Word: yardley
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Dates: during 1931-1931
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...most part, when the grindstone is still, the book is an entertaining tale of espionage and of resourcefulness in the conduct of a little advertised but important part of the war machine. MI-8, organized through Yardley's initiative, had its hands full in keeping pace with German chemists, who gave their spies silk scarves, or even silk-covered tuxedo-buttons, impregnated with secret ink chemicals which could be devolped with only one specific reagent. It was the Secret Ink Bureau which brought about the capture of Madame de Victoria, most dangerous of the German spies, who introduced high explosives...
Evidently a first-rate cryptographer, Yardley gives a fascinating account of the deciphering of messages between Germany and Mexico, and of dispatches which brought a death sentence to Pablo Waberski. Anyone who has slipped notes between schoolroom desks or fancied "The Gold Bug" will enjoy clear expositions of the decipherment of codes which,--enciphered, transposed, and with "nulls" sprinkled through them--seem quite unassailable to the layman. And the reader will sympathize with Yardley in his struggles with the Japanese code, broken one morning several hours after midnight, after months of struggle with the language, and examination...