West Wind Clear: Cryptology and the Winds Message Controversy--A Documentary History

4.1. Captain Laurance F. Safford – In the Eye of the Controversy

At the center of the Winds message controversy – in fact its primary and almost exclusive source – was Captain Laurance Frye Safford. Safford had played a critical role in the founding and operation of modern American naval cryptology. He had been put in command of the fledgling cryptanalytic section of the U.S. Navy in 1924 – the (Cryptanalytic) Research Desk within the Code and Signal Section of the Navy's Division of Naval Communications (OP-20-G). He had overseen the recruitment, training, and formation of the corps of radio intercept operators who manned the Navy's monitoring sites around the world and in the United States. Safford played a role in the establishment of the ...