Kahn, David 1930-

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Kahn, David 1930-

PERSONAL:

Born February 7, 1930, in New York, NY; son of Jesse (a lawyer) and Florence (a glass manufacturer) Kahn; married Susanne Fiedler, October 22, 1969 (divorced); children: Oliver, Michael. Education: Bucknell University, A.B., 1951; Oxford University, Ph.D., 1974. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Great Neck, NY. E-mail—Davidkahn1@aol.com.

CAREER:

Freelance writer. Newsday (Long Island daily), Garden City, NY, reporter, 1955-63; Herald Tribune, Paris, France, desk editor, 1965-67; New York University, New York, NY, associate professor of journalism, 1975-79; Newsday, Melville, NY, assistant op-ed editor, 1979-98. National Security Agency scholar in residence, 1995; Cryptologia, founding coeditor; Intelligence and National Security, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and Journal of Intelligence History, member, boards of editors. Great Neck Library, member of board of trustees, 2002—, president, 2006-07.

MEMBER:

American Cryptogram Association (president, 1965-67), International Association for Cryptologic Research (former board member), American Historical Association, American Committee for the History of the Second World War, New York Cipher Society (president, 1955-62), World War II Studies Association, International Intelligence History Association.

WRITINGS:

Two Soviet Spy Ciphers, privately printed, 1960, later published by Central Intelligence Agency (Langley, VA).

Plaintext in the New Unabridged, Crypto Press (New York, NY), 1963.

The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing, Scribner (New York, NY), 1967.

Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1978.

Kahn on Codes, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1983.

(Adapter) Pierre Lorain, Clandestine Operations: The Arms and Techniques of the Resistance, 1941-44, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1983.

Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1991.

The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

Contributor to Encyclopedia Americana, Dictionary of American History, Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, and to Atlantic, Scientific American, Foreign Affairs, Military Affairs, Military History Quarterly, New York Times Magazine, Cryptologia, Intelligence and National Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, IEEE Spectrum, Playboy, Penthouse, Neue Deutsche Biographie, and Cryptogram. Author of introductions and forewords to books, including The Final Solution of the Abwehr, Garland (Camden, CT), 1989; The Story of MAGIC: Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer, Frank B. Rowlett, Aegean Park Press (Laguna Hills, CA), 1998; The Secret Front, Wilhelm Höttl, Enigma Books (New York, NY), 2003; and La Cryptographie Militaire avant la Guerre de 1914, Alexandre Ollier, Lavauzelle (Paris, France), 2002. Contributor to anthologies, including Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars, Ernest R. May (editor), Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1984; In the Name of Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Walter Pforzheimer, Hayden B. Peake and Samuel Halpern (editors), NIBC Press (Washington, DC), 1994; and What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, Robert Cowley (editor), Putnam (New York, NY), 2001. Editor and founder of Cryptologia.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Kahn's works are the stuff of which spy thrillers are made: international intrigue, codes, and military intelligence. Kahn, however, has chosen to chronicle actual events and real personalities, writing history rather than fiction. Among his works concerned with things convert and enigmatic is The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writings, called "a classic history of cryptography," by Joseph E. Persico in the Washington Post Book World. The book traces the course of code making and breaking from ancient times to the present, and while such a topic might not seem a likely subject for popular success, the book in fact sold well. Myra McPherson, writing in the Washington Post, offered this explanation: "[Kahn] laced the heavy material in ‘The Codebreakers’ with fascinating asides—from Plutarch to pig latin…. [His] spoon-feeding of fact after fact produced the nearly impossible—a thousand-page tome on a subject hardly destined to titillate, became a best seller (100,000 in hardback)." David Hunt called The Codebreakers a "brilliant book" in the Times Literary Supplement, and to Jack Beatty in Newsweek it is a "much-admired study." The book grew out of Kahn's long-standing interest in cryptography. McPherson pointed out that "when [the author] was 12, he was walking past the public library in Great Neck, L.I., and ‘stopped in my tracks when I saw this book about codes with this terrific title, Secret and Urgent. It hooked me—and I never grew up.’"

