I’m starting to upload some primary source docs about Elizebeth Friedman to the Internet Archive. A few a day over the next couple weeks.
First doc: The long-classified, 329-page technical diary of her WWII codebreaking unit. Includes ENIGMA SOLUTIONS. archive.org/details/Histor…
Much of this doc is *very* technical. I had to ask experts for help understanding it. But crypto obsessives may like it.
I’ll add to this thread as I post more docs.
2. Secret cables between Bletchley Park & Elizebeth Friedman’s codebreaking unit, discussing Nazi spy Enigmas: archive.org/details/CoastG…
3. A series of NSA oral histories with Elizebeth Friedman, conducted in 1976, four years before her death: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
4. A 1943 memo by Elizebeth’s codebreaking team, ripping into the FBI for its inept handling of a spy roundup: archive.org/details/Histor…
This one is important because it describes in detail how much uncredited work the Coast Guard did for J. Edgar Hoover. They did not like him
5. Another WWII memo from Elizebeth’s unit, on how they used radio intercepts and codebreaking to hunt Nazi spies: archive.org/details/Memora…
That’s all for today. More docs tomorrow. Thank you to @textfiles for getting me started & all of you who encouraged me to do this.
6. I just uploaded Elizebeth Smith Friedman's gov't personnel file, showing her codebreaking jobs/salaries, 1921-46: archive.org/details/ESFPer…
7. Exhibits & full trial transcript from USA v. Morrison (1933), one of the biggest liquor cases of Prohibition: archive.org/details/usavmo…
This is a cool one b/c Elizebeth Friedman was the star witness! You can read her words from the stand, see her joust with defense attorneys.
8. Elizebeth Smith Friedman's partial memoirs, typed from a series of audiotapes she made in 1966, never published. archive.org/details/Elizeb…
9. Transcript of a long, intense, wide-ranging 1973 conversation between Elizebeth Friedman and an archivist: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
10. Elizebeth Friedman interview on national NBC radio, May 1934, conducted by D.C. journo Margaret Santry: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
11. ESF interview with her husband’s biographer, Ronald Clark, March 1975. ~~ “That’s what I did: The spy stuff.” ~~ archive.org/details/Elizeb…
Ooooh you’ll like this next one. Hahahaha.
12. "LADY MANHUNTER,” a 14-page piece about ESF & her fight against smuggling, from Detective Fiction Weekly, 1940 archive.org/details/LadyMa…
Funny thing about this article: By 1940 Elizebeth had moved on from smuggling work & was now fighting Nazi spies, but the writer had no idea
Going back over these clips about ESF from the 30s & 40s, it seems crazy she isn’t a household name today. She was famous for a time!
13. “KEY WOMAN OF THE T-MEN,” a 1937 Reader’s Digest (!) profile of Elizebeth Friedman & her codebreaking adventures archive.org/details/KeyWom…
14. Two first-person articles about codebreaking by Elizebeth, from the ‘20s & ‘30s, in THE ARROW of @PiBetaPhiHQ: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
15. Memo by Elizebeth Friedman in 1930, laying out her vision for an elite codebreaking unit to battle smuggling: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
This is one of the most important ESF documents — it shows her launching the very team that would go on to destroy Nazi spy rings in WWII.
16. “History of Work in Cryptanalysis,” 1927 to 1930, by ESF. Jaw-dropping description of an almost impossible task: archive.org/details/Elizeb…
She did all of this with only one support staffer, a clerk-typist. 12,000 secret rum messages solved in 3 yrs. Look at the geographic scope.
17. Elizebeth Friedman’s handwritten personal journal from 1913 to 1918 — the collegiate years thru World War I. archive.org/details/Elizeb…
"I am never quite so gleeful as when I am doing something labeled as an 'ought not.' Why is it? Am I abnormal?"
"Why should something with a risk in it give me an exuberant feeling? …so many people remark that I should have been born a man.” -ESF, 1913
18. ESF memo about the efforts of her codebreaking unit to solve the secret notes of narcotics smugglers in 1930s archive.org/details/Elizeb…
19. Narrative by Elizebeth Friedman about West Coast liquor smuggling in the 1930s. Super detailed. Just bonkers. archive.org/details/Elizeb…
Here ESF focuses on the largest rum syndicate at the time, Consolidated Exporters of Vancouver. Joe P. Kennedy (JFK’s dad) was an investor.
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