And the whole weekend we have lined up for you. Of ceremonies, its my responsibility to introduce our speakers and to keep you informed of our schedule and any updates or additions as the day progresses. Most of you in the audience are now seasoned veterans who have attended our programs before. I do want to stress that due to the tight schedule of great programming, we will stick to the itinerary and timings as closely as we can, so as to ensure that everyone gets enough time for their presentations, and that so the question and answer sessions provide you all with enough opportunity to ask the speakers specifically what you want to know. I do want to point out that the speakers biographies are in the back of your official programs. Please refer to that for more personal details. For ouring lecture espionage symposium is general , he served under general patton and world war ii and worked his way through the ranks, following the war. Including an important posting at the pentagon. After his military career, he was a successful businessman and in concert with his wife, margaret, became a generalist philanthropist. A gift from the Mason Foundation created and endowed lecture series here at the museum. The series brings in the best and brightest historians to share the latest works and their insights with our live in online audiences. Our sincere thanks to go to the mason family, including their son, ray mason the third, and to their foundation. Our mason lecture for the symposium is sir max hastings, one of the most renowned historians of world war ii. He has been part of programs back tothe museum going our very first conference in 2006. He has also presented to a group of travelers who were in london with the museum sponsored tour. He is here with us to present on his brandnew book, the secret war, ciphers, codes, and gorillas 1939 through 9045. Please join me in welcoming our very first speaker to the stage, sir max hastings. [applause] sir hastings good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I cant tell you what a pleasure it is to be here again. I heard the word miracle used earlier to describe whats been done here. I remember when i first came here, like all of you, ive always been deeply committed to the study of world war ii. Never when i saw how things started at the first conference that the museum stage to years ago, did one imagine it would have ballooned into this magnificent achievement. Section not a miracle, its a manmade miracle. Its been done by all these remarkable people. Such a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you today. Sharing in some part of this miracle. Written that i have tells us some of the most fascinating and outlandish characters ive ever studied. Sailors,ger airmen who killed each other were the most conspicuous participants in world war ii. Outcomes were profoundly interest influenced by host of men and women who never fired a shot. Well even in russia, months collapsed between big battles, every nation waged an unceasing secret war, a struggle for knowledge of the enemy, to empower his armies, navies, and air forces to espionage and code breaking. I thought i knew quite a bit about the war, but is amazed by some of the tales i came across while is researching the book. Among my favorite vignettes was a japanese spy chief whose exploits called them to be dubbed by his own men lawrence of manchuria. Meanwhile, a german agent in stockholm warned berlin in september 1944 that the allies were about to stage a massacre to drop to seize a wide range. His forecast was ignored by the nazi high command, and after the war, it was found that his supposed sources in britain who frighten the hell out of the British Secret service were figments of his imagination. It was an inspired to complete the wild guess. One of russias wartime spy chiefs earned his spurs in stalins eyes by presenting a nationalist in water dam with a handsome box of chocolates adorned with the romanian crest ukrainian crest, which a few minutes later, blue the recipient to pieces. Meanwhile, in the far east between the british and United States secret services in january 1945, when american black widow night fighters shot apparentlytors, liberally, because they were carrying french agents into indochina against washingtons anticolonial policy. Saidoviet superspy once spying should be done bravely, and he certainly did that. He began his Brilliant Campaign to penetrate the German Embassy by befriending3 the colonel who soon afterwards became hitlers ambassador and by sleeping with the kernels wife. Before he was finally trapped ,nd dispatched nine years later there was scarcely a handsome woman within his reach that was not seduced nor a german enemy secret that went unreported to moscow. Bizarre british agents was a man that very few people ever heard of. Ronald seth, who in october 1942, was parachuted into estonia to start a Resistance Movements. He was next cited in paris in 1944 wearing a luftwaffe uniform, having become an employee of german intelligence. This tirelessly weird mans files,ill up with 1000 all of whom ended up really baffled by whose side he was really on. Belief that iss as though we operational code name was bluffing to. The last entry in the mi5 file is a copy of an unsuccessful 1946 application to become chief constable of wiltshire. Successved some postwar as a writer of sex manuals and was trying to patent between us and larger. A penis enlarger. I try to paint the picture with human stories such as those mentioned above about spies, codebreakers, and intelligence chiefs. The warsvice became growth industry. Never in history had such huge resources been lavished upon the gathering of information. . 