[Cryptography] PBS biopic on Elizebeth Friedman

[Arnold Reinhold]

The Cryptographer, an episode of the TV series American Experience that tells the life of Elizebeth Smith Friedman,  premiered Monday, January 11, 2021 on the U.S. Public Broadcasting System. The hour-long documentary is based on Jason Fagone’s excellent 2017 biography of her, The Women Who Smashed Codes. It emphasizes her key role in thwarting Nazi Germany’s plan to infiltrate South America during World War II, a long-classified aspect of her career that was not fully revealed prior to Fagone’s research. He helps narrate. 

The program covers her remarkable recruitment by George Fabyan to work at his Riverbank Laboratories on proving that Frances Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. There she learns cryptanalysis and meets her husband and cryptologic partner William. It also covers the couple’s code breaking in World War I and her Prohibition-era work for the Coast Guard, decrypting and analyzing rum-runner messages. 

Her amazing story is illustrated with great images including many photos of her taken by William. 

My only complaint is the suggestion in the narrative that her professional contributions ended with World War II. In fact, she advised the new International Monetary Fund on communication security, coauthored, with her husband, a book demolishing the Bacon authorship theory and its ilk, and meticulously organized William’s papers after his death, for donation to the George C. Marshall Library.  

The episode will air again this weekend. Check your local PBS station. 

Arnold Reinhold 

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