American Black Chamber

by Herbert O. Yardley

Book Overview

During the 1920s Herbert O. Yardley was chief of the first peacetime cryptanalytic organization in the United States, the ancestor of today's National Security Agency. Funded by the U.S. Army and the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345298675
• ISBN13: 9780345298676
• Release Date: August 1981
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Our "NSA" in 1918!

Yardley could sight-read the encrypted messages of the time. This and "Education of a Poker Player" are informative and entertaining.

Only because of a legal loophole

It's great to see this classic book back in print. Yardley was, as they say, accustomed to luxury, and when fired in 1929 wrote this book on the breaking of foreign codes by the United States. (His firing is another story, when Hoover's secretary of state refused to continue the funding of the Black Chamber with the comment, Gentlemen do not read other people's mail.) Yardley had found a loophole in the law so that he couldn't be prosecuted, but boy did it annoy the Government. The book was a best seller, and started him or a career as an author. He wrote another four or five books on codes and another best seller called The Education of a Poker Player. The book is fascinating, well written and filled with stories of stealing code books, beautiful female spies. And better descriptions of how to break codes that I've seen in any of the other books on the history of code breaking (maybe because the codes in the 1920's were simpler minded than later Enigma machines). This book ties in very well with the new book The Reader of Gentlemens Mail.

Yardley Uncovered!

I read this book first about 40 years ago. Yardley published it after SecState Stimson withdrew funds with the famous "Gentlemen do not read other people's mail." It revealed, the details of breaking Japanese ciphers while they were still in use and caused a political furor. It led to legislation against revealing state secrets, and the book itself was prohibited from re-publication by Act of Congress, apparently now expired.Yardley was an egotist, and never hesitated to take first person credit for work actually performed by subordinates, according to people who knew him. In any case, it makes a great read!

Both astonishing and fascinating for me

Our American government? Diplomacy? Non-fiction? 20th century era to 1931? I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Very informative (for me). When you get to the end, you may smile at this question: Do you (can you) really believe the part about gentlemen not reading other people's mail? :-) The sort of book I'd say to thoughtful friends, "If you don't enjoy this one, I'll give you your money back". The sort of book that makes you wish you could have met the author...

A great inside look at the earliest days of cryptography

Anyone interested in the inner workings of ANY cryptoanalyst needs to read this book. Told in the first person Yardley reveals the amazing amount of genius and hard work cryptography required before the days of calculators and computers. It really is a great read.