''Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941–1945'' is a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

public interest In social science and economics, public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. While it has earlier philosophical roots and is considered to be at the core of democratic theories of government, often paired ...

by former

Special Operations Executive Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...

(SOE)

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

Leo Marks Leopold Samuel Marks, (24 September 1920 – 15 January 2001) was an English writer, screenwriter, and cryptographer. During the Second World War he headed the codes office supporting resistance agents in occupied Europe for the secret Special ...

, describing his work including memorable events, actions and omissions of his colleagues during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. It was first published in 1998.

Date

The book was written in the early 1980s. It was published on UK Government approval in 1998.

Title

The title is derived from an incident related in the book, when Marks was asked why agents in occupied Europe should have their cryptographic material printed on silk (which was in very short supply). He summed his reply up by saying that it was "between silk and cyanide", meaning that it was a choice between the agent's surviving by making reliable coded radio transmissions with the help of the printed silk, and having to take a

suicide pill A suicide pill (also known as the cyanide pill, kill-pill, lethal pill, death-pill, cyanide capsule, or L-pill) is a pill, capsule, ampoule, or tablet containing a fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to achie ...

to avoid being tortured into revealing the code and other secret information. Unlike paper, given away by rustling, silk is not detected by a casual or typical

body search Frisking (also called a patdown or pat down) is a search of a person's outer clothing wherein a person runs their hands along the outer garments of another to detect any concealed weapons or objects. U.S. law In the United States, a law enforce ...

if concealed in the lining of clothing.

SOE

A major theme is Marks's inability to convince his superiors in the

(SOE) that apparent mistakes made in radio transmissions from agents working with or in an alike role as the

Dutch resistance The Dutch resistance () to the History of the Netherlands (1939–1945), German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized as non-violent. The primary organizers were the Communist Party of the Netherlands, C ...

were their prearranged

duress code A duress code is a covert distress signal used by an individual who is being coerced by one or more hostile persons. It is used to warn others that they are being forced to do something against their will. Typically, the warning is given via some ...

s, which it transpired they were as he alleged, and which fact haunted him. SOE management, unwilling to face the possibility that their Dutch network was compromised, insisted that the errors were attributable to poor operation by the recently trained Morse code operators and continued to parachute in new agents to sites prearranged with the compromised network, leading to their immediate capture and later execution by the order of the command of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. Describes Dutch resistance fiasco from agents' perspective. Marks' interest in cryptography arose from reading

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

's ''

The Gold-Bug "The Gold-Bug" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe published in 1843. The plot follows William Legrand, who becomes fixated on an unusual gold-colored bug he has discovered. His servant Jupiter fears that Legrand is going insan ...

'' as a child. Furthermore, his father Benjamin was a partner in bookshop

Marks & Co Marks & Co was an antiquarian bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. The shop was founded in the 1920s by Benjamin Marks and Mark Cohen. Cohen was persuaded to allow his name to be abbreviated in the company's name. A book of correspondence b ...

at 84

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street), which then merges into Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direc ...

. As a boy, Leo had begun his code-breaking with that used by his father, in noting the prices paid for second-hand books.

References

{{Reflist Cryptography books HarperCollins books 1998 non-fiction books World War II memoirs