Transcripts For CSPAN2 Liza Mundy Code Girls 20171021

Should continue to be part of International Institutions and agreements. During world war ii. [indiscernible] welcome to the 29th annual southern festival of books. In todays session we are welcoming eliza monday she has worked as a reporter for the Washington Post she is currently a sports fellow at the prestigious new America Foundation where she serves as one of the nations for most experts and on women and work issues. The previous books today she is going to share with us t her newest book the untold story of american women codebreakers of world war ii. In world war ii a little over 10,000 women served in the army and navy as crypt analysis workers. They focus on a virginia schoolteacherra who left her home and really jumped at the chance to move to washington dc and entered the somewhat shadowy world of code breaking and so today we welcome liza monday to tell us about the code girls. Thank you so much for that kind introduction and thank you for coming. It is a particular pleasure and honor for me to be at the southern festival of books because i myself am a southerner. Ghe in fact i grew up about an hour away as you said the central character of my book who herself group of lynchburg virginia. And she was part of an unsung covert who are very specifically and deliberately recruited by the u. S. Army to move to washington and take place. One of the most important code breaking efforts of world war ii which was the sinkingf of the ship of japan. Some of the codebreakers at the end of the war homee about School Teachers sinking the shipping of japan is about the code breaking arounds the nazi codes that were used by the german navy and they were also Many American women who participated in that effort. One of the famous sea battles of all time. That was many women working on the Japanese Navy code. But you probably havent heard about the sinking of japan because it was a longer effort it took place over the course of several years to the Japanese Army soldiers who are spread out on islands input and saws throughout the pacific. L as a wartime effort and the reasonas that its been secret and untold up until now is because women like. Dot braden were told to keep it secret, and they did during the war women who joined the military or worked for the military were considered to be wanton women. There was a bit of a stigma with joining the military that you are a bad girl in some way. These are very good girls. Its why they were recruited by the u. S. Military. Il both languages. Many of them off and it came from teachers colleges throughout the south. In 1940 about the only job you can count on if you were a College Educated woman was teaching school. It was a very specific effort. The women did keep the secret and often after the war they left the service they were told thank you very much and never talk about what you did. When these stories about the stories about code breaking and during the war were starting to get out the women often had not have the benefit of military careers so the codebreakers who tended to get written about the men men like the who worked in the soviet system and the women really got forgotten because their service took place often over the course of a couple of years. Its really why the story has been untold for so long and i i would like to help that the fact that its coming out now. Thanks to books and movies like Hidden Figures we are finally ready to acknowledge the contribution that women have madeav during world war ii and during the 1960s and 70s oafs so working for the military and government. So even though it took a lot of work to find women who could talk about the work that they did that many of the women were no longer with us i think were at a time where people are receptive to this message this is a good time for a book like this to be coming out. I spoke to over 20 living women who remembered quite vividly their service. It was really extraordinary. They also remembered their recruiting. They didnt know didnt know what they were coming to washington to do. T i will talk a little bit about what its like. And some of the specific experiences and memories that they have. A student a military history whether you casually know something about world war ii we had people in your family who may be fought in the war. It have not been anticipated by the u. S. Navy even though they knew that something was can happen in the pacific even though our entire Pacific Fleet was in there. It was the event that propelled us into the war. Ou in germany Many American civets said new after paris fell to the nazis that the United States was going to be getting into there at some point. And all of a sudden on december 8 we were at war there was an enormous surge of patriotism throughout the country in a way that i think is sometimes hard even to evoke now but they described this incredible surge of people treat judaism and a feeling of unity. People were picking up rubber bands from the street. All of this was happening instantlyy while of course the young men were shipping outof to europe. They were serving unable ships in the Atlantic Ocean there was a massive effort to the point that my central character. Dot braden was the oldest daughter of four children and her family and lynchburg. Ro and they enjoyed that fighting almost immediately. U the desire to serve was such that that they also wanted their they volunteered their dog to serve in the military. They received a letter from the u. S. War Dog Training Center same thank you so much for volunteering his services but we have an age limit for the dogs that we will be using. Wa they still have this letter. He they were really efficient back then. They wrote you back. In fact they did. Pucci