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00:05tonight on secrets declassified cracking secret codes that win battles and save lives from the
00:13pacific where a u.s code breaker races to prevent another pearl harbor this code is just about
00:19impossible to break to vietnam where a u.s airman's escape route is plotted with clues
00:25from an unusual source they're going to use the layout of his favorite golf courses as a code
00:31and to a housewife in virginia that reveals her husband is selling top secret codes to the enemy
00:38tucked away in a closet is a grocery bag stuffed with classified navy documents these are the
00:45astonishing and sometimes terrible things done by governments and the people who work for them
00:50it's time to bring them to light
01:00the first hole at tucson national golf course is 430 yards and bends to the left
01:06the fourth at abilene country club is 195 yards they might sound like trivial facts
01:13but for one u.s airman shot down behind enemy lines in vietnam
01:17they're the difference between life and death
01:23on good friday 1972 the north vietnam has launched a massive surprise assault into south vietnam
01:30the u.s air force scrambles to launch a series of tactical airstrikes to try and contain this invasion
01:36and many airmen who've been looking forward to some leave suddenly find themselves back on active duty
01:42one of the unlucky men recalled from r and r is 53 year old gene hambleton gene hambleton is a
01:50navigator
01:51and an electronics specialist in the u.s air force he seems old to still be flying combat missions
01:57but it's his expertise in jamming enemy radar that puts him back into the cockpit heading to north vietnam
02:03just minutes into his mission his airplane is struck and he finds himself having to parachute into enemy territory
02:12for the u.s military hambleton isn't just another man down because of his seniority
02:19hambleton has an intimate knowledge of top secret strategic air command operations
02:24he cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands the race is on to find hambleton before the enemy does
02:33the air force manages to make radio contact with hambleton and they launch one air evac after another
02:40but the rescue choppers keep getting shot down then the navy seals propose a different kind of rescue
02:49their plan is to covertly sail up the muzang river and pluck hambleton from an extraction point two miles
02:57away from his current location there's one big problem the survival radio that hambleton has allows him
03:03to communicate with american forces but it also allows the enemy to listen in on those transmissions
03:09they're going to need a secret code which only hambleton can understand that's a lot easier said than done
03:17the rescuers reach out to hambleton squadron to find things out about his personal life so they can
03:23come up with a coded language that he would understand and the enemy wouldn't they discover that hambleton
03:30is an avid golfer but not only that he has freakishly encyclopedic knowledge about the world's most
03:37renowned golf courses maybe they can encode a route to the extraction point using the layout of his
03:45favorite golf courses as a code it's a crazy idea but it's the only hope the air force has of
03:53getting
03:53their man back the rescue team starts overlaying golf course plans over aerial reconnaissance photos
04:00and they start plotting a route to the extraction point across farmland that also stays away from roads
04:08and enemy positions and they break that plan down into nine stages each of those stages corresponds to
04:17the individual length and bearing of a hole from an iconic golf course forget whistling straits augusta or
04:25the ocean course this will be the toughest round of golf anyone has ever played
04:32on april 10th hambleton's radio crackles to light the voice on the other end belongs to air force
04:38captain harold ike hamilton's life depends on him being able to decode what he hears next
04:45ike tells him you're going to play nine holes and you're going to get in the suwannee the round starts
04:51at number one at tucson national now at first hamilton's totally confused as would be any of the north
04:59vietnamese that are listening in but then hambleton realizes that message is so strange it must be
05:05a code the suwannee is a river in the u.s so he figures they must be giving him coded
05:11directions to
05:12get to a nearby river hamilton racks his brains trying to remember everything he can about the course
05:20at tucson the first hole is 430 yards running southeast suddenly he realizes that's his first direction
05:29hamilton can hear enemy activity all around so he waits until the cover of nightfall before teeing off
05:36as he starts moving it's tough going for hamilton he has to count his strides moving through darkness
05:43navigating through potential minefields and avoiding enemy soldiers after 40 minutes he makes it to the
05:50first hole that's one hole down eight more to go he makes it through four holes before dawn breaks when
