182. The Imitation Game: The Codebreakers Who Defeated Hitler (Ep 2)

15:28David:John Tiltman, that British codebreaker, describes the gift of purple as a tremendous gesture. Somebody had to make the first step, he said, and the Americans made it. And I think it is interesting because the Americans, they don't use it as a bargaining chip. They don't go, well, we could give you something if you show us more. They basically go, here it is. And I think that actually is quite important because it does make the Brits realize, okay, maybe we need to reciprocate.

15:58Gordon:Maybe we need to do something in response. It actually seems like the exact inverse of structurally what happens today in pockets of the intelligence relationship. Because in 41, the Americans are the smaller partner, partner that kind of needs to demonstrate value. And so there's a willingness, I think, maybe to take something that's really valuable and cool and share it to demonstrate from kind of the plucky, smaller partner that there's that, hey, can contribute and if we pool resources, we both get more out of this than if we just do it alone. I think that there's a, you know, I'm thinking about exchanges with British counterparts on HUMINT.

16:39Gordon:There's kind of a similar structural thing going on today in the HUMINT relationship between MI6 and CIA, where I think if the Brits collect really interesting, really good pieces of human, there can be a, you know, there's a strong desire to share it, to say, look, this is something of value. And then it creates an impulse on the side, the bigger side, to share more. To open up. Yeah, exactly.

17:05David:And it is interesting because John Tiltman, this actually very important figure in the relationship, goes to see the head of MI6 and make the case and say, look, they've opened up to us. We should do the same as well. and the head of MI6 can see the point of that argument but says only if Churchill himself signs off on it which gives you a sense of how important this technology is yeah and how how sensitive is and how big a decision that is and Churchill says you can tell them but they have to sign a document uh with conditions about who they in turn can tell yeah because they want to control that kind of flow of information and make sure that word doesn't get out in Washington effectively about what's happened.

17:52David:So that's the deal. We will share it with them, but only if it's restricted to a tiny group of people who basically swear themselves to secrecy. So at that point, the decision is made, and it is actually just before the Americans' visit ends in March, that they are told about the break into Enigma. They are shown the bombs, these machines, which you can see here in Bletchley Park if you visit. You can see rebuilds of them, the ones that are used to kind of go through the various permutations. They're told and allowed to write down some, although maybe not all of the details of the techniques that the British are using to break and to attack things, even the more advanced naval enigma.

18:37David:They're not actually given any of the hardware, though, which is interesting, I think. The Americans have given the purple machine. The Brits don't give a bomb, for instance. But the reason for that is simple is they don't have that many. And they're using them all and they need them all. They can't quite afford to just ham one over and lose the ability to use it day to day.

18:57Gordon:It's a massive part of the value that they hope to get from the Americans, which will be the industrial capacity to build a lot more of these machines.

19:03David:And I think it is easy to forget now how remarkable this was. Because America is still not in the war. and yet they're sharing their deepest secret, which is what's happening at Bletchley Park. I mean, I do think it's hard to get your head around what a big step that is.

19:21Gordon:Yeah. Well, and especially in contrast to the slightly suspicious nature of the intelligence relationship in the 1930s. Yeah. I mean, it's really a sea change in the way the two countries are going to work together. Well, one American actually thinks that the Brits are also passing on the details.

19:38David:in their minds they think were partly for help but partly in continuity and in their words in case britain goes under and then at least some capacity to break german codes and that knowledge will then be over the atlantic so it's almost a kind of fallback option as well which shows you i think you know to some extent the fears that are there so the team the four americans go back

20:00Gordon:in April, they returned to the US. And if you put yourself in the mindset of a senior official inside the Army Signal Intelligence Service or inside Naval Intelligence, in some respects, the trip could look a bit like a failure because you've provided this really important piece of tech, the purple machine. You've gotten nothing in return. And what we'd call the bigot list, sort of the list of people who are read into this information. isn't people who are big it's not people who are bigoted sorry yeah it's it's it's the slang for people who are read into a particular compartmented program but it's a very small yeah bigotless so there'd be plenty of people in both of those services who would look at the at the bletchley park time and say what did you get out of that this was a waste of time yeah which often happens after liaison trips by the way does it yeah yeah you come back and say oh it's kind of a boondoggle Now, I guess no one in 1941 would have thought it was great to come and sit in wartime Britain.

