By the early 1980s America’s National Security Agency knew about the work of Ellis, Cocks and Williamson, and it is probably via the NSA that Whitfield Diffie heard a rumor about the British discoveries. In September 1982, Diffie decided to see if there was any truth in the rumor, and he traveled with his wife to Cheltenham in order to talk to James Ellis face-to-face. They met at a local pub, and very quickly Mary was struck by Ellis’s remarkable character:
