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

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in 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 autobiog ...

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefor ...

by former

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(SOE)

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. 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, or L-pill) is a pill, capsule, ampoule, or tablet containing a fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to achieve death quickly th ...

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 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 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 (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

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

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

'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 was bitten by a gold-colored bug. His servant Jupiter fears that Legrand is going insane and goes to Legrand's friend, an ...

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

Marks & Co Marks & Co was a 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 be ...

at 84 Charing Cross Road. 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