21:04Gordon:But still, you come back from a trip like this, you've given something valuable, and what do you have to show?

21:09David:And you can't tell people you've come back with something. So I think the gossip in Washington is like, that was a failure, that mission. It's really interesting. But it is the start of the relationship.

21:19Gordon:Pearl Harbor dramatically changes things, obviously. It feels like without Pearl Harbor, obviously, the Bletchley visit is a footnote in history.

21:30David:Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it changes things, obviously, for the US. I think it brings the US into the war, also forces them to confront the need to overcome the rivalry between the Navy and the Army and to get better at code breaking because they didn't have the advance warning for Pearl Harbor. And that's one of the problems is they realize the importance of trying to have that break into your opponent's codes. And out of it, you get a division of labor. And I think that's, again, one of the legacies of Bletchley is that there's a clear division of labor in which the US is going to lead on breaking Japanese codes.

22:10David:And the UK is going to lead on breaking German codes. And they've each got a slight lead and expertise in that one, but they're also going to accept, with some people not being entirely happy about it, the idea that they'll leave the other half to someone else. There's some people who don't like that, and who feel they want to be doing everything. But actually, that division of labor is crucial.

22:37Gordon:Yeah, the bureaucratic fragmentation on the U.S. side is also interesting, because you have, I think, the Army, which is much more keen to work with the Brits, the signals intelligence service. The Navy, a little bit more reluctant. I think in part because the Navy wants to take the lead on breaking Enigma, right? And may not want to share credit with the Brits. And there's also, as we discussed last time, a lingering concern. I think that after the war, or even during it, these kind of advances could be used for the for the Brits to spy on us yeah right so that's that's all still there it also this kind of bureaucratic fragmentation division I mean it reminds me even of some of the the features in the relationship today where the Brits particularly SIS MI6 will play off no American services against each other no the FBI and the CIA yes yes there are There would be senior American officials at the CIA and FBI who would say they feel closer and a deeper sense of trust with the Brits than they do with each other.

23:51Gordon:And the smart Brits know this and use it to their advantage.

23:56David:I mean, there's this bit here, which is, I think, from an official NSA history, the NSA being the American code breaking agency. It says, British officials regarded negotiations with the Americans as a little like dealing with the former colonies after the American Revolution. Disorganized and frustrating at times, but they could still play one off against each other to achieve objectives. Still happening today. It's really interesting, isn't it? But yeah, there are these fears still over security. We talked about the importance of it. But Tiltman manages, as this figure in the middle, to smooth over some of the differences.

24:34David:I mean, Churchill famously calls the staff at Bletchley the geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled. And he will strike the names off of British officials who he thinks should not have access to the secret that is Bletchley Park in order to restrict it and make sure it doesn't leak out. And no actions will be taken without a plausible cover story of why they could be taken so that it doesn't get traced back to it being based on intelligence from Bletchley Park. So there's great care being taken to do this. And the U.S. effectively has to agree to those rules and those security strictures in order to be part of this arrangement.

25:16Gordon:I thought the way that the Americans wind up being integrated into the Bletchley operation is very interesting. I mean, we should say we're talking about the story in the context of US-UK intelligence sharing. We shouldn't create the impression that somehow there were thousands of Americans here. This was, I mean, I think at its height, 10 ,000 or so people, maybe only a few hundred Americans. Yeah. But the choice to integrate the Americans across the teams rather than sort of setting up some kind of American hut. Yeah. You know, also shows, I think, the depth of the partnership. In the same way today, there have been times in the relationship between CIA and MI6 where we've integrated officers into each other's counterterrorism centers, right, rather than having your own cell.