5ed states alone spent billion, serious money in those days, on signals intelligence. Most of this was wasted. As late as january 1943, in the minister incanadian britains war cabinet expressed his own skepticism, saying that in cabinet, he heard very little secret information of real value. Secret Service Reports were of doubtful quality and the quantity made it difficult for anyone to sift the good from the bad. He even expressed caution about Bletchley Parks outlook, saying the enemy can put out deception messages just as easily as we could. Today, we know that didnt happen. But it deserves noticing that a warlord can say such things. At the time, the allied secret war machine didnt always command the open mouthed admiration conferred upon it by some 21st century writers and spy books. Most books on this theme focus on single nations. I tried to create a global context. I wrote a lot about the russians, whose doings are unknown to most western readers, and who created the largest spy networks the world has ever seen. Orchestra,ed red its players uppermiddleclass leftwing germans which in 1935 provided moscow with superb intelligence about hitlers war machine. They were led by astonishing personalities, aloof offer a wife,ffe officer and his an economist and his american wife mildred, all four of whom eventually met dreadful deaths in nazi hands. The special treasury was that they sacrifice everything, only to have most of their information, including that which warned of hitlers looming invasion of russia, dismissed by stalin, who scored reports from agents unless they told conspiracies against himself, real or imagined. The russians also spied on their allies as energetically as on their enemies. The fungus growth of communism caught millions of people in the 1930s to embrace a loyal to the cross frontiers and in the eyes of zealots, transcended near patriotism. Few people felt exalted by discovering virtue in treason. , ones betrayed for cash did both, glen deserve moscow out of principle, but also taking its money to pay his wine bills. The british to of all the treason of the socalled cambridge five, but fewer people theced what i call washington and berkeley 500, a small army of american leftists who briefed soviet intelligence not merely about the atomic bomb, but about every aspect of u. S. Policy and technology. Mccarthys, joseph stigmatize many individuals as soviet tools unjustly. In mccarthy was not wrong charging them for generations, americans greatest institutions and corporations harbored an amazing number of top people whose first loyalty was not to the stars stripes. 1945, theeen 1941 in russians were supposedly in alliance with written in the United States. But stalin consider this a temporary arrangement of convenience, solely for the purpose of destroying the nazis with a nation that remained his irreconcilable foe. The task of many Intelligence Officers is to promote treachery, which helps to explain why the trade attracts so many weird people. A writer who spent the war in britains the secret service asserted disdainfully that it necessarily involves such cheating, lying, and the training that it has a deleterious effect on the character. I never met anyone professionally engaged in it whom i should prepare to trust in any capacity. Saying a spy, should be like the devil. No one can trust him, not even himself. Spy masters were often unsure which side their agents were really on. In some cases, doubt persists to this day. Many books focus on what was found out. The only question that matters, however, is how far intelligence discoveries changed outcomes. Did they prompt action in the field or at sea . Iraqs or about spies codebreakers excesses are meaningless unless they cause things to happen. Is not ance gathering science. There are no certainties. Theres a cacophony of what they call knowledge, from which socalled signals, truth, large and small, must be winnowed. In august 1939, a british official wrung his hands over the british governments confused extra relations between stalin and hibbler. He wrote in his diary, we find ourselves while attending to assess the value of secret reports somewhat in the position of the captain of the 40 thieves. Onn having put a checkmark the door, he found that morganlander had put similar marks on all the doors in the street and had no indication which was the true one. Statesmen and commanders must be willing to analyze evidence honestly. A journalist who became a Naval Intelligence officer observed intelligence has much in common with scholarship. The standards are demanded in scholarship are those which ought to be applied to intelligence. After the war, many german generals blamed their defeat on hitlers refusal to do this. Good news was given priority through transmission to berlin, well pad received short shrift. For the invasion of russia, the german high command reduced estimates of impressive soviet arms production. It would dismissed the numbers out of hand because he couldnt reconcile them with his contempt for all things slavonic. Nazi defenseshal chief eventually instructed the army to stop submitting intelligence reports that might upset the furor. , western democracies profited immensely from the relative openness. Churchill sometimes demented spasms of anger towards those who voiced unwelcome views, but in general, was remarkably open debate was sustained in the allied core doors of power. Struck by the number of spies of all nationalities whose only achievement abroad at hefty cost to their employers was to stay alive while collecting information of which not a smidgen helped anybodys war effort. 