Herbet O. Yardley was a brilliant and self taught cryptographer who used creativity, superb thinking and mathematical organizational skills and just plain hard work to break foreign codes and ciphers, by hand and mind alone. He eventually ran afoul of the upper class U.S. State Dept. officials who did not like the idea that Yardley would not pay proper obeisance to them and his "Black Chamber" code breaking organization, after several spectacular successes in the World War l thru the late 1920's was summarily shut down with Yardley and his staff fired. Yardley wrote a tell all book entitled "American Black Chamber", explicitly detailing some of his code breaking techniques and procedures, which gave quite a bit of consternation to government officials who preferred that the story not be told. They attempted to supress the book threatening charges of treason but Yardley found that he was legally OK in writing and did so. Thereafter they saw to it that he never worked in government again. Since he had broken a major Japanese naval code in the 1920's, this policy against Yardley seems to have backfired in the pre World War ll era and we will never know if he might …
Herbert O. Yardley
Author details
- Born:
- Nov. 12, 1889
- Died:
- Nov. 12, 1958
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Herbet O. Yardley was a brilliant and self taught cryptographer who used creativity, superb thinking and mathematical organizational skills and just plain hard work to break foreign codes and ciphers, by hand and mind alone. He eventually ran afoul of the upper class U.S. State Dept. officials who did not like the idea that Yardley would not pay proper obeisance to them and his "Black Chamber" code breaking organization, after several spectacular successes in the World War l thru the late 1920's was summarily shut down with Yardley and his staff fired. Yardley wrote a tell all book entitled "American Black Chamber", explicitly detailing some of his code breaking techniques and procedures, which gave quite a bit of consternation to government officials who preferred that the story not be told. They attempted to supress the book threatening charges of treason but Yardley found that he was legally OK in writing and did so. Thereafter they saw to it that he never worked in government again. Since he had broken a major Japanese naval code in the 1920's, this policy against Yardley seems to have backfired in the pre World War ll era and we will never know if he might have broken codes indicative of the impending Pearl Harbor attack. Yardley attempted to join the cryptography section in Canada as World War ll broke out and he was hired, but the moment our governemt learned of it, they promptly put pressure on the Canadian government and his position was cancelled. Yardley had found some work in the 1930's in China, helping to break Japanese codes for Chang Kai Shek's force and described his adventures during this time period in the book "Chinese Black Chamber" which has more intrigue, close escapes and real life adventure than most spy novels. Ted White, later author of famous books in the John Kennedy era, was a cub reporter and one of the many famous people Yardley encountered during this era.
Yardley continued to write books including a famous one, "The Education of a Poker Player", a biography about his experiences growing up at the turn of the century in the midwest, his adventures as a new employee in the telegraphy department in turn of the century Washington, and the circumstances that eventually made him one of the most famous crypotgraphers of his era. Yardley passed away in the late 1950's.