05:58he takes cover again next evening he moves on to hole five and this one comes with a serious hazard
06:06the
06:06fifth hole is the number four at abilene country club where hamilton once hit a hole in one this time
06:12it's not so easy the route takes him right through the outskirts of a vietnamese village as he's tiptoeing
06:19through this village suddenly from around a building a man leaps out of him brandishing a blade
06:24instinct takes over and hamilton pulls out his own knife plunging it into his attacker before escaping
06:30onward into the jungle now his next round is against the clock because once the body is discovered
06:37the north vietnamese will be hot on his trail over the final four holes hamilton grows weaker and weaker
06:45after three days hamilton makes it to the ninth and final hole he locates his extraction point
06:52and waits it feels like his ordeal is nearly over then hamilton's heart sinks he spots a sandpan
07:00boat heading upriver towards him with a vietnamese man on the prowl holding an ak-47
07:06days of surviving in the jungle only to get caught now but then someone else emerges from the boat
07:13it's an american it's the navy seal extraction team news of hamilton's rescue hits the headlines
07:21but something crucial is missing all mention of the navy's clever code has been scrubbed from the stories
07:29the secret remains locked away for nearly a decade until 1980 when hamilton finally reveals the story of
07:36his amazing escape and the world hears of one of the u.s military's most audacious codes
07:45improvising a code to rescue a man behind enemy lines is one thing but during world war ii the u
07:52.s military
07:53needs something that can save thousands and help turn the tide of the war so they turn to an unlikely
07:59source an ancient native american language
08:07after months of naval warfare the u.s military is prepping to engage the japanese on land for the
08:13first time and their plan is to island hop their way across the pacific towards the japanese mainland
08:19radio communication will play a pivotal role in the campaign but it has a downside in the chaos of
08:27battle there is no quick way to encrypt or decrypt battlefield commands so japanese forces will be able
08:34to hear everything the u.s is saying in 1942 an engineer raised in a remote region of arizona
08:41has an idea which could change all that his name is philip johnston philip johnston was actually raised
08:49by missionaries on a navajo reservation and as such he learned the navajo language johnston recommends to
08:56the u.s army using navajo speakers as code talkers communicating battlefield orders in real
09:02time before the japanese can decipher them it's estimated that less than 30 non-navajo speak the
09:09language in 1942 making the odds of a japanese soldier being able to understand navajo virtually zero
09:16when the u.s military hears about johnston's idea they take notice he's asked to come in and put his
09:22idea
09:23to the test in february 1942 johnston assembles four navajo men at camp elliott in san diego
09:31under the scrutiny of the top brass the navajos sit in separate offices and are made to relay half a
09:38dozen simple messages to each other via telephone the navajo test subjects perform flawlessly the the
09:44messages are relayed far faster than they could have been encoded and decoded and there's not a single
09:48mistake among them johnston's big idea gets the green light now he needs to scale it up for battle
09:56hundreds of navajo volunteer for service and they're rapidly given basic military training
10:03but pretty soon a problem arises the navajo language is almost a thousand years old but this language
10:09doesn't contain any words for modern warfare to get around the missing words johnston proposes using
10:16everyday words that have military meanings so for example whale became the word that was used for
10:21battleships in november 1942 the first 13 navajo code talkers are deployed to the pacific it's finally
10:31time to put johnston's idea to the ultimate test in the heat of battle chester ness and roy begay are
10:40two of
10:40the first navajo code talkers who arrive in guadalcanal and they have a literal trial by fire on the 7th
10:48of
10:48november chester and roy's platoon comes under attack as they try to take an airfield they are pinned down
10:54a runner comes with an urgent message to call in an artillery strike while bullets and mortar rounds whiz
11:00overhead chester begins transmitting the message to call in the artillery strike in his native language of navajo
11:07america seconds later artillery buzz overhead neutralizing the japanese machine gun nest holding
11:14them down the entire message took just 20 seconds to send and receive if sent using standard military
11:23code it would have taken 30 minutes by which time roy and chester's company would have been annihilated
11:30roy and chester's commanding general contacts his superiors saying this navajo code is terrific
11:37the enemy never understood it we don't understand it either but it works send us more navajos