stayed home. But dotson brothers were there. There was a massive display this massive display of fortitude in unity and determination that in fact they have nottyon anticipated. Of course it was a shocking to lose more than 2000 men but there was this real surge of determination to win. Internallyy, there was a certain degree of chaos in the military particularly the u. S. Navy as to why had this happen. How could it be that we have that u. S. Intelligence was really in adequate to this massive task of fighting and winning a global war in which fighting with can be taking place all over the world literally all over the worldhe community. As it was gearing up factories they have to gear up the Intelligence Service as well. We didnt had spies in any foreign country. We have the cia. It was gonna take time to embedded people. To help us imitate it. We could intercept the radio messages in the telegraph messages that were racing around the globe because this was set up far from flung war it was a war among t other things of signals. In which commanders in germany and tokyo had to communicate with their troops. There was a group of japanese diplomatss quartered in europe mitigating the token tokyo and we needed to read their communications the war among many other things became a aware of intercepting signals and hacking Enemy Communications to find out where the ships were what the enemy was planning the u. S. Navys brain storming where we can get some people who could learn how to do this. You can see it written on this document. New source Womens Colleges. Someone thinks okay maybe we should try using the women. There is an understanding now that they were entering a factories its important to recognize that educated women were also been recruited to do the intelligence work and the brainwork that wouldll drive the war effort and give the military intelligence information that they needed. In which the navy which is a very elite White Glove Service decides to pluck women from the Seven Sisters school. And seniors at those colleges get secret invitations to meetings with matt and the astronomy professors where professors where they are asked to things. There ask do you like to wear workpr crossword puzzles. In our you engaged to be married. These women at these northern Seven Sisters schools. To do cryptanalysis. And they were told this has to be secret. They came down to washington as civilians in the summer. To and that was a major code breaking victory and all the sudden. They also have responsibility in europe but in the pacific ocean. We are to find women and some other part of the country. Ou this was also a very specific strategy they decided to send handsome young Army Officers to fan out. Tennessee, texas and they would station themselves in post office in hotels to the charms of a goodlooking man. That they would hasten to join the war effort and come to washington with the specific hope of making a marriage i read oral histories of the Army Officers who cooked up the scheme. They said you know what we have barefoot girls coming from the hills of west virginia. There was a rush to the altar. There was a recognition that men wanted someone to write home to. Some wanted to have an error in case something happened to them and some of the women including my central character were not that interested in getting married right away. And to maybe not had to get married right away. I just wanted to talk a little bit about what it was like to try to commence. Dot braden that it was okay that it was okay to tell the story. I was put in touch with her by the nsa which is our current came out of the worktime code breaking efforts. It is our surveillance in eaves dropping agency. They had known about the story just about nasa had known about that for quite some time. E. That they have contributed in a significant way. They were interested in getting the historics tory out to the public. Bl they have gotten in touch with the family who had of a School Teacher from bourbon mississippi. Who have taken the train. She have taken the train to washingtonon in 1943 and have become the great friendd of. Dot braden. They had communicated with her family and they putit me in touch with them. Jim first it was there with me in the room of the assistant living facility. And we were trying to convince her t that it was okay finally to tell the secret that she had been keeping her whole life. He had grown up knowing that his father have served the war effort. He had been in africa and the middle east predicting the weather for pilots that were flying over there. They didnt know each other that well. Like many couples who worked mitigating during the war. They became engaged purely through correspondence. And he was at first a little reluctant to reveal that. Women were encouragedom to write soldiers. It was all part of keeping up morale. T they were also sending snapshots of themselves. It was like the early version of cell fees. Jim had read these level letters. He had been very eager to know that they had been pressuring her for years. What did you do during the war and probably about ten or 15 years ago she hinted that i have to do with breaking japanese code. The family and she is very great friends with this woman she called crow because her first or middle name was caroline. The milkman have delivered the bill to crowbar that became their friendship name. They knew that the two women have a special bond. They done something secret together the two former School Teachers. But they did not know what they have donehey and my dick in and talk about it. So this was a great opening for jim. We were sitting there trying to convince her at 94 that it was finally okay to talk and i think she was enjoying a little bit the misery and