1 of secreth of source material changed battlefield outcomes. If that fraction was of such value that no nation grudged a life nor pound, dollar, wrubel, the end extended and security. Intelligence always influenced wars, mentally 20th century, commanders could discover their enemies motions only through spies and direct observation. Counting men, ships, guns. Then came wireless can medications. The scientific Intelligence Officer wrote about this, theres never been anything comparable in any other time of history to the impact of radio. It was as near magic as anyone could conceive. In washington, berlin, london, moscow, tokyo, electronic eavesdroppers were suddenly empowered to prove the doings and sometimes intentions without benefit of telescopes or men and false beards. Until halfway through the global struggle, the signals intelligence competition was much less lopsided in the allies favor the legend suggests. It learn had his own leslie parks and arlington holes. The germans broke important codes with consequences for both that of the atlantic and north african campaign. During the spring and summer of 1940, we were reading 2000 British Naval messages month. Even after ciphers were changed, the uboat chief captain received relatively reasonable breaks, though fortunately, one in 10 was read quickly enough to concentrate his submarines against them. Postwar american study of german intelligence concluded the enemy possessed at all times a reasonably clear picture of atlantic convoys. In 10 days of march, 1943, when the germans were for a time ahead in the contest, each of four allied convoys lost one in five of that ships, a disastrous attrition rate. Failuress costly sometimes have the most consequent is. Became times that fearful the british were reading uboat codes and ordered inquiries. In the end, however, he allowed himself to be reassured by the convoy traffics vulnerability. He reasoned that if the royal navy was clever enough to read the german and, its chiefs would have stopped this costly halls in their own communications. Atlantice of the suggested omniscience, he would almost certainly have guessed the secret and slammed shut the window prized open by the brilliant allied codebreakers. As for the land war, for the first three years, German Allied signals were about the same place. In june 1941, Bletchley Park warned the british high command the messages were being decrypted by the germans. Core. Desert, the africa british wireless discipline. Slack. One of the desert foxes Intelligence Officers wrote gleefully that his chief often had a clearer picture of what the british commanderinchief planned then did his own officers. They considered a major disaster. When july, 1942, new zealand troops overran and destroyed his radio deception unit. Worse for the germans, washington belatedly changed his diplomatic codes. For months, he had been reading what he gratefully called his little fellows, the dispatches of the American Military cachet in cairo who reported almost every detail about british deployments and intentions. After the United States repair this gaping security breach, the germans never again found such a superb source. For the rest of the war, hitlers men broke only lower allied codes, though they were able to piece together a lot of information about troop movements using the same techniques as the british and americans did. In athens,station for instance, once read a message from a british paymaster in palestine instructing a Division Moving to egypt to leave behind its filing cabinets and this enabled the big red pin to be shifted on german maps. That, the terms discovered the american 82nd Airborne Division have been shipped from italy to britain because they cracked and administered a message about one of its paratroopers who is facing a paternity suit. They received warning of what impending attack in italy by decrypting a signal demanding a rabbit shoot for a saltiness. For an assault unit. We should acknowledge their success before thanking our forefathers lucky stars of the enemy did not, in the end, match the stellar achievement of the men and women of Bletchley Park, andd states navys 20 g the u. S. Armys arlington hall. They were in a class of their own. Sir williams, the brilliant oxford professor who served as field marshal montgomerys intelligence chief wrote in an important 1945 secret report it must be made quite clear that puta and ultra only intelligence on the map. Becameletchley encrypts available in bulk in the summer of 1942, and williamss words, intelligence was the cinderella of the staff. Free ultra skepticism was often welldeserved. Diary inn the 1940 war the armys middle east Intelligence Section such things as all hungarian cabaret artists should be ordered to leave egypt by the end of may. When ultra came fully onstream for authority that no mere spy could match. They noted afterwards of all the great intelligence trials of the conflict, not one was directly or exclusively due to the secret service problem. That applied on both sides. The allies ability to read the voluminous radio reports to tokyo of japans ambassador to berlin detailing his conversations with fiddler and other leading nazis provided a far more credible insiders view of the nazi high command than any spy could have achieved. The codebreakers transformed the very nature of espionage. Reason the democracies did intelligence better than dictatorships is they gave free civilians. Llow on the british official history of intelligence began to be published about 30 years ago, i went to the launch party and i suggested to chief author, himself a veteran of Bletchley Park, that seems to