26:01Gordon:So it's a measure, I think, of trust in a partnership. But then it is interesting because there's some of the cultural differences which become clear.

26:10David:We talked about that earlier with the rounders versus baseball issue. But, you know, there's interesting ones like the Americans tend to wear military uniform when they're at their headquarters, whereas Bletchley is emphatically not really, you know, a military organization where you're wearing uniform. And that was not the case at Bletchley. to make the point one american liked telling people the story of two wounded personnel assigned to bletchley to help out who while they were convalescing looked at the way people dressed and acted around bletchley park and believed they'd actually been sent to a mental institution because they go like this is not uh the way these people act this is not normal this is not within the military chain of command you'd have in an american you know organization so there's definitely

26:54Gordon:a kind of there's an interesting kind of culture clash well and i guess everybody seems exotic to everybody else right i mean there's this uh great quote from from gene howard who was one of the women here at bletchley where she says you know they the americans were different animals and the english they spoke had different meanings they were fat we were emaciated they were smart she points out 11 different sorts of uniform we were almost in rags they were rich we were poor we were overworked and exhausted having to teach people who barely knew where Europe was. That was the last straw.

27:28David:But then I do like, there's some great quotes. The quotes are really good. This is from a British official during the war, which is in the Authorized History of GCHQ by John Paris. The Brit tells Deniston, the head of Bletchley, he said, you must have noticed yourself how very many childish qualities the American male has. His taste in women, motor cars and drink, his demonstrative patriotism, his bullying assertion of his rights, his complete pig selfishness in public matters, and his incredible friendliness and generosity when he likes you. Hell, anyone would think I don't like them, but perhaps it's as well that I'm fond of children.

28:20David:I mean, that's quite a quote.

28:22Gordon:That is quite a quote. That's a very British quote too, isn't it? Sort of a politely slamming. Yeah, exactly. It is an interesting, ends up being a very interesting bunch, doesn't it? Because you have these mathematicians, you wind up with a lot of former bankers who were here, crunching numbers. One of the guys who came over is Art Levinson, who was very fond of baseball statistics. not something i know resonate with you gordon um talks about the freezing outdoor toilets i mean is it so we saw walking around here today i mean it's pretty basic this is a pretty spartan yeah setup i mean even in you know turing's office it's it's pretty dingy it's dark shades pulled yeah you know it's this was not you know despite the fact that we're at a kind of a mansion most of the people were not experiencing the sort of Downton Abbey style living.

29:16Gordon:No, definitely not.

29:18David:And I think Art Levinson says he can always remember the freezing outdoor toilets, as well as working with one colleague with a refined Cambridge accent and another from Glasgow. While he was made to feel very welcome, he never had a clue as to what either was saying, which I love. But of course, the other thing we should mention is, for some reason, the Americans do seem exotic, especially to some of the women at bletchley and barbara abernethy denniston's assistant who serves the sherry ends up marrying one of the americans she she's one of quite a few who ends up marrying these exotic americans with their with their child their childish qualities childish qualities seems strangely attractive to some british women i think don't quite understand that but anyway there you go but um yeah art levinson is a good example of one of those co-breakers who comes over and who start seeing the value of what the Bletchley decrypts can offer.

30:13David:And I mean, we're not going to get into the whole detail of how Bletchley does shape the victory that comes in the Second World War. But there are some important moments which he will personally witness. You know, for instance, you know, he can remember why the German commander Rommel is kind of raging about why every one of his supply ships is being sunk by a British destroyer. and and rommel is saying it can't be coincidence it's the damn machine and rommel has clearly was that message then typed into the machine yeah exactly and they've intercepted it and so they hold their breath because they're thinking rommel's maybe worked out that enigma is vulnerable and that's why all these supply ships are being but but but it's so interesting that the germans it's almost too much to contemplate the idea that enigma is breakable because the implications of that are so awful for the Germans that they'd have to change so much that they can't quite get their heads around it, even though, as we can see, Rommel and some others occasionally think, maybe, maybe that's why these things are happening.