11:45after the arrival of the navajo code talkers the american forces go on to win the battle of guadalcanal
11:51it's a decisive point in the fighting in the southwest pacific
11:55the navajo code talkers continue to play a critical role including in pivotal action at iwo jima
12:01and boganville and the japanese never managed to figure out their ancient language after the war is
12:09over code talkers don't get the official recognition they deserve while part of that is due to race
12:14relations at the time a larger part is due to the oath that the code talkers took promising to keep
12:20their
12:20operations secret in case they were ever called upon in time of need again only in 1968 is the
12:27service record of the code talkers declassified then in 2008 president george w bush signs the code
12:36talkers recognition act and the hidden heroes of the pacific war are finally given their due
12:45after pearl harbor a u.s code breaker discovers japan is planning an even more devastating attack
12:51only he doesn't know where if he can't crack the japanese cipher then the whole u.s pacific fleet
12:58could be destroyed on december 7 1941 the japanese launch a surprise attack on the u.s fleet at pearl
13:08harbor claiming the lives of over 2400 americans pearl harbor ranks with 9-11 as the worst intelligence
13:18failure in american history captain joseph rochefort is the head of the code breaking unit at pearl harbor
13:28rochefort vows to make sure the u.s will never be ambushed like this again in the aftermath of the
13:34attack rochefort and his team are tasked with cracking the notorious japanese code jn25 the code
13:42uses a huge code book to translate common words and phrases into individual five-digit numbers from
13:48there there's an additive code book that then scrambles those numbers yet again this dual system makes it
13:56just about impossible to break rochefort and his team begin studying the mass of japanese communications
14:03from the days leading up to pearl harbor rochefort discovers that in the rush before pearl harbor
14:09the japanese coders got careless they began transmitting codes using an additive book that
14:15had already been partially cracked by the u.s this allows rochefort to spot something else it seems that
14:22when the japanese are discussing target locations they use the prefix a to represent u.s interests in the
14:29pacific a i seems to stand for oahu a h is hawaii a k pearl harbor soon after rochefort has
14:38discovered
14:39these two-letter codes a fresh set of intercepts arrive mentioning a fourth two-letter code location
14:44japanese air commanders are inquiring about wind speed for an upcoming attack on af
14:52what the americans don't want is to be caught in some kind of trap it's so very important to know
15:00exactly where af is rochefort is reading the messages over and over and then it hits him he looks at
15:09who
15:09the message was sent to and who it wasn't sent to and rochefort notices that there was one military
15:15branch that didn't receive the message submarine commanders if submarines are not included this
15:22attack is likely to be an air attack meaning af needs to be within range of the japanese base on
15:28the marshall islands where their aircraft carriers are harbored that narrows down af to only a few
15:34possible locations by process of elimination he knows the attack can't be on the hawaiian islands
15:39because they have a code name assigned to them and so narrowing it down he knows that af has to
15:46indicate the american bases on midway rochefort believes he's cracked the code and knows where
15:52the attack will happen but it all counts for nothing if he can't convince his commanders the stakes
15:58couldn't be higher it's crucial that the americans hold on to midway after the losses already suffered
16:03at pearl harbor to lose midway at this point would kind of be like the one-two punch that really
16:08makes the knockout rochefort has this sense that af is midway but he can't prove it and there's no way
16:17that he is going to advise admiral nimitz who commanded the pacific fleet to send out america's
16:24remaining carriers to ambush the japanese on that kind of hunch so he comes up with a plan rochefort
16:34arranges for midway's garrison commander to send a fake message saying that they're low on fresh
16:38water now if the message is sent uncoded the japanese will immediately realize it's fake so rochefort
16:44gets the message sent using a u.s cipher that he knows the japanese have already cracked then rochefort
16:51waits 48 hours later he gets the response he was banking on rochefort's team decodes a message about the
16:59imminent attack on af and it specifically states af is low on water this is the clincher admiral nimitz
17:06needs af is midway this is the kind of intelligence that commanders dream of nimitz understood that if
17:16he got it right the japanese pacific fleet would be devastated somebody was headed for an ambush
17:25would it be the americans or the japanese wasting no time adderall nimitz sends three aircraft carriers
