Layout 8 - Winston Churchill

C H U R C H I L L A N D I N T E L L I G E N C ESIGSALY: Beginning the Digital Revolution“Today digital technology is the backbone of the information industry....But the pioneeringwork for many of these capabilities was performed early in World War II.”—United States National Security AgencyC H R I S T O P H E R H. S T E R L I N GSIGSALY EXHIBIT, National Cryptologic Museum (Wikimedia)The hundreds of wartime messages between Churchilland Roosevelt are well known and documented. Notas well appreciated is that these text messages, sent bysecure teletype, diplomatic cable, or courier, represent only apart of top-level wartime communication. For the twoleaders there was another, faster way to communicate acrossthe Atlantic: the telephone. Protecting the security of thosemessages gave rise to the SIGSALY system—regarded as the“pioneering work” in digital technology by the U.S.National Security Agency. 1In the BeginningWhen the British General Post Office and AmericanTelephone & Telegraph opened the first commercial radiotelephone links in 1927, charges for their use were veryhigh: $75 or £15 for three minutes, about $900 in today’svalues. Trained operators were required to make thecomplex connections. And, because they relied upon radiotransmission (the first telephone cables entered service onlyin 1956), security was a serious problem.Any radio transmission can be intercepted and itscoded signals broken, as the British learned early in WorldWar II from Bletchley Park’s “Ultra” codebreaking effort.Security considerations greatly limited the use of transatlantictelephone calls in the war’s first two years, requiringclose monitoring to ensure that vital information did notreach enemy ears.Nevertheless, the telephone was literally the only wayto communicate over vast distances. Churchill particularlydepended on it, often to the despair of people he wastalking to (see “Joys of the Scrambler” overleaf). At first theAllies tried to protect essential voice traffic with the A-3 >>__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Professor Sterling (chriss@gwu.edu) teaches media law and policy at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. His articles inFinest Hour include “Churchill Afloat: The Liners He Rode” (FH 121); “Face-Off: Churchill, Reith and the BBC” (FH 128); and “Getting There:Churchill’s Wartime Journeys” (last issue). He also reviews books for FH and the Washington Society for Churchill, which he heads.FINEST HOUR 149 / 31