Chapter 131 Yard class in youth

In his 1934 memoir, The American Black Chamber, Herbert Yard recounted his experience as an American cryptographer deciphering Japan's most secret codes. "Black Room" was quickly translated by Ito Risaburo, the leader of code analysts, and published in Japan, becoming a bestseller.At the same time, Major Xiao Bo, China's deputy military attache in Washington and Dai Li's special agent, had "The Black Room" translated into Chinese and sent to Wei Daming.Wei turned to Dai Li's attention to Yade Lei, an American who deciphered the Japanese diplomatic code. Yard was born in Wattington, Indiana, in 1889, the son of a railroad telegraph operator.In middle school, he was class president, editor of the school newspaper, and captain of the football team.He went to Washington at the age of 23 to work as a code operator for the State Department. In May 1916, he discovered unexpectedly that he could decipher a secret message from Colonel Hauss to President Wilson.He also realized that the messages were being sent on cables across England and were under daily surveillance by the Royal Navy.Since this would expose all American messages to British interception, he reported the matter to his superiors and suggested ways to compensate for America's weakness.As a result, he was immediately recognized by the War Department as a telegraph operator with outstanding capabilities. On June 29, 1917, as a second lieutenant, he was promoted to head Military Intelligence Eighth (MI8), in charge of all ciphering and decoding work during the war.

The Yards worked desperately to compile a new cipher, which provided a guarantee for the communication security of U.S. military attaches and intelligence personnel around the world.He also established a special decoding system to decipher 10,735 telegrams sent by foreign governments. When the Armistice Agreement of the First World War was signed on November 11, 1918, Yard was in charge of a cipher bureau in the Crillon Hotel in Paris, compiling all communication codes for the US missions participating in the Versailles Conference, and stealing other countries. Reports sent by missions. After the end of World War I, the Radio Broadcasting Act of 1912 came into effect again in the United States.The law stipulated that the government ensured that radio stations sending and receiving messages would only disclose the contents of the messages to their own recipients in order to ensure the secrecy of communications.But since the Yards ended up spying on foreign cable communications, not their radio messages, it wasn't illegal.In conclusion, after the Yard class returned to the US in 1919, Marlborough Churchill (Director of US Military Intelligence) suggested that MI8 be converted into a bureau jointly funded by the War Department and the State Department.General Petten March, Chief of the General Staff, agreed to the proposal.Thus, despite the Radio Communications Act, a cryptographic company, the so-called Commercial Code Enterprise, officially opened in New York, in a red brick building at 3 East 38th Street, under the leadership of Herbert Yard.This is the later famous "black room".

At first, Western Union refused to provide the government with the telegrams it sent and received.After all, the Radio Communications Act stipulates that employees who do so will be punished.General Churchill persuaded the Western Union's director, New York Carton, to make him patriotically defy the law.Every morning after that, government couriers would come to collect the telegrams, send them to Military Intelligence, and return them before Western Union closed for the day.Telegrams sent by post also made an agreement with Western Union in the same way.Moreover, W. E. Rothwaite and Robert W. Glatter, in the name of General Churchill, persuaded the National Telegraph Company, responsible for communications between North and South America, to do the same.By the end of 1920, the Black Room was fully capable of relying on the illegal cooperation of the American telegraph industry.

By then, Herbert Yard, with the help of his brilliant colleague Frederick Lewitson, had cracked the Japanese foreign ministry code.This secret achievement later played a crucial role for Secretary of State Charles Evans Hess at the Washington Naval Conference, which opened on November 14, 1921.Yard's class of codebreakers had been following Japan's preparations for the conference since July, running a daily courier service between Washington and New York.The key to the meeting is the tonnage of warships that each power can own.Hess was secretly willing to accept an equal amount with Britain, but wanted a ratio of 10:6 with Japan, which would only agree to 10:7. On November 28, the Black Room deciphered a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Japanese delegation. Telegram, the telegram said that 10:6 is also acceptable as a retreat.The United States understood the cards in the hands of the Japanese and became tougher. On December 10, Japan finally agreed to a ratio of 10:6 and the negotiations ended.Yard's code-breaking played a decisive role in winning the negotiation.

Despite the fruitful achievements of the Yard class, the existence of the black room is still vulnerable.It depends in part on secret State Department subsidies to it. In 1929, Secretary of State Stevenson decided that it was not suitable for a "gentleman" to read other people's emails, so the cipher agency closed down, and Yard, who was on his 40th birthday, lost his job.In fact, Yardley published the best-selling book that caught Major Shaw's attention precisely to earn money to support his family and to meet the needs of his lover, Edna Ranthea, who had worked with him in the dark room.

Yade class proposed that the annual salary of working in China is 10,000 US dollars.Major Sawb agreed, but not to his taking Edna Janthea with him.Yade was really excited about being able to work in China, so he accepted Xiao Bo's conditions and set off for the Far East in September 1938.He traveled as a fur exporter under the name of Herbert Osborne. The Yade class arrived in Hong Kong in November 1938. Because Hankou was about to fall into the Japanese occupation area, the flight to Hankou was interrupted that day.Dai Li's intelligence officer in Hong Kong, a Mr. Ling, received new instructions from his superior (Yade class privately called Dai Li "cut hands") from the radio, so three hours later, they set sail for French Indochina Haifeng.Then he connected with another secret intelligence agent, who bribed all the way through customs.Yade and Ling waited for three days, and then took the narrow-gauge train to Kunming, which only runs twice a week.