Books: IURP WKH WURYH*

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After intense effort, the cryptanalysts arrived at a good pencil-and-paper analogue of the Purple Code. That was only the beginning. From there they went on to construct their own model of Japan's encoding machine, which "spewed sparks and made loud whirring noises," but worked.

Other Galaxies. Foreknowledge of Japanese intentions helped the U.S. in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, undoubtedly gaining crucial time for the U.S. to prepare its final blows. But the personal toll on Friedman was tremendous: "The despair of the long weeks when the problem seemed insoluble, the repeated dashings of uplifted hopes, the tension and the frustration and the urgency and the secrecy all converged and hammered furiously upon his skull." He collapsed, but three months after his breakdown, Friedman returned to work, although in a less demanding area. Today, at 76, he lives in Washington in retirement.

His coup is now in the past. What of the future? For several years, radio antennas in the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and Australia have been scanning other galaxies, on the off-chance that some sort of creature might be sending signals to earth. When and if such a communication is established, it is certain that it will require cryptanalysts to read the message.