31:16Gordon:I guess you can understand the inability, perhaps, to even come to terms with the fact that Enigma might have been cracked. Because prior to the war, I believe, even senior British cryptographers were saying it's unbreakable. It's an interesting question, though, is why do the Germans... I mean, is it fundamentally that assumption that it's unbreakable, that the Germans don't set up their own version of Bletchley? Because you don't have a German Bletchley. No.

31:47David:I mean, they have some good individual codebreakers. And actually, in North Africa, for instance, there's a very good codebreaking team assigned to Romola and to others. But the problem is they never join forces. I think they have separate teams, but they don't have that integrated system that you have at Bletchley, where it's all brought together, all the different skill sets and all the different understandings. And I think that is quite unique at Bletchley. And I think one of the things that America then offers is industrial muscle, really, to take some of these breaks into Enigma and other systems and build on them and actually use American capacity to do more with it.

32:34David:And I think that's a key thing that America brings to the party, really.

32:38Gordon:Well, Turing was a bit skeptical of the Americans' contributions on the cryptography, wasn't he? Because he has this great line where he says, I am persuaded that one cannot very well trust these people, meaning Americans, where a matter of judgment in cryptography is concerned. I think we can make quite a lot of use of their machinery. Yeah. It's funny to say. Yeah. That's what they think. Yeah. Despite the partnership, there's this very arrogant undertone, maybe even overtone, to some of the senior Brits here in terms of what the Americans really bring to the table.

33:12David:Yeah, but they do bring this industrial muscle to the table because one of the problems for Britain is producing the bomb machines, the ones you can see here at Bletchley. And Turing had designed them, but it's the US which builds them on an industrial level. And they use the National Cash Register Company, the NCR in Dayton, Ohio, which can build these machines at a pace that Britain simply cannot. And they'll run some of them in the US. They're also running bombs here at Bletchley, also a place called Eastcutt. And the messages are being passed back and forth over the Atlantic for the American machines to break as well.

33:54David:So you start to see that as well as the individual code breakers that the Americans can send over, they are actually providing something quite important in that relationship. it.

34:04Gordon:We're not going to go into incredible depth here on Turing and the effort to essentially build what becomes the modern computer. That's a whole separate story. But it is a really interesting piece of what's going on here at Bletchley. We talked about how Enigma is really being used by the kind of operational level of the German military and Navy. But there's a level above that, which the Nazi high command is using to communicate with essentially its army groups out in the field that becomes the focal point for a lot of Turing's efforts.

34:46David:Yeah. And that more advanced code that they're using at a kind of strategic level is the one that Colossus, the world's first semi-programmable computer, which is built here at Bletchley Park, is going to be designed to crack. And I mean, it's an amazing story. And again, I think we should delve into it another time. There's a post office engineer, Tommy Flowers, who plays a really important role in this, in designing and building the system. And that will offer more amazing insights. And again, Art Levinson, this American, can remember some of the messages that he will get from this break into the German high-level system.

35:25David:And he can remember decoding a 70 ,000-character account by Rommel of his inspection of defences along Normandy before D-Day. Imagine why that would have some value. Yeah. If you're planning to invade, knowing where the defences are because you've intercepted the message mapping them out is brilliant. And it's the detail because it locates a German panzer division just close to where the U.S. was going to drop the 101st Airborne. And Levinson says, you know, they would have been torn to pieces. So they moved it based on the intelligence. That, I'm sure, saved lots of young men in the 101st Airborne.

36:02David:So you can see with something like D-Day specifically, as well as other things like the Battle of the Atlantic, just how much difference Bletchley Park is going to make.

36:13Gordon:I guess a lot of the claims around the impact that Bletchley has had center on, well, by how many months or years that it shortened the duration of the war? I mean, I think some of them say, well, it's 18 months, maybe two years. I mean, what's your sense after looking at it of kind of the impact on the conflict? Or is that even a useful measure?