show that amatrice it was it only for the duration achieved much more than to the secret service professionals. Did,plied of course they you wouldnt want to think that in peacetime, the best brains of our society were wasting their lives in intelligence . [laughter] sir hastings i always thought this was important. Before 1939, most secret service is got by or didnt do much harm , run by secondrate people. Once the struggle for National Survival began, intelligence became part of the guiding brain of the war effort. Battles can be fought by men of quite limited gifts by virtue, but Intelligence Services suddenly needed brilliance. In both United States and britain recruited some of the finest academic talent in their respective nations. The bletchley story is much more complicated than such silly movies as the imitation game suggests. Persecuting alan turing is homosexual, his genius was always recognized. Enigma the breaking of was supremely a team effort by one of the most remarkable groups of people ever assembled. , and conflict nothing, was part of that fellowship. Suggests that they gained open access to the british communications. Not so. Done was indeed miraculous, britains codebreakers, who assumed principal responsibility for cracking german is distinct from japanese traffic, as was the principal response ability of United States. Could never walk on all order all the time. While a lot of messages were read from 1941 onward, army enigma postcard difficulties as late as september 1944. Bletchley solved only 15 of army messages come in october, 18 , in november, 24 . Achieveaks took days to and reached battlefield commanders to late to influence events. For almost the whole of july 1944, for instance, during the battle for normandy, scarcely any army traffic at all was being read. Volume of the germans most eager messages was deciphered not by enigma, but through teleprinters which employed an entirely different system. The achievement of bletchleys people eventually penetrating this was arguably greater than that of breaking enigma. The unmanned me the initial discoveries is hardly known to posterity, but he deserves to be almost as famous as alan turing. Heres the story. The most widely used german tiny,inter was codenamed which transmitted in a nonmorse code language. When british interceptors started to report its income principal stuff, from 1941, team approved at significance. Piece by piece, they groped toward solution of the riddle. Handicapped to the fact that a sample of enigma machine, they did not have a german teleprinter is meta. Among bletchleys research was a 24yearold former chemistry student turned mathematician t, who became a scholarship away and progressed in trinity college, cambridge. In october 1941, he was assigned to study it. He spent months trying to figure out what sort of machine might generate the noises recorded by the interceptors. Brainpower,by sheer he established that the teleprinter had two sets of five wheels with 501 senegal pins and a further two mobile reels between them creating a range of combinations much greater than enigmas. Caused hisding feat colleagues eventually to secure Enterprise Fellowship with cambridge, the college was never told exactly what he had done. The bletchley chieftain hailed his contribution is one of the outstanding successes of the war, and so it was, though he never got any sort of metal. Establishing the machines character was a vital beginning. The problems remained huge. The codebreakers, figuratively scratching his head, said the teleprinters output was as analogous to the other machines as a maori and an eskimo. The summer of 1942, cracking it had become desperately urgent. The more the germans used it for topsecret communications, the less they used enigma. October, by and extraordinary endeavors, the bletchley team read the messages using a higher mathematical message method after its inventor. Different german keys relegated fish codenames. Some of the most momentous german messages were encrypted in jellyfish. 1943, the park broke 15 of traffic dispatched to berlin by the enemy high command in italy. Bletchley reported in august the quality of intelligence derived from the fish keys was of the highest order. It was never read in anything like the same quantity as enigma , and almost every decrypt was precious. The Transformative Development came inevitably from the creation of machines even more revolutionary than the bonds. Max newman born in 1897, son of a german father and english mother. Between the wars, he gamed a reputation as a cambridge repetition. Loftily at the work started uninteresting. When he grudgingly accepted the appointment at the end of 1942, insisted on retaining an option to leave after a year if he wasnt happy. People, however distinguished, dared to make such a stimulation in wartime, and still fewer were accepted. His first months proved frustration and it looked as if he would quit. As a codebreakers, he was a flop. But he triggered a critical breakthrough by studying the analysis of the teleprinters workings and then urging that the machine might be constructed to test the thousands of possible start positions for each wheel setting. He was put in charge of a new section to do this. His first production was called robinson and the prototype was delivered to bletchley in june 1943, soon followed by a dozen stablemates. Superfast, exploring punch tapes for electrically a fantastic speed of 1000 characters are second. A enabled the park to read few messages by autumn, hundreds by spring 1944. Its limitations were mechanical. The difficulty of synchronizing to tapes that run simultaneously, printing