17:32with 117 aircraft to await the japanese on june the 4th 1942 they catch the japanese fleet entirely by
17:41surprise the battle of midway is a resounding naval victory for the united states the united states
17:50sends to the bottom of the pacific four japanese aircraft carriers thus neutralizing the japanese threat
18:00in the pacific midway is such an incredible triumph that everyone wants a piece of the glory and credit for
18:08cracking jn-25 is ultimately claimed by the director of naval intelligence and rochefort's role is basically
18:16forgotten from history only in 1985 when a book is published by a former colleague is rochefort finally
18:24revealed as the unsung hero who stopped a second pearl harbor the following year he is posthumously awarded
18:33the navy distinguished service medal when a us pow in north vietnam's hanoi hilton wants to reveal to
18:42the world that he's being tortured he does it without his captors noticing blink and you'll miss it
18:54commander jeremiah denton is an experienced and respected career aviator in the u.s navy
19:00in 1965 he's flying a bombing mission when his airplane is struck by anti-aircraft fire
19:08denton manages to bail out and parachute to safety but he's quickly captured by vietnamese forces who take
19:13him to the infamous prison wallow the prison is better known among us pow's by its nickname the
19:21hanoi hilton but there's nothing luxurious about the conditions denton checks into wallow is a horrid
19:28situation for the aviators that are held there the vietnamese classify american aviators as air pirates
19:35and they claim that they are not protected by the geneva convention they're kept in a prison facility
19:41where they're often subjected to harsh interrogation and torture they're not allowed to communicate
19:46with one another and any attempt to speak to a fellow prisoner will probably result in a pretty nasty
19:52beating denton understands keeping his sanity intact relies on one thing he must find a way to connect
20:00with his fellow inmates denton discovers that the pow's have already found a way to communicate without
20:07using spoken words they pass messages by tapping on their cell walls in morse code through their secret
20:15communications denton is able to incite a campaign of resistance but the guards identify denton as the
20:21ringleader he is beaten and brutally tortured in october 1967 denton is moved to another prison unit
20:29reserved for the inmates deemed to be troublemakers this one has the less ironic nickname alcatraz
20:37here the tap code won't work alcatraz is a much harsher system and the guards will inflict punishment on
20:44any individual who appears to be communicating via morse code or any other form of encryption system
20:52denton is desperate to communicate with any of the other pow's there but he's terrified of any more
20:58torture so denton starts devising an entirely new code based on the sounds he hears all around him
21:04and that the guards would never think twice about coughs and sniffs due to the terrible conditions
21:10practically all the inmates have some sort of respiratory problem so coughs and sniffs will easily
21:16fall under the cover of the current environmental conditions with this new code a single cough means
21:24one a cough or a sniff twice means two and so forth and so on using a standard five by
21:33five grid where each
21:35letter is designated two numbers between one and five the airmen are able to spell out full messages to each
21:42other without anyone ever detecting it but denton wants to speak to more than his fellow prisoners
21:50what he dreams of is to be able to tell the outside world of the brutal conditions being
21:55endured by pow's one time out of the blue denton got an incredible opportunity after nearly 10 months of
22:04captivity the guards informed denton that the following day he is to be interviewed in front
22:09of a global audience denton is told that this media appearance is very important and he is warned to
22:16be on his best behavior it's entirely likely that if he doesn't comply he'll be killed how can he tell
22:24the world what's happening without his captors finding out denton's solution is ingenious and so
22:30sensitive it remains secret for years to come morning comes and denton is taken out of his cell
22:38blindfolded blindfolded and driven away from the prison he finds himself in a nicely appointed room
22:44sitting in front of a japanese journalist and crew denton has no idea how he can subvert this interview
22:52but then it's action the lights go on and he's temporarily blinded and he squints and blinks to try to
22:59avert the light from his eyes and then the idea comes to him i don't know what is happening
23:07denton is answering the questions in the way that his captors want him to adequate food
23:15and adequate clothing but his eyes are telling a completely different story
23:22denton's blinking is actually spelling out a message in morse code
23:29the message spells out one word torture in plain sight with the world watching