36:32David:I don't think it's a useful measure. I think this idea you can say, well, it would have been two years longer or 18 months longer without Bletchley. I mean, I don't think it kind of works like that. It's so integrated with the operational activity, whether it's in North Africa, whether it's in around D-Day, whether it's around Battle at the Atlantic, and also all the things that are happening in the Pacific. But I don't think you can kind of separate it out and say, if it wasn't there, this would be the implications. All you can really say is it plays a really significant role in helping win the war.

37:01Gordon:And as Levinson said, I mean, some of those individual, almost tactical operational decisions of saying, well, let's not position the 101st Airborne here, let's position them here. Or if you think about eventually when, you know, naval enigma is broken and you have a sense of where U-boats actually are and you can reroute shipping lines, it's probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives saved purely by the efforts here at Bletchley. And, I mean, who knows, counterfactuals are counterfactuals, but who knows how those really dark years of 1941 and 1942 go in terms of just being able to resupply Britain if you don't have it.

37:43Gordon:So yeah, I agree that the time duration feels a bit like a useless measure, but it very obviously had a massive impact in saving lives and in opening up really important supply chains.

38:00David:So there, I think with the war coming to an end, Bletchley's legacy isn't over. So let's take a break and look at what it means for the special relationship afterwards.

38:17well welcome back the war is over but what happens to blutchley park gordon this is it's not an a

38:25Gordon:there's no inked agreement at this point to suggest this kind of cooperation on signals intelligence and cryptography is going to continue and yet it does it does yeah and it's interesting

38:37David:because there was no guarantee it would continue during the war they had started to write up agreements to regulate the relationship. And there's something called the British-USA Agreement, Brusa, which is... Original, good name. Brusa is a good name, made 1943. And essentially that's about regulating how Ultra, which is the material created from decrypting Enigma, how it's passed around, how it's produced, and essentially making sure that it's not compromised by anything. But yes, I mean, the question is, at the end of the war, what's going to happen to codebreakers and to this world? Because if you look after previous conflicts, there's this pattern where the budgets get cut, the codebreakers get disbanded because it's seen as a kind of wartime necessity.

39:33David:And everyone goes their separate ways and people go back to civilian life and to other normal activities. There are some who want to cut it off on the American side because they think, well, we want to do this ourselves. We don't really want to work with the Brits. But I think what's so important is the fact that they have worked so closely has shown the value of cooperation during the war. I think that's the thing, is that both on the individual level of those intergrees, the people who've been integrated into Bletchley, they can see the value that it's brought but also at the very top level politically the leadership the military leadership the political leadership they can see the value of of joint code breaking

40:17Gordon:well it's also i mean frankly benefited by the fact that at that point in time beginning of the cold war britain's global role beginning or i mean had been shrinking but really contracting the American one growing and yet at the same time there's such a convergence of geopolitical interest with the Cold War happening right in Europe around the world that the logic of disbanding this kind of arrangement is really flawed because I mean essentially and I think it's the same logic that it governs a lot of the intelligence partnership today is if both countries bring 10 units and share, that means both countries have 20 units, right?

41:04Gordon:And fundamentally, that math just holds up if you have a real convergence of national interest at the geopolitical level.

41:11David:And which you've got, because I guess it is so crucial that as soon as the war is ending, the Cold War is starting. I mean, there's even a bit of crossover where they're starting to think and spy on the Soviets, even though they're allies, at the end of the war. But it's certainly clear by the end of it that a new conflict is coming. And on September the 12th, 1945, the US chiefs of staff tell President Truman that cooperation with the Brits was essential to American national security, given the disturbed conditions of the world. And what they're worried about is actually another Pearl Harbor.

41:48David:It's another surprise attack. It's being taken by surprise, perhaps even by a nuclear surprise by the Soviet Union, who are developing the bomb, although they don't have it yet. And the Brits, again, have something because they've been working against the Russians longer than the Americans. Because the Brits were working against the Russians in the 20s and 30s and a bit in World War II, whereas the Americans had never really focused on the Russians. And so for that reason as well, the Americans are thinking, well, these guys have got something that is potentially quite useful to us in this new world.

