| Summary/Abstract |
Henry Stimson spoke those now famous words to explain his reason for eliminating the Cipher Bureau, the code breaking organization that had been operating under joint State Department—Department of War sponsorship since the end of World War I. The Cipher Bureau, a legacy organization of the U.S. Army's Cryptologic Service, had distinguished itself during the war in providing important intelligence obtained by breaking foreign diplomatic and military codes and ciphers. During the interwar years, the Cipher Bureau was able to break the diplomatic codes of several nations. Incidentally, that ability to intercept foreign communications was possible only through the secret and illegal cooperation of the entire American cable industry, which operated the transoceanic underwater cables that constituted the leading edge long-range communications technology of that era.
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