breaks, addressing repeated bowel phrases. Vowel phrases. Fromturing, newly returned a long trip to the United States, urged max newman discusses problems with a guy called tommy flowers, an engineer of the british telephone research station in northwest london. Flowers was impatient. Nursed an electronic vision. It was a brick layer son from londons east end, born in 1905, who won a scholarship to a Technical College where he displayed a precocious talent for mechanics and science. After joining she worked on the automated phone systems. Flowers is considered to made a brilliant contribution to realizing the concepts of newman and his electronics wizard colleague, who between them created a new wonder, the colossus, which is today celebrated as the worlds first computer. It had a brain as bonded to not. The firster initiated model without a directive from the bletchley authorities. He wasnt obsessive, like he was an obsessive. He used some of his own money to buy components. Within 10 months, his people had brought into being this huge machine which processed data at five times the speed of the robinson. 1943s tested in november, and entered service two months later, in time to play a Critical Role in reading german high command traffic before dday. The worlds most revolutionary code breaking technology was british and american. Awe. , inspiring at the end of the war, max newman, the man who had stubbornly resistant joining Bletchley Park, said his staff isnt it sad to think that the price of peace is to know that none of us will ever do anything as interesting as this again. Decrypts from of enigma and lorentz were known indiscriminately satellite field commanders as ultra. The enabled u. S. And british generals to plan their operations in the second half of the war with the confidence. It deserves emphasis that while ultra was a marvelous tool, it was not an excalibur, magic and victories. Knowing the enemys hand did not diminish its strength. Until late 1942, again and again the british learned where the enemy intended to strike, but this didnt save them from losing the battles of followed. The u. S. Navy can only begin properly to exploit the superlative feet in breaking the 1943, theode in japanese convoy code. In 1944, a year later, when the u. S. Navy cure the chronic technical failures of its submarine torpedoes, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, hard power was indispensable directly tatian of secret knowledge. 1942, the british exploded altar to promote deceptions. , famous toglas clark Spanish Police who interested him in a madrids in a madrid speech dressed as a woman, richard a big coverup operation for the october 1942 battle. He certainly displayed marvelous ingenuity in creating fictional british divisions which caused rummel to deploy a check of his forces well south of montgomerys principal objectives, but such coming didnt save him from the fortnight of hard fighting the proof necessary to break through the africa core. , therma, Peter Fleming creator of james bond, went to elaborate links to leave a hacker sack full of phony papers , but when the japanese got the stuff, they took no notice. The british and americans have always been justly proud of their deceptions excesses, especially before and after dday. But others also played this game, notably, the russians, with awesome ruthlessness. In flemings thrillers are sent to bear no relation to the real world of espionage. Contemporaryding commissars reports and memoirs while researching this book, i was struck by how uncannily the monstrousd the mad, imagined dialogue of such people in from russia with love. Bye of the plots executed stalins spy masters were no less fantastic than flemings, on dwarf and scale those of western allies. 1941,stance, in december a personable young man descendent of a great noble family skied into the german line southwest of moscow and announced he represented a prohillary Resistance Movement committed to restoring the czars. German intelligence embraced him and a few months later, parachuted him back into russia as a source. He soon reported that he had become acute occasions officer at Red Army Headquarters and for more than two years thereafter, he passed fabulous information. He claimed by his own site germanys most brilliant wartime Intelligence Officer. Whichirs the network in he was the key figure. His star sources in the russian camp reporting to him through the Intelligence Officer codename agent max. Dispenses best dispatches had a fastening audience in britain. Monitor the outcome, britains professional spooks at secret Service Headquarters hated it because he never concealed his contempt for them. One of his milder descriptions as a colony of kooks and unvented backwater bureaucracy, held together by neglect like a cluster of bats in an unscripted bath. Unlovable snobbish, rude, mostant man was one of the remarkable british Intelligence Officers in the war, who from 1942 onward new much more about hitlers secret services than did anyone in germany, because he was privy to the identity of all the Double Agents being controlled of london. Bletchley, this officer poured over agent maxs early dispatches that warned the russians they have security leak the size of the grand canyon. When they took no notice, he decided that max must be a double controlled by stalins kgb. In november 1942, came stalingrad. Operation uranus, the devastating successful Russian Development of the german army which change the course of the war. , the redtime as uranus Army Launched a second offensive heardation mars, which we far less about because it was a ghastly failure. With the loss of 77,000 russian