David Khan

In November of 1978 a remarkable conference took place in Germany. It brought together for the first time the Allies' backroom boys of World War II and those whom they had outwitted for nearly six years--the cryptographers of the Third Reich. Together with historians, they discussed what had been the most secret part of the intelligence war. This was the Allied solution of the principal German ciphers and consequent ability to read large segments of high-level military traffic, including the very messages of Adolf Hitler to his generals.