The WWII P forgot

[Paul Mackin]

I should have thought to look in David Kahn's authoritative _The Code
Breakers_ ('96 edition).

It seems that after the war Britain provided its former colonies with the
machines (many of which were captured at war's end) for the new states' own
use and wanted the fact they could be broken to remain secret. Three decades
went by. By the early 70s however all the Enigmas were worn out and the
story could be told.  It was told for the first time in The _Ultra Secret_
(Britain, 1974) The New York Times in reviewing the American edition in '75
said: "This book reveals the greatest secret of World War II after the atom
bomb."

I've given a very telegraphic summary of what pp. 978-9 of Kahn's book say.
Too much to type the whole thing.

No doubt in my mind that Pynchon had he known could either have a) used the
material creatively  or b) omitted it creatively as he certainly did many
other events both momentous and small of WWII
     P.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: The WWII P forgot


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Gentle" <Gentle_Family at btinternet.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>
> > When was the Bletchly park codebreaking thing actually made public?
Would
> P have been aware of it?
>
> I've wondered about that but never actually looked it up.Earlier accounts
of
> wartime intelligence didn't mention it. It might have taken a couple
decades
> to filter into my own brain--beyond '73 wouldn't surprise me.  The Turing
> biography of the early 80s certainly laid it all out. Wonder if there
might
> not have been a tendency to try to surpress the importance of codebreaking
> in WWII.  The "gentlemen don't read other people's mail idea" (Stimpson?)
> was strong. Interesting relation to the passage of GR about trading lives
> for information. ". . . as if there's a real conversion factor between
> information and lives. Well as a matter of fact . . . " Without nearly as
> sinister a spine to it, some historians DO believe breaking Enigima
> shortened the war measurably thus cutting down on the killing time.
>
> Nice to be able to break bin Laden's code. PDP (pretty good privacy) is
hard
> and expensive to break.
>
> P.
>
>
>