dead. Cause the british in london to conclude that agent max couldnt conceivably be working for moscow because he warned the germans it was coming, enabling them to shift reinforcements northward. These rational men serving western democracy could have sacrificed 77,000 russian lives to promote a. Eception, but stalin did the evidence now seems incontrovertible that agent maxes star source was alexander damiano. The germans were told of operation mars to labor German Forces from uranus. This seems to me one of mr. Markable intelligent stories of the war. Allies, they were among the most remarkable institutions the world has ever known. Forming a key part of the narrative of our two nations achievement in the conflicts. It remains weird almost beyond imagining the germans never recognize the vulnerability of enigma and lorentz. They received endless clues and tips. Of how in may,y 1942, a german warship in the indian ocean capture the australian freighter and found aboard topsecret allied reports based on ultra intercepts which were brought into berlin. Nobody rang alarm bells. Likewise, 1943, a swiss Intelligence Officer used information apparently from an that the allies of broken uboat code. Again, no action followed. The russians, while they were still hitlers friends, informed the japanese that their verbal to dramatic code was being read by u. S. Intelligence. All these alerts, together with others from berlins own good covers cryptographers were domestic. Reich executed wholesale allied spies and saboteurs, its officers remained oblivious to the most deadly of all threats to its security. A few thousand bespectacled english and american geeks laboring respectively in the basement in buckinghamshire virginia. The only expiration is hubris. An institutional german unwillingness to believe that their anglosaxon enemies, whom they so often humbled on the battlefield, could be that clever. We can say confidently that the codebreakers exercise far more influence on the war than did any spy. While some historians try to suggest it shortened the struggle by several years, i am skeptical about that. Ultra was a british and american tool, while the russians did most of the heavy lifting in the destruction of nazism. It seems no more feasible to to thatits contribution of radar. One of her jewels most profound observations was made in october for in response to a demand 4000 heavy bombers to be built which would defeat germany in six months. The Prime Minister wrote back saying that while bombers were being built as quick as possible, he deplored efforts to place unlimited competence in anyone means of securing victory. All things are always on the move simultaneously. This is a tremendously important comment on human affairs, especially in war, and above all, in intelligence. To attribute any outcome of anything to a single factor. The historian paul kennedy argues that much of the wartime intelligence with or without ultra is a failure. He has written even if one can readily conceive that the allied record on intelligence was much better than that of the axis, it easier to demonstrate where smooth logistics helped to win the war than to show where intelligence led to victory. Theres a bit of truth in this. But the evidence suggests to me that secret knowledge made a more important contribution then kennedy allows, especially in both the pacific and atlantic. Ultras exposure of germanys uboat codes with a terrifying ninemonth interruption and i should 42, and the american codebreakers warning that the japanese were targeting midway were colorful achievements. Wareen 1939 and 45, secret was still in its industry its infancy. Victories were secured by armies, fleets, air forces, in the 21st century, however, it seems less audible that mass Uniformed Forces of the great millions, red in by contrast, in forms of national security, intelligence, code breaking and counterinsurgency have never been greater. Cyber warfare represents the little latest stage of the electronic revolution that began in the two world wars. It would be extravagant to suggest that conventional strife has become redundant. In ukraine, president clinton finds fred president n finds president puti tanks rather reliable. Communications has become the foremost western weapon in combating nonstate enemies, both within our own frontiers and abroad. Civil libertarians who wring their hands and dismay about what they call the snooper state seem unable to recognize the old clear historical delineation between a state of peace and the state of war is defunct, probably forever. Edward snowdenof who disclosed final secrets invites a stab of relief that he did not serve in arlington hall. Snowdenabitants and habits in universe where the old definitions of patriotism are no longer your newly universally recognized. These changing and will continue to change. Secret war, as it was practiced by the nations before 1939 struggle is likely to be the future hybrid war. Finally, while in my book, i describe some episodes the reflect human frailty and absurdity, we was never forget that in every aspect of the global conflict, the stakes were lifeanddeath. Hundreds of thousands of people of many nationalities risked their lives and many indeed sacrificed them, often in the loneliness of dawn before firing squads, together intelligence or advance campaigns. Note 21st century take on the personalities and events, successes and failures of those days should diminish our respect , and maybe even reverence for the memory of those who paid the price for waging secret war. Thank you very much. [applause] im very happy to try and take some questions, but shout, i am fantastically