torment as we were trying tote a big part of her really want to credit for the contribution. They do sit there for years and years while the husband talked about what they have done during the war and it was important heroic service. She want to credit. But there was an internal war going on. About ofigned secrecy her very first date in washington dc. And if it have told these women when the secrecy was lifted. Er so were sitting there and at one point if you dont tell me the details im in a leaf. Just tell us. She is toying with this a little bit. What are they going to do to me and 90. You put me in prison. I 90 if they do it will probably be a nice present. She laughed and finally she started telling this incredible story of growing up in lynchburg virginia being the eldest of four childrene the daughter of a single mother who is supporting the family by working as a secretary as a uniform factory. Her mother was a very determined and intrepid woman who wanted. Dot to have more opportunities than she had had and it was very important for dot to go to college. Her mother made sure that don applied to one of many private Womens Colleges they were denied admission and so many of the state universities. For so long. We have many Womens Colleges she majored in english but she also took latin and physics and french and was very good in all of those things. She was teaching schoolch when war broke out all the male teachers left. And i was teaching in bliss, french latin history physics she became the physics teacher. She was completely swamped. She was so exhausted when she teach finished her first teaching year. Her mom said i have heard that there is some day from the Army Recruiting at the Virginia Hotel something to do the war effort. And her mother made it sound sort of shadowy and mysteriously. She applied for a job. She did not know what the job is can it be. I took a little while to get excepted. Unbeknownst to her the fbi was investigating her background very thoroughly to make sure that she was reliable. To make sure that she have not been arrested. That she really had gone to college and done this job. They were talking to her employees and her teachers enter family members. And then she got aor summons to washington saying that you passed the test. She has a memory of her mother and her aunt jenny with her on the train platformun as she is holding two hardback suitcases with no idea even where shes in a state that night or what what shes can be doing. Her memory of arriving at Union Station and catching a cab and plunging into the suburbs of Arlington Virginia where i lived where there was this massive army code breaking compound she remembers the military wire which is absolutely accurate. Y but also collecting in the front room with all of these other southern School Teachers who have come from these places. And then she remembers thinking that they are actually going to put her up for the night somewhere. So do you need aoi bus to take you wherever you are going to stay. They said dont you have some place to stay . H they have commandeered a patch of ground in arlington where some dorms had been very quickly built to house the women war workers. She have to call her motherr and ask for a months rent in advance. In fact she have to call her mom and say could you wire me the money so i can pay my first months rent. Within a matter of weeks she have received training in the geography of the pacific. And the beginnings of how to break these very complicated codes that they were using. She was learning that the Japanese Army was using his four digit code groups. They were the commercial ships that were carrying trips and oil she learned that the japanese would send out coded messages to say where the ship was going to be the next day in a message those particular phrases it might be embedded. She learned how to do a very complicated kind of math to strip out encryption. The japanese were sending. She learned how to do the math in her headd that would enable her to strip out the encryption. Nc and then she learned where in a message particular words might be appearing because they were very stereotyped messages when they got a message that seemed important she would jump up from the table t and she would carry over to a woman named miriam who was the overlap. Miriam had found her way to the army operation. And dot said that miriam was the most condescending northerner that she never met and that at one time over theim cafeteria she said pointedly. Ive never yet met a southerner who could speak good english. She didnt say so. Meanwhile dot was fixated on the fact that miriam was not very nice to her. N and somewhere in the fighting the love the Yellow Diamond that she was very proud of. Whether the fiancee or the jelly Yellow Diamond were real. Miriam meanwhile was fixated on the southern accent. I should say there were northerners who were professors for many colleges and one of them referred to the huge cohort of southern women at Arlington Hall so many of them were named ruby and opal and pearl and in fact when i was looking through these wonderful rosters. They were. They were actually named that. It was a condescending thing to say. Dot and miriam had to work seamlessly together and they did. Because dot have to take the messages to miriam. They could sort of use that overlapping to tell what that consistent code group was c because the code groups changed. And then they would take it onch to someone else who is called the reader. These were other School Teachers. M it was a massive Assembly Line where each woman had to master has her own part of the process. It was a huge operation being run domestically the intelligence that they got every day would be radioed to american submarine commanders in the pacific