Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945

Abstract

In 1942, with a black-market chicken tucked under his arm by his mother, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went off to fight war. He was twenty-two. Soon recognized as a cryptographer of genius, he became head of communications at Special Operations Executive (SOE), where he revolutionized codemaking techniques of Allies and trained some of most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe. As a top codemaker, Marks had a unique perspective on one of most fascinating and, until now, little-known aspects of Second World War. This stunning memoir, often funny, always gripping and acutely sensitive to human cost of each operation, provides a unique inside picture of extraordinary SOE organization at work and reveals for first time many unknown truths about conduct of war. SOE was created in July 1940 with a mandate from Winston Churchill to set Europe ablaze. Its main function was to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied territory to perform acts of sabotage and form secret armies in preparation for D-Day. Marks's ingenious codemaking innovation was to devise and implement a system of random numeric codes printed on silk. Camouflaged as handkerchiefs, underwear, or coat linings, these codes could be destroyed message by message, and therefore could not possibly be remembered by agents, even under torture. Between Silk and Cyanide chronicles Marks's obsessive quest to improve security of agents' codes and how this crusade led to his involvement in some of war's most dramatic and secret operations. Among astonishing revelations is his account of code war between SOE and theGermans in Holland. He also reveals for first time how SOE fooled Germans into thinking that a secret army was operating in Fatherland itself, and how and why he broke code that General de Gaulle insisted be available only to Free French. By end of this incredible tale, truly one of last great World War II memoirs, it is clear why General Eisenhower credited SOE, particularly its communications department, with shortening war by three months. From difficulties of safeguarding messages that led to destruction of atomic weapons plant at Rjukan in Norway to surveillance of Hitler's long-range missile base at Peenemunde to true extent of Nazi infiltration of Allied agents, Between Silk and Cyanide sheds light on one of least-known but most dramatic aspects of war. Writing with narrative flair and vivid characterization of his famous screenplays, Marks gives free rein to his keen sense of absurd and wry wit without ever losing touch with very human side of story. His close relationship with the White Rabbit and Violette Szabo -- two of greatest British agents of war -- and his accounts of many others he dealt with result in a thrilling and poignant memoir that celebrates individual courage and endeavor, without losing sight of human cost and horror of war.