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Hello. Hello and welcome to Spycast from the Secret Files of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

I'm Peter Ernest, the Executive Director of the Museum. I served for some

36 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, largely as what is called an operations officer

or a case officer.

Every month will be bringing you interesting talks

with visitors, with authors, with others who

have something to do with the world of intelligence

and espionage.

My guest today is something of a legend in intelligence history himself.

It's David Kahn, and many of you will know that name because he literally wrote the book.

He is the one who wrote the Croedbakers which became the seminal book on the whole

practice, art if you will, the how-tos and so forth on code-breaking. It came out in 1967, ran to over a thousand pages, but it is the book you will find on every

library shelf of a serious intelligence historian. He's currently on our board of

directors, he's a former reporter with News Day and he was the editor of the Paris Herald Tribune.

David, welcome.

Thanks very much, Peter.

Okay. You are much, Peter. Okay.

You are a prolific writer.

I know your most recent book is The Reader of Gentleman's Mail, Herbert O'Yardley, and

the Birth of American Code Breaking. Let me just ask you, what brought you to code breaking, just as a subject?

You've literally devoted your life to this.

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