23:38denton spells out torture in morse code again and again a single word that says it all
23:45the north vietnamese don't notice what denton's up to and the broadcast is actually transmitted worldwide
23:53this is big news it's the first indication that the united states has that north vietnam
24:00is violating the geneva convention denton has no idea if his message has been heard
24:08the u.s authorities never make public his blink code fearful that it would lead to more extreme
24:12consequences like more beatings or even execution he doesn't find out that his code was actually
24:18received until 1973 when he's finally released a year later denton is awarded the navy cross
24:26for his conduct during captivity but the full story of his ordeal remains unknown until 1975 when
24:35he publishes his memoir when hell was in session and now the world finally discovers the story of denton's
24:44courageous blinking code what if i told you that a key part of beating the nazis unbreakable enigma code
24:53was a bunch of ohio factory workers who made cash registers it's a wartime secret so sensitive
24:59that it remains under wraps for more than 50 years
25:07in the early 1940s it's open season in the north atlantic for nazi submarine wolf packs the german navy
25:14is sinking vast numbers of allied ships from the summer of 1940 into the spring of 1941
25:21hundreds of allied ships are sent to the bottom of the atlantic by german u-boats it's what the u
25:27-boat
25:27crews gloatingly call the happy time the secret weapon behind all this is the enigma device
25:36a code machine the nazis used to encrypt orders to their submarine fleet if the allies are to escape
25:42the u-boat attacks this code needs breaking but that's no easy task the enigma machine is a typewriter
25:51like device that's used to encrypt messages and then unencrypt them so they can be read normally for
25:58the process to work both the sending and receiving enigma machines have three rotors that have to be
26:04set to the same configurations and those are determined by using the key from a code book unless
26:11you have a code book and the setting sheets it is impossible to solve this by simple trial and error
26:19then in 1941 the british have a major stroke of luck their navy captures an enemy u-boat with an
26:27intact
26:27enigma machine plus code books now they're able to use their own decryption device
26:33which they call the bomb overnight they can now listen to encrypted german communications u-boat
26:41patrols are tracked thousands of lives are saved but nine months later the german navy decides to ramp up
26:49their security in february of 1942 the germans quietly roll out a new version of the enigma machine that has
26:58now a new fourth rotor adding that single extra dial results in the number of extra settings possible for
27:05encrypting the codes increasing exponentially there are now 92 septillion different ways to set up a german
27:13four rotor naval enigma machine it's a complete disaster for the allies they are completely locked
27:21out of german naval encrypted communications u-boats basically go on the rampage again the british need
27:30a much faster version of the bomb and that means not having to design a mechanical decryption device but
27:37an electronic one the british are struggling to produce these machines so they turn to the united states
27:44and they ask for assistance washington starts looking for someone to build this new improved bomb
27:51they need a visionary engineer with a team of electronics experts in a vast manufacturing space
27:59they find all three in dayton ohio at the national cash register company or ncr
28:06the ncr is a world leader in electronics and they just invented the world's first electronic accounting
28:13machine that runs at a million pulses per second a megahertz ncr has an enormous
28:20production facility in dayton they're led by joseph desh an engineer who has an intrinsic grasp of the
28:29potential of electronics dash designs a way of scaling up the british bomb utilizing the might of american
28:36engineering the biggest issue is it comes with an incredible price tag around four million dollars each
28:45it also weighs over two and a half tons so needs to be built in a special room of the
28:51ncr with one of the
28:52first steel reinforced concrete floors in the united states the navy signs off on the costs and desh's
29:00team gets building the process is relentless with the team working seven days a week finally on may
29:0728th 1943 after 11 long months dash's supersized bomb gets its first test
29:16inside the ncr dash switches on the machine and he feeds it an enigma m4 message the machine starts up
29:27it begins to whine and the machine stops it seems like an electrical short circuit and the teams are
29:34deflated but suddenly it springs back to life and incredibly the machine scores a hit it prints out the
29:42precise key used to encipher the message they then use that key to set the rotors on their own enigma
29:50machine
29:51they can then decipher the code and reveal the original message