who will be waiting at noon the next day for the troop ship and the oil ship. And they would sink it and they sync over and over again. And in the National Archives i sought records of that morrows that were sunk during the course of the war and it was mind boggling. It took some boxes and boxes to enumerate all of those sunken ships. It was these women who were doing it. And of course it was the men in the field. G and they did not know where the intelligence was coming from. They did not know that the codes have been broken. There was not even a knowledge in the military of where the intelligence was coming from. Of why we knew the noon position every day. The japanese thought that it was planes that were spotting them. There was deception operations as well to disguise what these schoolteachers were doing. And in the records so effective were their efforts that in the records of the National Archives i saw the messages that were starting to emerge after a year and half of this code breaking in the messages started to say things like we had two months worth of right now. And we have learned that if we dont cook it and if we just chew it it will last us for two months because we cant get any more rice. The impact the fact that the japanese they were taught to look for stereotyped words and phrases that might appear they devise this later on in the war. If there is a code group for the strip of groups is expected to arrive at the time that the code group before what has become of them may also appear next. That suggested of course that they were not making it and that this was happening frequently enough that it have become a stereotyped part of these messages and what have become of these trips. The magnitude of the efforts was not necessarily apparent to the women. Many of them never even understood the impact that the work was having on the war but as i looked through the files that have been classified i can see the impact that it was having and so secret was this work that when they finally started on spoiling this incredible story of how she was recruited and started talking about unpleasant miriam the overlap are from new york city she clapped her hand to her mouth because she couldnt believe overlap or was a term of art. Someone even on the streets of washington might hear them if they said security if they said intelligence and they said overlap her. T when she said it she could not believe that she said it. This is sort of the sad fact that the women were told to say this. They were to say that they were secretaries that is what they did and because they were women people believed it. The work that they were doing could not possibly be interesting or important. The women were better positioned than almost anybodyy to be doing intelligence work because they assumed that the work they were doing could not possibly be important. She finally at 94 uttered the word overlap her. We have a number of wonderful conversations about her work and her contributions. And a great friendship. It was such a heroic thing that the women to do this work and kept a secret. But i also think where it has hurt all of us and why it is so important that it come out now is that there is still a view that women are unsuited for certain sectors of our economy. Earlier this summer there was a lot of debate about the dearth of women. For the kind ofin brain work that goes on. We were hacking other peoples messages and we were protecting our own. In the dawn of cyber security. The fact that they were good girls and kept the secret so well. It has prevented people from realizing that not only do women belong in these industries but in many cases they pioneered them. Se thats why its so important to try to get the story out and im very grateful to the women who it has been such a pleasure to get to talk to them and i would love to take questions out and hear what you are interested in. The people will come up to the microphone that everybody can hear. Book came out called roosevelts secret warar and it said pretty much what you saidd that the best information they got in the most prolific information they got was overt rather than covert and leading to the nsa. I dont remember him saying anything about that. I dont remember him saying anything at all about what youre talking about what the women and maybe he did and we just missed it. Wondering why it took so long for this to come out. I tried to address that. That is a great question. Im so glad that you ask it. T. One of the galling things about reading many of the code breaking histories that did come out about that during the atlantic and pacific wars is that many of the historians will mention in a couple of paragraphs or even a parenthetical zero by the way much or most of this work was being done by women. There is a recognition it tends to usually be in passing and then the fixation as on the more prominent men who were out there and the pacific but what goes unsung and unset on sunk and unset as they were being supported by womenis and this was true immediately right after the war. Statements on the floor of congress from Clarence Hancock saluting the code breaking forces. I believe that the work they did was as important to winning the war as any other group of men. The fact that more than halfth of the code breaking force was female. It was unmentioned. To a certain extent it was perpetuated. I want to say again that this is no at the nsa and that there are a number of historians connected with the nsa who helped enormously and helped me navigate the records of the National Archives. He spent so much time with me explaining the naval war and showing where the records were. There were men and another nsa historian who wrote about the women of the soviet code breaking project that