The Woman Who Smashed Codes

DNFed @ 80%

One of my favorite books I've read, and one of those books I couldn't stop talking about. I still talk about it years later and want to re-read it. Fascinating history, especially as someone who has worked as a cryptologic analyst.

very interesting read!

I was left at times wanting more detail on the process. I got the sense sometimes that the author didn't understand the technical details of what Elizebeth and her husband were doing but thought that the story was interesting. The story is well told, but I left wanting more, especially regarding the technical details of the process and her breakthroughs. At the same time the book felt long. Worth reading, but I wouldn't read again and I probably should have skimmed more.

“There is nothing wrong with me. What's wrong is with other people.”

I normally don't really leap on books where they make a big deal out of the main character/subject being female. I, a female, am just a person, and I don't take any special glee or pleasure out of being exalted above other people just for being what I was born. I almost passed this book up, but the subject of codebreaking was one I hadn't read about before and that was too interesting to pass up.

I'm glad I gave this a shot, because in actuality this book is about a husband/wife codebreaking duo, which I thought was more interesting than the book hinging on one person. These two were brought together by a kooky guy and his mansion of weird and wonderful experiments, she to help an older woman with her Baconian theory that Shakespeare was really Francis Bacon (incorrect) and he to produce experiments on fruit flies. They realized together that they both had an interest in solving puzzles and cracking codes, and together created the groundwork for cracking codes today. Their knowledge carried them through World War I, through catching rum runners during prohibition, and ultimately through World War II where their knowledge and mental abilities were pushed to their limits.

This was a super interesting story, and written in a way that wasn't at all confusing. The author provided ample visuals to explain some parts of the codebreaking process, and I was able to (mostly) follow along and understand the basics. Both Elizebeth and William were interesting people in their own rights.

My only minor quibble was the title. At one point in the book the author notes “The press had a way of praising Elizebeth and condescending to her at the same time, professing amazement at the capabilities of the female brain”, and I kind of got that same vibe from the author with this book. These two worked together to crack all sorts of different codes, using pen and paper and their minds. The title felt phrased the way it was to sell copies, honestly.

But still, a great book, and really interesting even if you're not a codebreaker yourself.

Very interesting story but could have been told in fewer pages. Hats off to the author for highlighting the long-hidden story of this remarkable woman.

This is a crazy romp of a story: Elizebeth Smith, bored of women's work and afraid she'll never be taken seriously as a scholar first gets taken in by a larger than life self-made millionaire and self-declared colonel, where she joins his intentional community as one of several women looking for secret messages in the Shakespeare folios, to prove that they were indeed written by Sir Francis Bacon. However, once the Great War starts, she finds herself the only person in the country with any serious expertise in codes. So she, and her future husband forge the field of cryptanalysis. Following the war, mostly discarded by the military, she continues to work for the coast guard to decrypt coded messages by the mob as they traffic moonshine. So she is well-poised to lead the American effort when WWII truly becomes the war of codes.

Despite my obsession with the British female codebreakers of Bletchley Park, I knew less about the American side: we decrypted Engima! And defeated a bizarre secret South American-takeover plot!

If I had one complaint it's that the book to some extent sidelined her husband, William Friedman. This bothers me not just because “The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies And Her Husband, the Brilliant Jewish Geneticist, Who Also Smashed Codes” is EVEN more likely to be mistaken for a Markov Chain generated specifically from Becca's Interests, but also, Elizebeth and William made clear that they saw themselves as equals and I think they would have preferred it that way.

Nonetheless, this is a fascinating piece of history, well told by Fagone.

Elizebeth Smith's story is incredible. She is truly one of the many unsung heroes of WWII. The book was captivating and well-written. At times, it did feel a bit embellished or crowded with too many details, but overall, it was an enjoyable read. I would recommend it for anyone with an interest in early cryptography and/or interesting women.

The life story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, who was dissatisfied with the career opportunities the study of literature gave a young driven woman in the early 20iest century and set out to find a challenge, and found it on the estate of a wealthy science and conspiracy lover. She learns the ropes of codes and ciphers by first investigating Shakespeare's plays, and then contributes crucially to the invention of cryptology as WWI presents more pressing puzzles to be solved. Over the years - together and separately - Elizebeth and her husband William Friedman invent code breaking methods, document their craft in numerous influential pamphlets, and go on to spearhead several government institutions focused on the decryption of criminal and enemy communication. The era didn't make it easy for Elizebeth to fulfil this role in a world of men, yet her skills and her successrate continue to get her jobs in the business. During WWII she and her team help bring down a Nazi spy ring in South America, but no one can talk about it as it falls under top-secret classification. Head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover and his misogyny (he fired the few female FBI agents when his leadership began and didn't allow women to join for the next 40-50 years) and his perfect publicity stunts to claim other people's achievements, was part of the problem. So slowly Elizebeth is forgotten, while her husband continues to be celebrated.

A clever woman in a men's world, who is also a code-breaker, this was absolutely a book for me. It had a bit too much detailing on the Nazi spy activity during WWII, and sometimes too many assumptions about her and her husband's interior lives, but else this was a great read.