Mysterious Checks from Mauborgne to Fabyan

Abstract

It has long been known that George Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratories provided the U.S. military with cryptanalytic and training services during World War I. The relationship has always be seen as voluntary. Newly discovered evidence suggests that Fabyan was in fact paid, at least in part, for his services. At the start of World War I, the United States military had no formal cryptanalytic organization. There was certainly some expertise, notably in the persons of Parker Hitt, Joseph O. Mauborgne, and Herbert Yardley [8], but three people, however capable, cannot handle the demands of a war. There was a pocket of civilian expertise at George Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratories in Illinois. He had set up a cryptologic group to find the alleged “hidden” cipher messages in Shakespeare’s plays [8]. Fabyan offered his services to the government; his staff, led by William Friedman, did some cryptanalysis (especially of Mexican government messages) and trained Army officers [12, p. 107]. It has long been thought that Fabyan provided these services gratis. Indeed, Friedman himself said so [12, p. 109]: It should be noted, and it gives me considerable pleasure to tell you, that this instruction was conducted at Colonel Fabyan’s own expense as his patriotic contribution to the U.S. war effort. I can’t, in this lecture, say much more about this than it involved the expenditure of many thousands of dollars, never repaid by the government — not even by income-tax deduction or by some decoration or similar sort of recognition. Mauborgne said the same thing in a December 1960 oral history interview [7, Memo from Dr. Thompson, Signal Corp Hist. Div.]: Fabyan offered gratis to take 50 army officers and enlisted men and teach them, an offer which Army G-2 accepted. There is further support for this notion in a letter from Fabyan to Hitt [3]: I have written to Major Gowen today. They have got a lot of funny laws in Washington. I don’t believe the M.I.D. is posted on the acceptance of free services from civilians — God knows they have had a lot and are asking a lot more. “M.I.D.” is the Military Intelligence Division, where Yardley worked [9]; it was the beneficiary of Riverbank’s services. Fabyan seems to be grousing about some laws—just which aren’t clear—that are preventing him from being paid. It might not have been that simple. A recent chance Internet query found a sales listing for a July 1918 check from Mauborgne to Fabyan for $40 (Figure 1). Correspondence with the seller revealed the existence of at least three more checks: November 26, 1917 for $25, January 2, 1918 for $40, and August 5, 1918 for $40. Furthermore, he had sold other Mauborgne checks over the years; he does not know if any more of them were to Fabyan [2].1 1 All four known Mauborgne-Fabyan checks are now at the National Cryptologic Museum.