[SIGCIS-Members] David Kahn obit

[Brian Randell]

Hi Jonathan:

Many thanks for posting the David Kahn obituary. He and I had been friends for over fifty years, and I owe him a particular debt for the great help he gave me by interviewing I.J. Good for me when I was researching the Colossus in the 1970s. So I feel his loss very personally.

I will always remember the time, many years ago, when David invited me to his home on Long Island for the weekend. At the last moment he apologetically asked me if I minded spending the night at his parent’s house, because David and his wife had another unexpected guest and had no room for me. When I arrived he took me to a splendid huge house fairly near to his, and I met his father – an impressive and forceful lawyer. His father was very friendly and hospitable to me, though he made it clear that he thought David ought to be pursuing a more lucrative career than journalism (and cryptology).

David showed me his cryptology library in his parents’ home on the evening of my arrival – he had no room for it in his own house. He urged me to explore it the next morning while I was awaiting his coming to collect me, which I of course did. One of the items I found on the many yards of shelving was a large old-fashioned book-shaped metal ledger box. On opening it I found a pile of bound reports, on top of which was a typed letter to David, from William Friedman, the famous cryptologist. It evidently dated from when David was a schoolboy and was a reply to a request from David. The letter congratulated David on his evident enthusiasm for cryptology and told him that he didn’t need to spend the money he’d been given for a bicycle on the cost of purchasing one of Riverbank Reports. Instead he, Friedman, was sending David a complete set of these reports! (I’ve just checked and found – predictably – that these famed reports are detailed in a Wikipedia entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverbank_Publications.)

With this sort of encouragement, from such a source, it is no wonder that David spent much of the rest of his life authoring a set of splendid books on cryptology. And it is great to learn, from the obituary, that David’s library is now housed at the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum.

Cheers

Brian Randell

—

School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 208 7923
URL =  https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brianrandell.html

On 11/02/2024, 19:13, "Members" members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org<mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> wrote:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/02/01/david-kahn-codebreakers-nsa-dead/ <https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/02/01/david-kahn-codebreakers-nsa-dead/><https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/02/01/david-kahn-codebreakers-nsa-dead/%3e>

Stay sane,

Jonathan

Jonathan Coopersmith

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Professor Emeritus
Department of History
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4236
979.739.4708 (cell)

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