A Bit of Good News
by Revilo P. Oliver
ON 6 November 1991 the New York Post published an important article by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. The enterprising and, as the event proved, courageous journalists had interviewed Dwight Porter, who had been the American Ambassador to Lebanon in 1967. After twenty-four years, Mr. Porter disclosed the fact that his cryptographic staff in the Embassy at Beirut had intercepted and decoded communications between the commander of the Israeli air squadron and the Israeli High Command, which proved that the latter knew that the Liberty was an unarmed American naval vessel, and, over the aviator’s misgivings, ordered that the American ship be attacked and sunk.
Americans were, of course, pleased to have an authoritative confirmation — if confirmation were still needed — of a well-established historical fact, but I wonder how many were gratified by a fact that was incidentally disclosed: Americans had broken a Jewish ‘code’ (1) and were able to read currently (2) messages in it. Since the Jews have a racial talent for cryptography, as for mathematics, that was no mean achievement, and one of which we may legitimately be proud. It was also a reassuring proof that as late as 1967 the United States had competent cryptanalysts.
(footnote 1. See Appendix I, Cryptographic terminology.)
(footnote 2. This is a very important consideration. Assuming that a message is intercepted in a ‘code’ that has already been broken, there is a great difference between reading it immediately and reading it only after the hours of cryptanalytic work needed to recover the key.)
It is true that the Jewish messages read in Beirut must have been of the kind that is most vulnerable to analysis. It will be obvious that in field communications, i.e., between an army detachment or a squadron and its headquarters, the better systems described in Appendix I are inapplicable because they require specialist code-clerks, are relatively slow, and are too elaborate (the more complicated a system, the greater the chance of errors). There is no time for such luxuries in messages to and from the field, i.e., the battle-front, which must be sent and read when minutes may be crucial.
Field communications must therefore be in cipher, except that there may be a bit of code in a few easily memorized terms, no more than ten (e.g., ‘American’ = “tea,” ‘ship’ = “pot,” etc.) Enciphering and deciphering must be as nearly instantaneous as possible. The commonly used Swedish ‘Haglin’ machine is as good as any. (The German ‘Enigma’ is much too elaborate.) It will delay analytic decipherment for a considerable time (usually enough to make tactical information obsolete) unless the keys used with it have already been recovered. (3)
(footnote 3. For communications by telephone, machines which ‘scramble’ the voice when transmitted and ‘unscramble’ it when received are often used, but the principles of cryptanalysis remain the same, i.e., what must be recovered is the pattern of ‘scrambling’ that is in use at any given time and location.)
Although field communications are, as I have said, more vulnerable to analysis than more intricate systems that can be used in the comparative leisure of an embassy’s code-room or similar post, analysis of them requires a very considerable degree of cryptanalytic skill; the American achievement in Beirut was highly creditable and we should congratulate ourselves that we had in 1967, and may still have today, men who could ‘break’ the system of secret communication used by the Jewish air force.
The ship was identified as the American Liberty from its silhouette and photographs in the current edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships. (4) That identification was confirmed when planes sent to watch the ship reported its characteristics and the fact that it was flying the American flag, and took photographs which were immediately flown to Tel Aviv, where they verified the identification already made from the pages of Jane’s.
(footnote 4. See Appendix II.)
The Jewish High Command prepared a kind of alibi by asking the American Ambassador to Israel, a man named Walworth Barbour, whether he recognized the ship off the Egyptian coast as an American naval vessel. He replied that he did not, as was to be expected, since he probably knew nothing of the Liberty, a comparatively small and unarmed ship equipped for electronic espionage, and had not been told of its function or its mission. The Navy does not customarily inform ambassadors of the detailed movements of its ships on routine missions, still less of somewhat clandestine operations. The existence of the Liberty could not be kept secret, but the Navy naturally wanted the ship to attract as little attention as possible. There was no reason why the Ambassador in Tel Aviv should be told of its mission, and many valid reasons why he should not be told. At all events, as everyone concerned well knew, if Barbour had been told about the Liberty and its mission, he would have denied knowledge of it. Ambassadors ex officio deny all knowledge of their nation’s espionage, even if part of it is being carried on in their own embassies by the Military Attaché. That is simply diplomatic etiquette. If Barbour had perchance known of the Liberty, he would no more have admitted it than he would have told his host at a dinner party that he thought the hostess a clumsy cow or silly bitch. In other words, Barbour’s reply could be predicted with complete confidence.
The High Command seemed at first uncertain whether it would be prudent to destroy the American naval vessel, even though it had no armament with which it could effectively defend itself, but it was finally decided to destroy it, and bombing and torpedo planes were sent to do so.
