This was a
report prepared in August 1945 by the mathematician dr Hans Rohrbach. During WWII Rohrbach
was one of the top cryptanalysts of the German Foreign Ministry’s decryption
department Pers Z. His major success was the solution of the M-138-A strip
cipher system used by the US State Department for its
most important messages.
The report details the mathematical method of solution
and the use of a special device, called the ‘Automaton‘, that could quickly decode the messages once the
alphabet strips and keylists had been reconstructed. 
When i requested this report in 2013 the NSA’s response
was: ’We have completed our search for
records responsive to your request. We located item 1 of your request. That
document was reviewed in 2006 and was witheld in full. The document requires a
new review to determine whether any of it can be released at this time.‘
Based on this response i was expecting that I-89 would
contain fascinating details about the work of the German codebreakers.
Unfortunately after going through the report it’s clear that it is the same
report submitted by Rohrbach to the FIAT
Review of German Science in 1948 and also published in the journal Cryptologia
in 1979.
My other
request to the NSA was for page 92 of the Special Research
History SRH-366 'History of
Army Strip Cipher devices'. Some of you may have noticed that it is missing a page.
In any case here it is:
Again it
doesn’t seem to contain groundbreaking information. What can I say, you win
some you lose some….
Christos,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on finally wrestling that record from NSA. You have to appreciate Bill Bundy’s introductory comment “This was probably of no value. It was assigned to appease vanity and keep people busy.” Yet despite it being published by FIAT in 1946, NSA in its wisdom determined that it was a vital state secret that needed to be classified Top Secret for the next 70 years. This shows the fundamental bureaucratic silliness of the classification system, something can remain officially unknowable even after it is well known.
By the way, E.O. 1352 “Classified National Security Information” states that the maximum time a Cryptologic record can be exempt from declassification is 75 years. Perhaps we will be able to see the remainder of the TICOM materials in our lifetime.
best wishes,
Randy