished in dirty spy deceits.

Whether it was coincidental or not, nobody can tell you for sure, but at the end of that same year 2020, another significant event for the history of cryptology occurred. Also, generally related not so much to the name of Friedman as to the dark sides of cryptography. But incidentally revealing other extremely unseemly, deceitful aspects of this "father of cryptology." Now, it turns out, a former father.

The second important event here was the emergence from oblivion of a long-forgotten book by General François Cartier titled "The Problem of Cryptography and History" [6]. And the key figure, linking this book both with the new version of the history of American cryptology by Betsy Smoot, and with a series of deceits by William Friedman, somewhat unexpectedly turns out to be the "great bard" William Shakespeare…

If one not just carefully, but very thoroughly studies the text of Smoot's book "From the Ground Up" with a focus on mentions of Shakespeare, an exceedingly remarkable thing is discovered.

In the four hundred-plus pages of this book, the name of Shakespeare is mentioned only four times. And at that, NOT ONCE in combination with the name of William F. Friedman (or even his cryptographer wife).

This in itself is quite unusual. Because previously, in any story about the most famous cryptologic couple, it was invariably noted that they came into government cryptography from Fabyan's "mad" project, which unsuccessfully was trying to prove that all of Shakespeare's works had been written by Francis Bacon. Providing decrypted evidence from Shakespeare's texts and books by other Elizabethan-era authors. And William Friedman (along with his wife) very authoritatively and convincingly refuted these strange ideas afterward. Or so the history of science assured everyone before.

Now, in the latest book by Betsy Smoot, there's not a word about this part of the story. On the other hand, in General Cartier's old book "The Problem of Cryptography..." this Bacon-Shakespeare part of history is discussed in great detail. And from the standpoint of an experienced professional cryptologist, a definitive conclusion is made. That yes, indeed, the Baconian ciphers, identified and decrypted in the texts of ancient books, definitely point to Bacon as the author of Shakespeare's works. And Smoot's monograph "From the Ground Up" for its part, not only confirms the high professional competence of General Cartier but also documents his notable role in the formation of American cryptology…

In other words, the fresh and detailed publication from the NSA Center for Cryptologic History clearly demonstrates that the National Security Agency of the USA is now trying to completely distance itself from the endless debates on Bacon-Shakespeare authorship. And no longer wishes to support either side of the argument (although quite recently the situation looked very different).

Looking at this problem from a slightly different angle, one can also see a very expressive example of "creative cutting out" of history in a new way. If previously a lot of effort was applied to erase General Cartier with his starkly inconvenient professional cryptographer's views from history, now the pendulum of science has swung in the other direction.

As William Friedman loses the honorary title of "father of cryptology," a whole array of previously unknown documents have surfaced, exposing the multi-layered lies of the cryptographer couple, the Friedmans, in the dark matters around Bacon and Shakespeare. And if, based on all these new facts, the famous work by W. and E. Friedman "The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined" – as a deliberately constructed and now fully provable deceit – must be removed from history, then for some this means total catastrophe.

For example, for traditional – so-called Stratfordian – Shakespearean scholarship. Here, the Friedmans' book has long been firmly established as the "decisive and final" verdict of professionals in all cryptological disputes around the authorship problem. Now, with the unveiling of a heap of Friedman lies and the loss of NSA support, Shakespeare scholars have from the spy cryptanalysts only the opposite, far more honest verdict from General Cartier. And then there's the book "4in1", which tells in great detail how this whole unsavory crypto-deception was arranged – with the active participation of the Friedmans.

The big problems of Shakespearean scholarship, however, are just a small part of the more significant shifts in science that could be led by the complete and careful decryption of all Baconian texts once held in George Fabyan's Riverbank Laboratories. Yet never fully published and effectively re-lost to this day.

The details historians have on this are also presented in the texts of the book "4in1", especially in the chapter "Bacon and Magic". It not only discusses the very specific, magical science of Bacon and the Rosicrucians but also how successfully William F. Friedman applied this magic in the art of cipher breaking.

The material "CIA and the mystery of the 25th Page" tells how the U.S. intelligence community attempts to apply essentially "Baconian" scientific magic in espionage. However, unfortunately, there's nothing yet to say about how this useful and fruitful toolkit is applied in contemporary mainstream science.

Because, firstly, it's highly desirable to once again find and decrypt Bacon's secret messages in ancient books. Fortunately, General Cartier's book provides plenty of hints on this matter. But whether anyone in the modern scientific community will want to engage in such endeavors remains an open question.

Perhaps Betsy Smoot's monograph on the early history of American cryptology – combined with texts from Cartier and "4in1" – could inspire someone to embark on new searches…

Additional reading

Two kinds of prefaces to the current story:

• Bacon, Shakespeare, and the NSA's 'Cut the Ends!' Reflex (May 2023)

• Undermining the authorities' credibility and Shakespeare as "Our Everything" (July 2023)

The Secrets of the Cryptographic Grave (2018): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3 (rus.)

4in1: Mask of Shakespeare and Mysteries of Bacon, Book by Cartier and Secrets of the NSA (2022, rus.)

Cutting out the reality (2016, rus.)

Total Hagelin, or Finita la commedia (2020, rus.)

General Cartier, "The Problem of Cryptography and History" (2020, rus.)

Cryptography as a Universal Model for Science (2019, rus.)

Main Sources

[1] Betsy Rohaly Smoot. From the Ground Up: American Cryptology during World War I. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, Center for Cryptologic History, 2023

[2] Betsy Rohaly Smoot. The Cryptologist’s War: How World War I Helped Weave the “Cloak” of Cryptologic Secrecy. Cryptologic Quarterly, 2017-03 (Volume 36)

[3] A Space Worthy of its Namesakes: The Friedman Conference Center. By Sarah Parsons. Cryptologic Quarterly, 2019-01 (Volume 38)

[4] Betsy Rohaly Smoot. Parker Hitt: The Father of American Military Cryptology. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2022

[5] W. Friedman, and E. Friedman. The Shakespearean ciphers examined: An analysis of cryptographic systems used as evidence that some author other than William Shakespeare wrote the plays commonly attributed to him. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1957

[6] François Cartier, Un problème de Cryptographie et d’Histoire. Paris: Editions du Mercure de France, 1938