The High Command in Tel Aviv wanted the Liberty destroyed to prevent their American serfs from learning what God’s People were doing and would do to the ill-equipped and betrayed Semites in Syria, whom they were attacking. They had no scruples, because it is obviously the function of Americans to finance Jewish conquests, not to spy on their masters. They had no qualms because they had in the White House a stooge who, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, would intervene to forbid the American fleet in the Mediterranean to send assistance to its ship when attacked, — an infamous stooge who was so completely in their service that he could be counted on to do all in his power to help them sink the Liberty and kill all aboard it (any survivors from the sinking ship could be machine-gunned in the water), so that the attack could be blamed on the Egyptians and provide a pretext for attacking that nation.
When the Israeli bombers and torpedo-planes were sent to attack and destroy the ship, the Jewish commander, seeing that it was an American vessel, had misgivings and reported to the High Command, which simply repeated the orders to attack and sink the Liberty. Those were the messages intercepted by Mr. Porter’s staff in Beirut.
While the attack was in progress, Lyndon Johnson, a sleazy crook from Texas directed by his wedded Jewess, after ordering the American fleet to abandon the Liberty to her fate, even told one of his aides how much he hoped the Jews would destroy the ship and all those Americans on board it, leaving no survivors. And when he learned that his masters had failed to do that, he was enraged and, cursing, ordered the Navy to cover up the attack and intimidate the survivors. Lyndon Johnson, although controlled by a Jewess, was, so far as is known, a degenerate Aryan. He was, therefore, a traitor to his nation and his race. He was indubitably guilty of high treason, for which he would have been impeached, tried, convicted, and hanged, if the Americans had not given their country to their enemies.
When the Jews’ gunfire, bombs, and torpedoes failed to obliterate the Liberty, they said they had mistaken her for the Egyptian El Quesir, a ship of less than half the size of the Liberty, with hull and superstructure of entirely different shape (as was obvious from Jane’s), which did not fly the American flag, and which, as they well knew, was anchored in the harbor of Alexandria, which it never left during the hostilities. It is to be doubted whether God’s Chosen expected any informed person to believe that absurd pretense; it was probably just their way of thumbing their nose at their American dolts.
Major Mintz had no hesitation in telling the American journalists what had happened in the headquarters at Tel Aviv, — he may have seen nothing discreditable to his nation in the facts he disclosed, — but by 7 November he was amazed by his tribe’s reaction to his disclosures, and when he was interviewed by a reporter for the Jewish newspaper Ha’aretz, he confessed that he was afraid, saying “I don’t need the Mossad and Shin Bet (5) knocking on my door.” Whether he was frightened into repudiating his statement is not clear, but a fellow tribesman, Rosenthal, reported in the leading jewspaper, the New York Times, on 8 November that Mintz claimed he had been “misquoted.” Whether Mintz did in fact withdraw his statement, perhaps while looking into the muzzle of a Sten gun, is not certain. See the journalists’ column in the New York Post, 11 November, where they reaffirm their account of what Mintz told them before he realized what his compatriots might do to him for his indiscretion. Whether Mintz is still alive, I do not know.
(footnote 5. Shin Bet is the military arm of Mossad, the Jews’ famous and utterly ruthless espionage and murder agency, with which the “American” Criminal Intelligence Agency normally coöperates, if it is, indeed, more than a subsidiary.)
Evans and Novak naturally set off screaming by our God-given parasites. Some of their irate letters were printed by the Post on 11 November. One writer, who had taken an Irish name, called the article by Evans and Novak “Israel-bashing,” correctly enough, since any truthful revelation of Jewish intrigues, deceit, and hatred is a “bashing” of the great race to whom old Yahweh deeded this planet. A correspondent with an English name denounced the article as a “total fabrication” by “two scoundrels.” And, naturally, there were the usual hint of a boycott and other reprisals against the vile newspaper that had dared to publish an article that was not laudatory of the Master Race.
The underlying thought was clear. Why so much foolish talk about a trivial incident? The Jews merely killed thirty-four of their American pigs and wounded 171, maiming some. What was wrong about that? Doesn’t everyone know that, as the Christians’ “Old Testament” implies (6) and the Holy Talmud explicitly states, only Jews are human beings? That the lower animals can have no rights?
So far as I know, Messrs. Evans and Novak are still alive and unharmed, and so is Mr. Porter, but I am taking no bets on what will happen to them.
(footnote 6. As every reader of the Bible knows, in the largely mythical account of the conquest of Palestine it is simply taken for granted that the Semitic Canaanites and the Aryan Philistines have no right to their own property and their own lives, so old Yahweh helps his ferocious pets to steal and slaughter, even ordering the sun-chariot to put on the brakes and stop for their convenience. He also promises likewise to destroy every nation they invade. When the tales were elaborated, the Jews, of course, thought of Yahweh as their tribal god, the enemy of the gods of civilized nations, but when they decided to imitate the Stoics and profess a monotheism, there was the unescapable corollary that in the eyes of the only god all races except the Jews were grossly inferior and subhuman creatures, who, like sheep, pigs, and all other animals, were at the disposal of God’s race.)
