Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma-and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life.įagone unveils America’s code-breaking history through the prism of Smith’s life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. As World War II raged, Elizebeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies.

After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for forty years. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the 'Adam and Eve' of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking.

In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago.

“Not all superheroes wear capes, and Elizebeth Smith Friedman should be the subject of a future Wonder Woman movie.” -The New York Times

The woman who smashed codes