42:23David:Therefore, there's a value in maintaining a relationship.

42:26Gordon:And you can even see the kind of impulse reflected in the way that the OSS and then what will become very young CIA, the tradecraft, it really comes from MI6. A lot of those OSS officers served in the war are kind of tutored in many ways by their British counterparts here in London. And obviously there's a deep intelligence sharing relationship that begins right away with the sort of, you know, Nassin CIA. So the alliance, though, gets deeper in 46.

43:00David:Yeah, that's when you get the Yakuza, as it's known, which is the UK-USA, which is a formal agreement, not a national treaty. it's interesting because it's deniable so it's a secret agreement between the two sides it's non-binding so both sides can kind of pull out of it when they want it's actually kept secret until 2010 i mean everyone knows it exists but the actual document itself is is kept secret until then and it solidifies this relationship which had come through bletchley park through that visit in 1941 into a marriage effectively between the two sides i mean that's what it really feels like in terms of the commitments that they promise each other.

43:40Gordon:And one of the stipulations is to promise honesty and openness with each other, which obviously we do all the time, right? This is really important. They agree to divide up the world in terms of the coverage. And in particular, when you're talking about signals intelligence, that's hugely valuable because in the human intelligence world, it matters too because where certain countries have consulates and embassies and others may not, It really does matter. Geography matters. But with signals intelligence in particular, having listing posts, having geographic coverage is really, really important.

44:15Gordon:So that's a significant piece of it as well. They promise fidelity, so there would be no deals or sharing with any other third parties unless both parties agreed that that would happen, and secrecy. So, again, we have the fear, particularly from the British side, that there would be a repeat of the Black Chamber experience of having this whole thing leaked in the aftermath. These agreements really sew that up so that doesn't happen.

44:42David:Yeah, that's right. And the secrecy extends to the fact that no one who knows the secrets of this joint code-breaking work could be put in any position where they could be captured or subject to interrogations. And that's actually one of the stipulations to try and maintain that secrecy. They also agree not to spy on each other, which may be something we should come back to. Because, you know, that was the mistrust that came out of the 30s when they knew they'd been spying on each other. But they're going to agree not to spy on each other. And they prepare for the long term and even for the worse.

45:18David:I mean, that's when you start to see the institutions, which are the modern institutions, forming. Because Bletchley is going to close down. It's going to move to the outskirts of London briefly. but then they'll move code breaking to cheltenham and it's a location chosen to be away from london precisely a bit like bletchley was chosen to be away from london because they're worried it could be the target for nuclear weapons now or for bombs and so cheltenham is a bit out of the way uh some actually think that they should go all the way to canada and they should move no mistake but they decide on cheltenham which a bit closer than canada um and uh they're going to use some of the kind of cabling and some of the infrastructure which is there because there's there's good communications lines uh and then meanwhile in the u.s you're also going to get evolution of code breaking into more formal organizations and institutions which i think

46:13Gordon:really the the impetus of pearl harbor in the sense that the the failure of the services to cooperate and collaborate partially led to that disaster leads to a lot more centralization of the U.S. code-breaking and signals intelligence apparatus until finally in 1952 you get the creation of the modern NSA underneath the military. Yeah, and that's still one of the differences, isn't it,

46:38David:is that whereas GCHQ is a civilian under the foreign office, NSA is a military organization, which again mirrors some of those kind of Second World War differences. And then you also, it was the Yakuza deal originally, but then Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are brought into it, and you get what are now called the five eyes. There's a little bit of tension about whether the Americans can talk to the Canadians direct or whether they have to go through Britain. But eventually it's worked out that this is going to be the best way of organising themselves. Still little tensions though. It's kind of interesting.