I
Cryptographic terminology. The word ‘code’ is in general use to designate all secret communications by means of arbitrary symbols. (Other forms of secret communication, as, for example, by the use of invisible inks, are classified as steganography.) Strictly speaking, however, a code uses symbols for words and common phrases and so requires two ‘dictionaries,’ one with the words and phrases in alphabetical order for encoding, and one with the symbols in alphabetical or numerical order for decoding. In a ‘short’ code, for example, ‘American’ may = PLKR, ‘president’ = FHLY, ‘assassinated’ = QMAK, etc. In a ‘long’ code, ‘American president assassinated’ = LXCV, ‘American president en route to’ = ERPK, ‘American president in hospital’ = BNOP, etc. The codes are further classified by the symbols used, four-letter code, five-letter code, four-digit code, five-digit code, etc. Only a child today would be so naïve as to send messages in the code used. To attain any degree of security from cryptanalysts, the symbols of the code must be enciphered before the message is sent by telegraph or radio.
A cipher is a system whereby letters or groups of letters are represented by symbols, for example, A = X, B = L, C = W, etc, or AB = KO, AC = SI, AD = PO, etc. Such a simple cipher can be read so easily that no one would think of transmitting a message in it. Some protection is offered by what is called a ‘Playfair square,’ in which the letters of the alphabet, reduced to twenty-five, are put on a square in the order of some keyword or phrase, such as HOMER or MERCHANTS QUIZ, with the remaining letters in alphabetical order; pairs of letters on the square are then represented by the corresponding letters on the opposite side of the square. Another way of protecting a cipher is by arranging the letters of the message in vertical columns with a different letter equivalent for each column, e.g., in column 1 A = X, in column 2, A = L, in column 3, A = K…in column 20, A = B, etc. When the symbols of a code are then replaced according to such a cipher, the resulting system of communication can be ‘broken’ only when cryptanalysts have at hand a large number of messages sent in the same system.
Further security is sought by (a) having a number of codes, usually allocated according to place and office, e.g., the Ambassador in London uses Code #1, the Consul General in London uses Code #10, the Ambassador in Paris uses Code #2, the Consul General, #11; the Ambassador in Berlin uses Code #3, etc. (This, incidentally, prevents one Ambassador from reading messages sent by his colleagues in other countries — unless he has competent cryptanalysts on his staff); and (b) by having a large number of cipher systems, which will be employed according to keys. A cipher system may be chosen at random and designated by a key, the first or last group in the message, or may be systematic, e.g., on 14 November we use Cipher #1, according to which A in the first column = X, in the second column, H, etc.; on 15 November we use Cipher #14, in which A in column 1 = J, and in column 2, P, etc.
The above very elementary description is intended only to show you the meaning of the basic terms in cryptography.
In very recent years, the general availability of computers has expedited all phases of cryptography, but the principles remain the same and the greater complexity the computers permit probably leaves the time required for cryptanalysis about the same or, with really subtle adversaries, makes it much longer. Cryptographic systems that are invulnerable to analysis are now possible but require very elaborate equipment and constant vigilance in their use.
II
Jane’s Fighting Ships. Since 1898, the annual volumes of this almost perfectly accurate publication have been universally used as a reference work, and copies of the current edition are kept at hand by the commanders of all ships of any consequence, and on the desks of everyone concerned with naval or maritime matters, including the editors of newspapers, who rely on Jane’s for pictures of naval vessels mentioned in the news.
It will be recalled that in 1915 when Winston Churchill, then the British Sea Lord, ordered the Lusitania diverted to Queenstown and to approach Ireland without naval protection, so that he could dangle “45,000 tons of livebait” before the German submarines known to be operating in that area, the commander of the German U-20 ascertained from the current edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships that the Lusitania was a British warship (auxiliary cruiser) before he torpedoed it. His torpedoes did not sink the Lusitania, which was destroyed by an explosion of the munitions (including a large quantity of guncotton) in its hold. There was a very satisfactory loss of life, including many Americans who had been induced to take passage on the Lusitania by the pretense that it was an unarmed passenger ship and was not carrying contraband.
It is doubtful whether Churchill expected the sinking of the Lusitania to enable Wacky Wilson to run the Americans into a war against Germany at once; it was sufficient that Wilson could puff up with moral indignation and the American press could be stuffed with innumerable articles about the “Hunnish barbarity” of the “fiendish Germans” and their “menace to civilization,” in preparation for that glorious day in 1917 when the crackpot in the White House was at last able to proclaim his “war to end wars.” The facts about the sinking of the Lusitania became indubitable when Colin Simpson gained access to the archives of the British Navy; see his The Lusitania (Boston, Little-Brown, 1972).
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Source: Liberty Bell magazine, January 1992
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