29:56desh has done it he sends the results direct to the code breakers in washington
30:03soon desh's machines are being put to work decrypting german messages the americans and the british are
30:10actually decrypting enigma messages faster than the german recipients are after ncr and its decryption
30:17machines start going into action the tide turns against the german uo commanders it stops being a
30:24happy time and it starts becoming a nazi hunting time for over 50 years the dayton codebreakers contribution
30:33to breaking enigma remains classified desh and the women who made the u.s bomb take their secrets to the
30:41grave
30:44only in 1995 after a campaign by desh's daughter is their role finally acknowledged
30:53it's 1968 someone is selling the u.s navy's top secrets to the soviets and the navy brass have no
31:00idea
31:01it's even happening when the truth is finally revealed after two decades it's not by the fbi
31:06the cia or the cia it's by a disgruntled spouse
31:15senior u.s naval officials are a bit troubled time and again their opponents seem to gain the upper
31:22hand on them and anticipate their moves with almost clairvoyant skill
31:28from tracking their subs in the atlantic to eventually dodging bombing raids in vietnam
31:34they sense that something is up the u.s has no idea how this is happening it's as if the
31:42ussr has
31:42cracked u.s naval codes to u.s commanders that's a ludicrous suggestion at this time the u.s navy
31:51uses
31:51one of the world's most advanced coding machines known as the kw7 it is one of the first fully
31:58electronic coding machines faster and more secure than ever before in order to break this code the
32:04enemy would have to get their hands on a kw7 machine and have access to the key cards that
32:10are necessary to operate it those key cards however are changed out regularly usually about once a month
32:16and that means that even if the soviets get their hands on machine well they still have to have the
32:21latest key card in order to figure out what a coded message says the soviets have got their hands on
32:27some kw7s after a u.s ship was captured in north korea but because the captured machines didn't have
32:34key cards with them the u.s navy believed that their code was still secure a series of security breaches
32:40follow but the navy is sure that this is just a run of bad luck it's not just bad luck
32:47it's something
32:48far worse their top secret code is no longer secret the truth is first discovered not by a
32:54cryptography specialist but by a housewife in virginia barbara walker is the wife of john walker
33:01a radio man in the u.s navy from the outside they have a happy life with four kids they've
33:07had money
33:07troubles before but now they live a very comfortable life a fact she puts down to john's rising career
33:15one day barbara walker comes across something strange tucked away in a closet is a grocery bag
33:21stuffed with classified navy documents and they've been hidden away there by john
33:28when confronted walker comes clean he's been stealing top secret information and passing it to
33:34the soviets in exchange for millions of dollars among john walker's responsibilities is taking
33:40care of these kw7 cards it's his duty and responsibility to destroy the old ones and to
33:47safeguard the new ones but instead of doing that he's sending them to the soviets once they have the
33:53key cards the soviets can decode the american messages that they recorded over the previous month
34:00the soviets then tunnel their way into at least a million encrypted naval messages it's the most
34:06damaging code breach in u.s history and the americans don't even know it's happening for over 10 years
34:13john is able to intimidate barbara into keeping his secret barbara is terrified of her husband's temper
34:20and she fears that if she goes to the authorities she might lose her kids over the years john secretly
34:27drags more family members into his twisted spy world including one of their adult sons then in 1984
34:36barbara finally breaks john's hold over her barbara learns that john recently attempted to pull their
34:42daughter in even though the daughter refused she picks up the phone and calls the fbi she tells them
34:52about the drops what he's doing how this all works as they listen they see the kgb patterns at play
35:00furthermore as they investigate walker becomes clear that he has a little more cash than one should
35:05for his station and he's taking some rather odd trips at odd times but they need more than just
35:13circumstantial evidence so they attempt to catch john in the act in may 1985 the fbi trails walker to a
35:22wooded area near washington dc and watches him hide a package before leaving a classic dead drop agents move
35:30in and retrieve the documents it's a gold mine inside they find 129 pages of classified material
35:38john is arrested at his hotel room just a few hours later faced with the prospect of life in prison
35:46walker does the only thing he can he makes a deal in exchange for his full confession he negotiates a