47:14David:I find some of this, for instance, Britain actually offers some of its colossus, these computers, early computers, to the Americans. The Americans turn it down and the Brits realise one of the reasons they're turning it down is because they want to build them themselves you know they don't want to be dependent yeah you know and and you can understand that there's there's this constant sense of the power shifting slightly to the american side and america constantly thinking well it's useful to have this relationship with the brits but ultimately we want to be able to do it ourselves and build our own machines and the balance between realizing that there's a benefit in working together but also not being too dependent is something which is there but on the whole the realization will be two heads are better than one or five heads are better than one

48:02Gordon:well i also think the the closer two sides get and the more information sharing there is between the two of them because you're seeing the same stuff you start to see the world in the same way too. So the relationship can be, you know, cemented on the basis of a shared sense of mutual threat. And that could be, you know, in theory, that could be a very transactional thing when that threat's gone, you know, you part ways, I guess, with the geopolitically with the Cold War happening, that doesn't happen. And then you end up with this, you know, I think it really an information system inside this five eyes that, that in and of itself creates the conditions for more trust because you have a shared way, a shared language about what's going on in the world, because you're looking at all the same information.

48:52Gordon:You're looking at the same intercepts. You're looking at most of the same human intelligence. And I think that is really a lot of the glue that holds this thing together.

49:00David:It also goes back to the idea that GCHQ is smaller than the NSA. So Britain is now, you know, goes from being the larger partner to the smaller partner, but there is still value in having a different perspective as well on something like code breaking you know right from the start where we talked about the polls bringing bringing a different way of looking at the problem of enigma you get the same thing i think with code breaking where you know another partner allows you to see a problem in a different way they also might have different geography which gives you access to to collecting signals whether it's from undersea cables or radio which you wouldn't get another way and so the benefits there become pretty clear And they're all based, I think, on that, you know, that way of working at Bletchley in which you divide up the world for targets, you work together.

49:49David:And it's so interesting because the staff are still seconded back and forth. And John Tiltman, who was one of the people we talked about there, who'd been there in Bletchley, he, to me, is a really interesting example about that. because he, after the war, continues at GCHQ. He then retires from GCHQ in the 60s. And then he moves to the United States and works as a contractor for NSA. And he works at NSA until 1980. And I just find it extraordinary because this is a guy who I think is born in the 1890s. And he is breaking codes in World War I. He's breaking codes on the border between India and Russia in the 1920s and the Soviet Union.

50:32David:And he's there in World War II at Bletchley. And then he's there in the computer age in the NSA, you know, through the 70s as a Brit who suddenly seconded to the NSA. And you kind of get, that's an amazing example about how close those relationships are.

50:49Gordon:He ends up inducted into the NSA's Hall of Honor, right? I don't know how many other kind of foreign nationals are in there, but it can't be that many. And John Tiltman's one of them. And Ann Keist Butler, who's head of GCHQ right now and was here at Bletchley, I think just a few months ago for a lecture in the very room where we're recording today. She said that the leap of trust, this leap of trust, meaning Bletchley, paved the way for the strongest intelligence alliance in the world. Here at Bletchley Park, American and British codebreakers work side by side, and that continues to this very day.

51:21Gordon:in GCHQs, Cheltenham, Manchester, and London hubs, and NSA offices from Fort Meade to San Antonio. They still have intergrees, as they're called, I mean, working together in each other's organization. And you got, apparently, she must have leaked that there's an NSA hub in San Antonio, Texas. It's not far from where I'm from. I didn't know that. Yeah. She's just declared it.

51:42David:She's just declared it. So like a Yardley-style reveal for Mankey's Butler. But also, it's funny, I was talking to someone who used to work at GCHQ for many years and they they just gave me a small example of how how that integration of people still matters and they said if you're at the car park for GCHQ in Cheltenham as some of you may have may not have been um that you swipe in past barriers to get into the to the car park and uh some of them have a swipe machine on the left as well as the right and that's to ensure that US personnel driving left-hand cars can get into work without having to get out of their car and walk.

