Herbert O Yardley Contributions

The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail

It is undeniable that Herbert O. Yardley made significant contributions to the history of military intelligence. The question is if his positive contributions outweigh the negative. Yardley was the founder of the first American cryptographic organization and was responsible for several significant achievements through cryptology and code breaking. These early contributions however, were overshadowed by his later actions which could be compared to that of Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden. Herbert Osborn Yardley was born in 1889 and grew up in Worthington, Indiana. Yardley’s father was a telegrapher and station master for a railroad and taught him how to use the telegraph. After high school Yardley also worked for the railroad as a telegrapher. (LaFeber, 1998) In 1912, Yardley was hired by the State Department as a telegrapher and code clerk. He handled coded messages that were sent between American officers, agents and diplomats overseas. (Liggett, 2005) This is where Yardley developed his passion for cryptology, specifically State Department messages.
House, the President’s advisor in Europe. He was able to decipher the 500 word message in less than two hours. The fact that he effortlessly deciphered such an important message to the President, created Yardley’s genuine devotion to improve America’s communication and breaking codes of other countries. By 1917, Yardley had developed a new encoding system for the State Department and was commissioned as a 1LT in the Signal Officers’ Reserve Corps. (History and Publication Staff (NSA), UNK) Yardley was tasked with creating and directing MI8, a cryptologic branch of the Army’s new intelligence organization. (Johnson,