The Codebreaker Who Turned Rum-Runners’ Radio Chatter Into 650 Prosecutions

Rum-runners had thousands of miles of American coastline to exploit and radio sets to coordinate their deliveries. Their coded messages gave Elizebeth Friedman a way into the business. According to the National Security Agency’s history, Friedman and her assistant solved about 12,000 messages. The intelligence contributed to 650 criminal prosecutions.

That work moved from the listening post into the courtroom. Friedman appeared as an expert witness in 33 cases, turning hidden communications into evidence prosecutors could use. Narcotics traffickers also figured among the smugglers exposed. A small cryptanalytic team extended a Coast Guard effort that faced an enormous stretch of coast and increasingly sophisticated criminal communications.

Her route into secret writing began with an improbable commission: investigate whether Francis Bacon had concealed proof of authorship inside Shakespeare’s plays. In 1916 the wealthy George Fabyan recruited her to his Riverbank estate in Illinois. The staff included William Friedman, whom she married in 1917. She introduced her future husband to cryptology; he subsequently became one of its best-known American practitioners.

The work grew with the opposition. Simple substitutions gave way to more elaborate codes as smuggling operations prospered. Friedman trained other analysts, freeing herself to tackle unfamiliar systems. NSA’s account records that by 1931 she had persuaded Congress to create a dedicated seven-man cryptanalytic section. A specialist’s skill was becoming an organisation’s capability.

During the Second World War her Coast Guard unit worked under the Navy, targeting German espionage communications from South America. Its intelligence helped the FBI put a major Nazi network out of action. The agency’s 2020 tribute describes that work as critical to counterintelligence in the Southern Hemisphere.

Friedman’s career also outlasted the war. She created communications-security systems for the International Monetary Fund. In retirement she and William returned to Shakespeare, producing a book that demolished the cipher theories that had helped bring them together. She died on 31 October 1980. The NSA building eventually named for both Friedmans gives the partnership a public address; the rum-runners’ intercepted messages show how much of its early reputation she earned herself.