52:22David:So they're even shipping their cars over. It's an example of the fact that they're built for joint working, which came out of the integration which was here. And it has survived in an interesting way, to the point where I think after 9-11 there were worries of what would happen if the NSA was taken out by a terrorist attack or by a nuclear weapon or something like that. And the idea was that GCHQ in the UK would take over the US signals intelligence. You know, it would become the headquarters and the base for it. Which is crazy. Which is crazy when you think about it.

52:54Gordon:There is no other, is there another intelligence partnership in the world where one side would say, if my signals intelligence capability is destroyed, I will actually create a backup plan so that it could be transferred to a foreign country.

53:09David:Yeah.

53:09Gordon:And it's insane.

53:10David:It is insane. Although I like the British parallel, which was that their worry, in the US they were worried about a major terrorist attack or something like that. In the UK they were worried about floods near Cheltenham in 2007. And they were so worried about flooding near Cheltenham that might take GCHQ offline that in that case then the Americans, the NSA, put it over to the NSA. So there it's terrorism, with us it's floods. That's the difference. It's always more dramatic on the American side. You've always got to have the drama, haven't you? You can't let go of that. It's our childish ways.

53:48Gordon:I also think the signals intelligence piece in particular, because the systems and the installations are so capital intensive, it creates a logic behind that integration that I don't think you see in the same way on the human intelligence side, where it's still a bit more transactional.

54:11David:Yeah.

54:11Gordon:Right. Because you can it's easier to turn off the dials of one particular stream of human intelligence reporting or just to not share it. Whereas if you're sharing literally the systems and the infrastructure on the signals intelligence side and collecting things, it's a bit harder to sequester one piece of it or one stream of it as British or American.

54:29David:Yeah. You can't imagine the CIA handing over control of its operations to MI6, can you? No, that's a little bit harder. Yeah, that's a little bit harder to imagine.

54:37Gordon:That human stuff still is, how the signals intelligence platforms are developed is obviously extremely sensitive. But both sides still kind of jealously guard, in some cases, the identity of their human sources, I think more so than the installations and systems and platforms that are used for signals intelligence. Yeah.

55:00David:And I think it is that point about trust and integration, which are the defining characteristics of that signals intelligence relationship. And it really did just come out of those four people turning up at Bletchley in February 1941. I think that's what's so interesting, is that it's not often you can date so clearly the beginning of a relationship, which, you know, where are we now, 85 years on, is still going. Still going.

55:28Gordon:It's had its hiccups recently.

55:30David:It's had its hiccups recently, but it's still going. Yeah.

55:32Gordon:And I think it's a testament to just how much trust has been built up and how much that trust has been turned into really deep institutional connections at all levels, really. You know, this isn't four people going somewhere to meet with a few people and then come back, and that could kind of be an ad hoc thing. Now it's just thousands of relationships every day and an integration of services that I think makes it, even if we're in a period of, what was the line from referring to the early Cold War as a disturbed period of politics? Yeah, we're sort of, it feels like that's what we have today.

56:10Gordon:even if those disturbances sometimes ruffle the politics at a high level between London and Washington, this infrastructure is really hard to unwind. Even if someone wanted to purposely, it would be very hard to do that.

56:25David:Very hard and very costly. So yes, so it's lasted 85 years. Will it last another 85? Well, we could come back here and find out. Our successors maybe. I'm not sure we'll be around in 85 years to find out. But that feels like a good place to uh to leave the story of bletchley park we hope you've enjoyed it uh a big thank you to those who've joined us yeah and a big thank you also to bletchley park to the staff and team it is a wonderful place to visit uh a great place to spend a day and to really understand the what goes into co-breaking you know the genius of it but also the hard work and all those people who dedicated so much effort in absolute secrecy for those wartime years, which made a huge difference and laid the foundations for where we are today.

57:13Gordon:Yeah. And just a reminder, if you have not joined the Declassified Club, as all of these wonderful wise people in this room have already decided to do so, go and join the club at therestisclassified.com. You can get access to join us for events like this, early listening to our series and a whole bunch of other goodies. But we thank you and we'll see you next time. See you next time.