How America's 'first female cryptanalyst' cracked the code of Nazi spies in World War II—and never lived to see the credit
that a new ship will be named after her. “She got written out of the history books,” says Fagone. “Now, that injustice is starting to be reversed.”Born in 1892 in Indiana, the young Elizebeth Smith was a keen linguist from an early age, and graduated from college in 1915 as an English Literature major. She enjoyed reading and poetry, writing some of her own work.
Just before Elizebeth and William wed, the U.S. entered World War I. The prominence of radio transmission meant that codebreaking was now a valuable skill, but the U.S. did not have a dedicated code-breaking unit at that time and was unprepared to gather intelligence by those means. Fabyanand expertise of the staff at Riverbank, establishing the first code-breaking unit in America, headed up by the Friedmans.
But her contribution was singular. As the Americans were fighting in one theater of war in the Pacific, fears were also growing about the threat of Nazi-backed coups and insurrections in South America, home to several resource-rich countries that were strategically important for the U.S. to keep onside.
“I think a lot of professional women today can relate to her experiences—she did all this important work and got very little credit,” says Fagone. A quick look back through TIME’s own archives shows how little was known about her contribution to World War II in particular, owing to Hoover’s taking credit and Friedman’s loyalty to her oath.
Decades after her death, in 2008, documents about Friedman’s involvement were finally declassified; the couple also left an extensive archive, including letters and photographs, to the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington, Va., some of which are featured in. “We’re in an era when we realize that there are so many stories that were not told historically,” says filmmaker Chana Gazit.
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