Coventry, Churchill and The Secret State

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/15/2003 5:23:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ottosell at yahoo.de writes:


> Good post, interesting questions.
> I'm currently reading Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon":
> 
> "Information flows from Germany to us, through the Ultra system at 
> Bletchley
> Park. That information comes to us as seemingly random Morse code
> transmissions on the wireless. But because we have very bright people who
> can discover order in what is seemingly random, we can extract information
> that is crucial to our endeavors. Now, the Germans have not broken our
> important cyphers. But they can observe our actions--the routing of our
> convoys in the North Atlantic, the deployment of our air forces. If the
> convoys always avoid the U-boats, if the air forces always go straight to
> the German convoys, then it is clear to the Germans--I'm speaking of a very
> bright sort of German here, a German of the professor type--that there is
> not randomness here. This German can find correlations. He can see that we
> know more than we should. In other words, there is a certain point at which
> information begins to flow from us back to the Germans."
> (Londinium)
> 
> Otto
> 

A- and we should not forget the way Turing was treated after the war.
Convicted of being gay, he was subjected to a year of hormone
treatments, in order to "cure" him. This was a man who, as much
as anyone, had saved Britain and provided the basis for one of the 
most powerful, if not the most powerful, technologies to be spawned
by WWII. His "loyalty" was even more central to the continued hegemony 
by the ruling elite- which transcended Tory/Labor snits- than Oppenheimer
was to the elite in America.

The facts surrounding Turing's "suicide" are also the subject of some
apochryphal elaboration, although the truth is by no means certain.
An accident is possible, but the official "suicide" is unlikely. He was
a world class athelete, completely engaged in his cutting edge
research, and quite happy, despite attempts to control his sexual
desires.

It is ironic that the Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Employees (GLOBE)
chapter at the current NSA headquaters in America was founded
in honor of Alan Turing. How times change. But we should not 
forget "the ability of the ruling element to co-opt dissent..."

respectfully
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