started during the war and he was an early historian who recognized the importance of the schoolteachers. Here about the schoolteachers. There were people out there who were writing about this. There were male historians who were writing about it. Some of them are declassified for a long time. So i think again it was baked in from the start. Im very grateful to the historians t a congressman spoke on the floor. It was very hushhush. They came out with the code that have been broken. Emma meza he brought this up in the flow of congress. It was very important that they not know that we were treating that. They would change the code system. And everything would go dark. There were a couple of times during the war where it leaked out a little bit. And that was hugely problematic and that was why the secrecy was so important and after the war there was some recognition that code breaking have been in porton. There is a letter published in the New York Times that general marshall have actually written to thomas dewey during the war enumerated the many victories that were due to code breaking and begging him to keep it quiet during the president ial campaign but the letter was published after the war. It is a funny thing there was recognitionn but a lot of the records were classified after the war we. Dot we were going to stop code breaking. That we were to scan a pack up and go home. World war ii was then followed by the cold war and we realized that we were to continue reading other peoples mail. I think there might have been this time where we thought we were going to close up the shop. And then it turned out that a estate open. There were actually a number of women who participated in the wharf who became a crucial part of the early nsa staff. He spent the rest of their careers in washington breaking the soviet messages. And in fact a woman who was a 22yearold recruit. Spent her life working for the nsa it was the first female Deputy Director of the nsa and there is a very important room at the nsa is named after her. That is a great question. Ou i am a graduate of a Womens College it brings me to my question in the history of meredith collegege there is nothing about this were they aware that this was happening in how was it represented in their history. And often what happened. What happens as a member of the military. They often wear the same person. And in some of the colleges have reconstructed their history. They have begun to recover this. They have a clandestine crypt analysis course that was going on during the war in the graduate. Most of them went up to work for the army code breaking operation. She was a music major and they were also often very adept because they were good at reading patterns. She took that course at winthrop. She is a High School Band director. When her scores on that course found their way to the army code breaking operation. And she received a message saying we could use you in washington. Wl she knew that it have sunk a japanese convoy. Later on in her life the women were very proud when they knew what was there. Later on in her life when she began having children of her own and she realized they were japanese families. They died as a result of the code breaking. I think one of the reasons that the stories have been untold for so long is also that the mood changed. And the women i talked to some womens when they told the children what they have done. They said you cause all of these deaths. It was hard for the women to evoke what they had felt like at that time and how important the war was so she personally came to feel more complicated about it. That is a wordy insert. Did you pick the subject or did it take you. I have to think my husband. He was reading a declassified information. The women and the schoolteachers who went to work in this very small, and tight. We did have a small code breaking operation. He was reading the history. He thought it seemed interesting. I thought it seemed really interesting. We have a cryptology museum. I talked to some female historians who is with the nsa historian. In the library at the museum incredible women who laid out the story for me. I do feel like it found me ultimately. Please forgive me if you meant to do this. But how many women were involved in this. The army have a huge code breaking compound as i said in Arlington Virginia there were 8,000 people there. T 7,000 of them were women. The navy have an operation going on in northwest dc as what is now the department of homeland security. The state departmentseiet. Trais the Foreign Service officers in the army facility. They operate out of the one in washington there were 5,000 naval codebreakers. 4,000 of them were women. If you do the math there were at least 11,000. There were 18,000 badges generated to admit people into the army facility. At least 11,000 women did the work. During the whole course of the war. The army let its women go into the field of battle. Some of them were allowed to go there. They were using a cyber security. There were landings. They were encoding our military. In terms of communications. Ms there were far more than 10,000 women. I want to thank her for her wonderful presentations in invite you all to join us at the signing tent. If you have more questions you are welcome to ask them. We look forward to seeing you there. E] [applause]. You may also be interested in hearing from margo lee shetterly. She appeared to discuss her book Hidden Figures which recalls a group of africanamerican women who were are key to propelling the unit seats. You could watch the program at book tv. Org. And you should view the program online. The woman pretty much never works in her chosen career ever get. How else do we solve Sexual Harassment suits. Nobody ever finds out about