death. Hand, we raise your will bring our microphone to you. I let you decide to go to. We start back here to the right. Thank you, sir max, for wonderful talk and a wonderful book. Which im about two thirds of the way through. At some point in my life, i perhaps that read, a thing that helps the Bletchley Park people in their decoding was the practice of German Military people to either begin a end their messages with salutation like high alert. Is that true . Sir hastings you were right about that. But they also so much code breaking depended on the germans making mistakes. Enigma used procedurally exactly as it was designed to be used, which some of the arm people dead, it was very hard to break it quickly. Or when they made mistakes, beginning each day, very often, they would send a test message and breaking the test messages proved very important, a brief test message. Very often, they gave them the , but waso the messages always mistakes and repetitions. Youre right about the salutations. Have a question from bill for mississippi. Correctly, youou questioned the generally accepted belief that the ultra secret shortened the war. Would you expound on that . Sir hastings prof. Borgwardt sir hastings have you brought a sleeping bag . One has to member that the russians killed nearly 80 of the germans shoulders soldiers killed in the war. Ultra made a difference in the west, whats extraordinary and he will find the documents in the second world war, but especially at the end of the war, a latin american officers and british officers who wrote secret reflections found it amazing that in the northwest europe campaign, when we were achieving this amazing access to their communication, that the germans were still able to pull such surprises as they did, everyone has made the point that the electronic intelligence was the germansre with were doing, but it was misread, chiefly because the Staff Officers were human. December 1944, they were convinced psychologically they got the germans on the ropes and the idea of the germans doing something unexpected, they just werent looking properly at the stuff. If you look on the other side of the pacific war, it was transformed. One has to remember if you start on the basis that most of us are pretty competent, the allies were going to win the war eventually. The question was when was eventually . Dramaticallyar was accelerated by these two developments, by the code breaking. One was midway, but what is midway, is that after u. S. Codebreakers had no matching success against the japanese fleet for many, many months. And america lost a lot of those island battles or to very heavy punishment in a lot of those naval battles of 1943, because they didnt have the codebreakers. The next big break was the submarine break when they got them real code. The marine code. The battle of the atlantic, it made a difference. He would have been far harder to get the stuff across the atlantic, and to run dday, had the allies not been able to win the battle of the atlantic, which the codebreakers contributed to. But if you look at the land battle is fought in northwest europe, the officers who are most closely involved with themselves amazed at the end of the war and how limited contribution it made. Backrspective, i do come to the churchill line which is important about all things always being on the move. Nobody would ever attribute the outcome of anything to one single cause. I think the idea where some people said it shortened the war by two years, i cant buy that. You cant quantify things like that. In the back to your right, philip. Sir max, the code breaking was one cause of winning the battle of the atlantic, but ive read that having airplanes that closed the gap in the atlantic with another major cause. Could you present your position overall on why we won the battle when we did . Sir hastings back comes back to the end about the point i made about hard power. It a lot of things happened simultaneously. All, the allies were cranking all this uboat stuff. Secondly, longrange aircraft became available. Thirdly, the british were deploying much larger numbers of escorts, fourthly, they had improved assets, officially, United States putting as were carriers which were able to use airports are quite gross quite close range. The british thought the americans were too aggressive in their usable for. When the americans had a signal that two uboats were going to refuel in the midatlantic, quite often, the british wanted to leave them alone because they were frightened of sending out the secret. On balance, the truth was somewhere in between. By that stage of the war, the british were too cautious and the american tactics served very well. The key point is all these things happened at once. You had about five big technological developments. You have a hard power to use that knowledge. To your left towards the back. Good morning, sir. You mentioned certain novelists who inadvertently had captured something of the tone of research that you did of events. After it purchased your book and copies for all of my extended family, i wondered if you succeed just some contemporary s who might have given one accurate flavor of the work you observed. Sir hastings i think Robert Harriss novel enigma, im slightly influenced by the fact that he is a close friend of mine. And i brilliant novelist think in catching the mood of bletchley, he caught the mood of bletchley well. One thing they can be sobering, a close friend of mine, a british politician worked in leslie and he said one of the novelsthat none of the or movies will ever accept. They were told incredibly little about what the outcome of what they did