Code breakers, like poets and mathematicians, often do their best work when they are young. Even the great ones, like William Friedman, at some point go off the boil. In later interviews, the men described Agnes Driscoll as resorting to extreme measures to retain her authority, enforcing a rule of silence in her office, hoarding intercepts so no one could track her progress. It’s possible that Agnes Driscoll by now was past her mental prime. But it’s also possible that secreting intercepts and surrounding herself with loyal henchwomen was her way of preserving authority as the world around her
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