it. You are also terminated from the company. This is the way that the society has resolved Sexual Harassment cases. Gretchen carlson talks about Sexual Harassment in her new book be fierce. Take your power back. She is interviewed by Washington Post columnist sally quinn. One thing that is clear is that its utterly boring to understand the biology of the motoric aspects. Your brain tells your spine tells your muscles to do something in her ray you have behaved. What is incredibly, located his understanding the meaning of the behavior. In one setting firing a gun is some appalling act and in another its an act of heroic selfsacrifice in one setting putting your hand on top of someone elses is deeply compassionate and in another its a deep betrayal the challenge for us is to understand the biology of the context of our behaviors. And that one is really challenging. One thing that is clear is that you are never going to really understand whats going on if you get into your head that youre going to you are going to be able to explain everything with this. The gene or the hormone or the childhood experience that explains everything. Because it doesnt work that way. Any behavior that occurs as the outcome in the hour before. And all the way to a million years before. You are in some situations. There is rioting, violence going on. People running around. And there is a stranger running egg you in an agitated state. You cant quite be sure what the facial expression is. Maybe they are angry, maybe it is threatening. They have something in their hand that seems like a handgun and you are standing there and you have a gun and they come running at you and you shoot. Why did the behavior occur in you. Why did that behavior occur. What went on one second before. To begin to understand that the part of the brain that is at the top of the laid is a look. You want to take about aggression if you stimulate that in an Experimental Lab animal you get an outburst of aggression. Human who had rare types of aggression. Uncontrollable violence. You blunt the ability want the ability of an organism to be aggressive. So it is about violence. But if you sit down. And asked them about that. Thus at the first word that comes out of their mind. Fear and in society and learning to be afraid. Other words we have just learned something very interesting which you cannot understand the first thing about the violence without understanding the neurobiology of fear in the world in which none of them need to be afraid there is a sleep between the lions and the lambs. The things to begin to make sense is what parts of the brain does it talk too. The next region is called the insular cortex. It is in fact incredibly boring if you are a lab rat or any other animal on earth. You buy into a piece of food and it is is spoiled in rotten and rancid and all of that and what happens is as a result your cortex activates. It triggers all sorts of reflexes. Your stomach lurches, you gag, east it out. You spit it out. You gag reflex. It keeps mammals from eating poisonous foods. And you do the same thing with humans. You are in a brain scanner. We do something fancier and all we have to do is think about eating something discussing into the cortex activates. Something much more subtle. Sit down someone and have them tell you about a time they did something miserable and run to some of their human. Or tell them about some other occurrence of some human. And it will activate. In every other memo on earth it does gustatory discussed in us it also does moral discussed. And what that tells you is why it is if something is sufficiently appalling we feel sick to our stomachs it leaves a bad taste in our mouth. We feel soiled by it. We feel nauseous. Our brain invented the symbolic thing of morays and standards some 50,000 years ago and did not introduce a new part of the brain at the time. It was a Big Committee meeting. It gives them the duck tape. It has trouble telling the difference. And no surprise the main part of the brain that they talk to in the human brain is the amygdala because once he decides this thing is disgusting you are a couple of steps away from it being scary and menacing. Its something you need to act against. In lots of ways its very cool that it does this. Supporters you see some that can take enormous self sacrifice. And if moral outrage outrage. It would be hard to pick up a have of steam. To really be able to act against it. That is where the force comes to. To make it imperative. But then there is a downside. Because the cortex is not very good at remembering its only a metaphor that you were feeling discussed in. And suddenly you have that whole problem of the world of people. It is a pretty good litmus test for deciding between right and wrong. We sure know all of the ways in which that can get you into trouble. And probably most of all but for the insular cortex performs. Them living in the next valley. That who think differently than you. If you can get your followers into the point. It activates because there is something just discussing about them. The key to every sort of Good Movement for them being such infestations. That they are the even count. You can watch this instead of other programs online. Here is our primetime lineup. First up history professor gerald horn talks about two new books on the history of the africanamerican struggle for civil rights. Than 8 00 former Vice President al gore looks at the effects of Climate Change around the world. The former state Department Staffer debates whether the u. S. Should continue to be a part of International Institutions and agreements. On book tv afterwards at 10 00 10 00 former fox news host Gretchen Carlson discusses Sexual Harassment in the workplace. We wrap up our programming at 11 00