Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History, 1775-1900

Chapter 24. The Blue Code of the Department of State, 1899

In January 1898, four years after his retirement from the State Department, John Haswell wrote a very realistic and discerning letter on communications security to the elderly secretary of state, John Sherman. Explaining that the present code of the State Department had been in use for almost twenty-five years, he warned the former Ohio senator, "It is well known that the European telegraphic system is an adjunct to the Postal arrangement of each country." Sensitive to European espionage practices, Haswell continued, "Every telegraphic cipher message entering into or passing through a country is sent to the Foreign Office and referred to the Bureau of Ciphers, where it is recorded and ...