35:54more lenient sentence for his son michael john walker is sentenced to life in prison
36:02for the russians this has been a brilliantly simple strategy their code breakers haven't had to crack
36:07anything all they had to do is crack open the checkbook the story explodes across the media
36:13along with walker's stinging comment that kmart has better security than the navy
36:20when the story of this domestic spy ring goes public it reveals huge flaws in u.s naval security
36:29leading to the implementation of new security measures to ensure this won't happen again
36:37it's new york in 1919 a poker prodigy is lying in bed he's about to doze off when he's struck
36:45by a
36:45flash of inspiration one that will help him crack a notoriously difficult japanese code
36:54in the aftermath of world war one american leaders have learned a hard lesson information is power so if
37:01you can read other nations codes you can know what your enemies and even your friends are really
37:08thinking even in peacetime washington doesn't want to rely on what other governments choose to tell them
37:16so they decide to start cracking other countries codes the u.s turns to an unlikely establishment
37:22that publishes puzzle books from a nondescript brownstone in new york city
37:27it's the secret headquarters of the u.s's most advanced code-breaking operation called the cipher
37:33bureau an outfit so secret that it doesn't even officially exist essentially a u.s government black
37:40op the young man who runs this is herbert yardley a prodigy with a flair for numbers and puzzles
37:47in fact he funded his education through poker winnings
37:53working for the state department he secretly cracked a coded message meant only for the president
37:58in just two hours from there yardley's skills land in his own gig running the secret code-breaking
38:05team for the u.s government under its cover as a puzzle publisher
38:12yardley and his cipher bureau break all kinds of codes for the u.s government
38:17around 20 countries have their messages cracked by yardley's outfit
38:23the cipher bureau's most fiendish challenge is cracking japanese coded telegrams
38:29these are concerned with japanese and u.s negotiations over a naval arms limitation treaty
38:38yardley's cipher bureau is given a collection of diplomatic cables from japan to decode and this is
38:43a monumental challenge because even before you consider any encryption japanese is incredibly
38:50complicated instead of a 26-letter alphabet like we have in english they have the kana which is a
38:56collection of every possible syllable sound and there are 73 of those despite the scale of the
39:04challenge yardley vows that if he doesn't break the code within a year he will resign but after half a
39:11year yardley still can't discern any real patterns he's really starting to wish he hadn't been so
39:17hasty offering to resign yardley dedicates so much of his time to breaking the codes that he even starts
39:23dreaming about them and one night inspiration strikes suddenly he's able to pick out the japanese word for
39:32ireland in the telegrams irish independence is in the news right now and the japanese are discussing
39:38it in their diplomatic telegrams now it's like he has the corner of a jigsaw puzzle and he builds out
39:44from this cracking one syllable and then another and finally after six months yardley and his team
39:50have the japanese code completely defeated yardley's work helps secure a historic peace deal on u.s terms
39:59and yardley is rewarded with a distinguished service medal but this becomes the high point of his code
40:05breaking career by 1929 after a series of funding cuts yardley's cipher bureau is closed for good but
40:13because it didn't officially exist he's not able to draw a civil service pension so in the end he ends
40:19up broke feeling betrayed gardley decides to publish a tell-all book called the american black chamber this
40:27effectively makes him to edward snowden of his time but it also makes him a small fortune he rakes in
40:32the
40:32equivalent of half a million dollars in today's currency the u.s government is outraged by yardley
40:38having gone from their secret puzzle nerd to a rogue operator yardley's book is an embarrassment to the
40:46u.s government because of it some 19 nations are alerted that their codes have been broken by the united
40:54states they can't throw them in jail because only limited laws exist on spilling state secrets
41:03in march of 1933 congress amends the espionage act by passing an act for the protection of government
41:10records this prohibits the disclosure of anything sent in code these laws yardley inspired become
41:17informally known as the official secrets act and they still bind government officials today
41:25from a prison cell to battlefields secret codes are a vital way nations hide information from their
41:32enemies but for every locked door there is a key and for every code a genius mind trying to crack
41:40it
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