Samuel Simon Snyder (August 18, 1911 – December 28, 2007) was a cryptographer for the United States Government. His pioneering work in early computers led directly to the development of the computer as we know it, and laid the foundation for many aspects of the modern computing industry. He is known for having broken every Japanese encrypted message with his partners in the Signal Intelligence Service during World War II and for having developed the MARC standards.

Career

Snyder was an alumnus of

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

, where, at the height of the Great Depression, he attended night school, working on various government jobs during the day. While still at the university, Snyder started his career in 1936 with the

Signal Intelligence Service The Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) was the United States Army codebreaking division through World War II. It was founded in 1930 to compile codes for the Army. It was renamed the Signal Security Agency in 1943, and in September 1945, became t ...

as one of the first 10 employees, and worked at the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...

from 1934 to 1964. He graduated from George Washington University in 1939 with a B.S. in chemistry. During

World War II 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 opposing ...

, Snyder coordinated teams and worked with

William F. Friedman William Frederick Friedman (September 24, 1891 – November 12, 1969) was a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s, and parts of its follow-on services into the 1950s. ...

to break Japanese army cryptosystems, which were delivered from Switzerland. He also developed a more systematic approach to using sorting machines for cryptanalysis. Near the end of the war, he and his partners were able to break every Japanese encrypted message, which, according to the

, "is believed to have directly contributed to shortening the war by at least one year". Snyder also determined whether computers that decoded Axis information at the Signal Intelligence Service were useful for other purposes, and concluded that they were integral to the agency; as a result, the NSA became the "leading computing industry on earth", according to his eldest son. Later at NSA he worked on one of the early code breaking computers called ABNER and other computing systems such as Harvest, one of the earliest general-purpose computers made with IBM. After spending 30 years at the National Security Agency, he worked at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

, where in 1964 he became an information systems specialist. He was the coordinator of the Library of Congress's information systems from 1964 to 1966. There, he helped to create the

MARC standards MARC (machine-readable cataloging) standards are a set of digital formats for the description of items catalogued by libraries, such as books, DVDs, and digital resources. Computerized library catalogs and library management software need to st ...

, a machine readable cataloging system that became an international standard electronic database system for libraries and for data sharing in research. From 1967 to 1970, he worked at the Research Analysis Corporation. Snyder coauthored the book "Man and the Computer", which was published in 1972, as well as a classified history of the NSA, with

Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...

. Mr. Snyder was inducted into the

NSA Hall of Honor The Hall of Honor is a memorial at the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. It honors individuals who rendered distinguished service to American cryptology. The Hall of Honor The Hall of Honor is located on the grounds ...

in 2007, and he held a Defense Department

Meritorious Civilian Service Award The Meritorious Civilian Service Award is commonly the highest award granted by U.S. Army Commanders (Major General and above, or civilian equivalent). The Award and Medal is provided to civilian employees within agencies of the federal governmen ...

and The Washington Post's "Ideal Father of the Year" award for 1949.

Personal life

Samuel Snyder married Patricia Yakerson Snyder in 1935; Patricia died in 1996. He left behind 4 children, 9 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren. Snyder's eldest son, named Sol and a professor at

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

as of 2008, remembered Samuel Snyder's "knack for math and science" and that he spent his last years "basking in his passion for music". Sol's elder sister Elaine Hodges, then 12 years old, described Samuel Snyder as a "mathematician, artist, scientist, house cleaner, sewer, dog harness maker, dog bather, can play the clarinet, saxophone, piccolo, story writer, nd thebest father in the world" in a letter to the Washington Post asking for the election of Snyder; she died in 2006.

Books

''History of NSA General-Purpose Electronic Digital Computers''
Samuel S. Snyder, National Security Agency, 1964.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snyder, Samuel Simon 1911 births 2007 deaths Signals Intelligence Service cryptographers George Washington University alumni