Declassified from the NSA files for the first time in 1977, the Friedman Lectures on Cryptology included a puzzling note that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt received in 1935 by an anonymous author. Although part of this cryptic note has been deciphered, one part remains unsolved. Can you solve it?
The NSA lectures were given by William F. Friedman who was dean of American cryptologists. They provided a short history on Cryptology and were given to inspire working agents with a sense of impact the profession can have on history. It was to create an awareness for how vital it is to learn methods of cryptology, for both defensive and offensive reasons.
Friedman offered various examples in his lectures. One example used to demonstrate a transpositional type cipher, one of the two main classes of ciphers (the other being substitution), was the FDR note.
The sequence of letters in the FDR note of ‘NDOIMDEYLOAUEETVIEBR’ is a transposition cipher.
A transposition cipher uses letters of the plain text, but positions of those letters are transposed. This makes the original text unintelligible upon first glance.
To ‘read’ the message hidden in the sequence ‘NDOIMDEYLOAUEETVIEBR’, a person would take every other letter, forward and backward, to correctly spell out the hidden message:
Did you ever bite a lemon? (or else you die)
While this seems like nonsense in itself, there is a possible explanation. FDR was affected by Poliomyelitis. It was believed at the time Lemon Juice could help cure or lessen the effects of poliomyelitis, so it’s possible this part of the message related to treatment for FDR’s condition.
The top part of the message remains undeciphered or at least undisclosed to this day.
Can it be solved? Since the note was sent to FDR, and has been proven to hide a message using a transposition cipher, it would suggest the first part of the note should hide a message as well.
The sequence of numbers, uses all numeric digits 0-9, 42 apostrophes, spaces, and a line with dot at the end, suggesting it is a type of substitutional cipher. A substitution cipher substitutes letters of the plain text for another symbol or letter, but keeps the positions of those letters.
Are you up to the challenge to try and solve and discover a hidden message given to FDR in 1935?
Best of luck with all that you seek! Treasure the Adventure!
That’s an interesting mystery, Jenny.
My guess is that the numbers are related to words in a text…like the Beale ciphers and The Declaration of Independence.
The “apostrophes” may have been added later to clarify the numbers…to give the Secret Service a better chance…or any chance at all…of decrypting the code.
I think the apostrophes/lines above and between the numbers merely denote the numbers that go together. For example: 1’0 = 10 You can see the…perhaps unintended…giveaway spacing in the second line in the numbers 28 22 39 …and perhaps an over-correction immediately following in the numbers 40 and 41.
Again…all IMO…the first sentence might be words 1 7 2 10 15 17 19 21 26 8 32 33 20 37 from one paragraph.
The 6 or 3 zeros in succession in different places of the code denote a break of some kind…like turning the page or moving to the next paragraph.
A person would have to know the text to be able to decrypt it. There are a LOT of texts out there. 🙂
Maybe the 261 at the top is a hint about the text. A person might look at what books or poems or political rumblings (ramblings?) were popular at that time.
Thanks, Jenny
Correct on the apostrophes JC1117, note also the numbers are from 1 thru 52 and each number is only used once(no repeats)…6 zeros a double skip and 3 zeros a single skip?…Could be skipping lines in a text….261 could be the starting key in a text(261st word?) but would need source document to decipher…
It Seems like there is a correlation between the 261 and the sets of 6 and 3 zeros. It also feels like all the numbers and apostrophes were written first and the rest of note later, by a different hand. g
Interesting. That one captures my interest.
I see the single digit before an apostrophe ranges between 0 and 5; that should mean something..
My first cipher guess relates to the T.S. Eliot peom “Mr Apollinax” but only a first guess..