actually achieved. Myy work all day and all decrypting the signals, and then they just check them in the out basket and they disappear. Often, no one bothers to tell them what this had achieved or if this had an important impact. Very often, the people who ran bletchley were begging the chiefs of staff to send one or two admirals or generals down to tell all these geeks sitting there in not very comfortable working conditions about with their work was doing, but nobody took much notice. In the end, in order to make a movie is going to get an audience worldwide and in order to write a novel thats going to sell like roberts novels, you have to play a bit with the truth. You have to make it seem that they only with the consequences of their successes and failures. Sure, a few people at the top of the tree new. But the ordinary guys, even some very bright ones, didnt have a clue. The germans did much worse. The brilliant thing the british did the british on the americans recognized that the people who were breaking codes, these academics, you had to just leave them to be eccentric to be weird and wonderful. Not put them into uniform. The germans did recruit some very clever academics, especially mathematicians, as codebreakers. But they made them all lands corbels and put them in uniform. They did not like it. In the front row to your right. About the rolelk of clouse dukes, who gave the greatest secret away . The got in the country easily and was able to move around. Sir hastings one of the things and were my book, probably about four key people who gave away the most important secrets of the atomic bomb, and he was one of the four. He was a refugee from germany and we have to member the refugees from germany did some fantastic things for the benefit of the allied war effort. One of the things ive said in my book, theres always a very delicate balance to be drawn about security. , they much more difficult are difficult to penetrate the security of the soviet union or the later war, north vietnam. But to achieve this, you have to have a fantastically repressive society. Remained antates amazingly open society in the middle of the war. For instance, harry hopkins, i dont think remember his intentions were maligned, but he confided a lot of stuff to the soviet ambassador because he and the administration were key to show the russians they werent hiding stuff from them. But the fbi was quite alarmed by some of the stuff that he told the russians. When you draw the balance of these things, i would argue that with United States and britain gained from remaining reasonably open societies and not repressive societies with gestapo around every corner, yes, you paid a price. But i was suggesting that on the margin, it was probably a price worth paying. Gestapo onwant the every corner, this is whats going to happen. Sir max, down to your left, a question from bruce, from missouri. You talked about the important of breaking the naval code on the outcome of the battle of midway. I would like your ideas on the importance of the code breaking yamamoto andary of whether or not you felt that made a significant contribution to the culmination of the war . Sir hastings that was an issue which im sure you know was very controversial at the time. The big question was they discover where the japanese commander in chief, by far, japans ablest senior strategist, where he is flying to. I know where they are going to be able to find him. But the big question was how big was the danger . The japanese related notice something fishy when they suddenly see this. It was a big argument about whether the risk of the japanese cotton on to their codes were compromised was worth it. In the end, they took the risk and they got away with it, because japanese counterintelligence for such an extra ordinarily clever people, they made war unbelievably badly. But their intelligence people, the americans left it to the japanese to announce yamamotos death. The american announced a couple of japanese aircraft have been shot down, but they didnt give away that they knew that yamamoto had been on one of them. They waited till the japanese had a big funeral in tokyo. Conversely, the could have been a disaster after midway one american newspapers reported was ahe midway success result of code breaking successes. What this sort of stuff can do. We have to save the guys on the other side have been paying the allied were fantastically lucky to get away with what they did. We have time for one quick question and one quick answer. Could you please stand . A few months ago, i went to james bond, 165 people were there. I listened for 80 minutes to two gentlemen about james bond, about double 07, Double Agents. Every 15tion is minutes, have drinks. Mention that he was a fighter. They were not doing it for the money. I think you better come and ask me that when i can understand what the question was. Referencing james bond, ian fleming and pop off. Its always such a pleasure. You are the nicest audience in the whole world and even though i meant ignorant, foreign visitor, you are so nice to me and im so great for the opportunity to speak with you at meet with you again. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] author peter duffy describes the story of an fbi double agent who helped expose a not cease firing in new york city just prior to the u. S. Entry into world war ii. He talked about how the mission originated and how it pioneered the use of hidden cameras to gather evidence. This talk was part of a multiday conference at the World War Ii Museum in new orleans. Next present or is peered duffy. Many of you are probably aware of peters other world war ii