In the view of a number of critics, the appeal of Kahn's works is partly the product of his ability to combine erudition and enthusiasm. McPherson described him as "both a serious historian and purveyor, at times, of glib but interesting generalizations…. His books [are] a mix of the anecdotal, massive research and impressive analysis." In his Times Literary Supplement review of Kahn's Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II, Hunt expressed a similar opinion regarding the author's effective blend of scholarship and storytelling: "He pays proper attention to the really essential weapons of military intelligence: prisoners and captured documents … and intercepted enemy communications. Nevertheless, he knows what the public wants … and makes sure that he prints plenty of spy stories."

As the reader makes his or her way through the stories and scholarly details contained in Hitler's Spies, a pattern gradually emerges. In Washington Post Book World critic Persico's words, Kahn "has provided fare for the spy-thriller buff and a clear verdict on Germany's secret warfare: ‘At every one of the strategic turning points of World War II, her intelligence failed.’" Those failures range from the comical pair of German agents who were landed on the Maine coast and spent their money on themselves rather than on gathering intelligence, to the disastrous situation that Persico described in his review: "German agents reporting from Britain were actually a serious liability. They had all come under British control and were feeding their presumed masters deliciously misleading information." As Kahn asserts however, even successful and accurate intelligence was of little use to the German war effort. Beatty described why in Newsweek: "There was one overwhelming flaw in the German totalitarian order: all of the information from the various services came together in one place only—the turbid mind of Adolf Hitler—and ‘no facts,’ writes Kahn, ‘could ever have convinced Hitler that he was wrong.’"

Describing Kahn's characteristic approach to his subjects, a New Yorker critic stated that "[he] teaches the layman everything he can possibly grasp about an arcane speciality." That Kahn is both a respected historian and best-selling author at the same time is acknowledged by a number of writers. Leonard Bushkoff, in his New York Times Book Review article on Hitler's Spies, summarizes those qualities that contribute to the appeal and value of Kahn's works: "His judgments are balanced, authoritative, without either the banality or the sensationalism that often marks popularizing writers. The bibliography is ample, carefully subdivided, meant for use and not merely display. A serious book, clearly: handcrafted, meant to last."

Kahn continues his studies of codebreaking and espionage in his 2004 title, The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking, which details the life of a pioneering codebreaker and intelligence officer. Yardley became persona non grata in intelligence circles for his tell-all 1931 book, The American Black Chamber, an insider's look at the State Department's Cipher Bureau, which was an early attempt at creating an American interception and codebreaking bureau. Kahn is the first to write a biography of Yardley, and according to Booklist contributor Gilbert Taylor, "Kahn tells Yardley's story with a cool eye for his reputation as a codebreaker" in this "balanced and meticulous" study. As David Alvarez noted in History, Yardley "is one of the most colorful and important figures in the history of intelligence and espionage," and "Kahn gives us a clear and crisp image (warts and all) of … [this] remarkable individual." More praise came from Library Journal critic Daniel K. Blewett, who called The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail "a revealing and well-researched book." Blewett also termed Kahn "the nation's premier historian of military intelligence."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, July, 1968, review of The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writings; April, 2006, Louis R. Sadler, review of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking, pp. 501-502.

Booklist, March 15, 2004, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p. 1260.

Christian Science Monitor, October 5, 1967, review of The Codebreakers.

History, summer, 2004, David Alvarez, review of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p. 134.

Library Journal, March 15, 2004, Daniel K. Blewett, review of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p. 88.

New Republic, February 10, 1968, review of The Codebreakers.

Newsweek, June 26, 1978, Jack Beatty, review of Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II.

New Yorker, July 10, 1978, review of Hitler's Spies.

New York Times Book Review, January 7, 1968, review of The Codebreakers; June 18, 1978, Leonard Bushkoff, review of Hitler's Spies.

Time, February 16, 1968, review of The Codebreakers; July 10, 1978, review of Hitler's Spies.

Times Literary Supplement, October 10, 1978, David Hunt, review of Hitler's Spies.

Washington Post, July 9, 1978, Myra McPherson, review of Hitler's Spies.

Washington Post Book World, August 13, 1978, Joseph E. Persico, review of Hitler's Spies; March 28, 2004, Jonathan Yardley, review of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p. 2.