politics
FBI Files Show 1953 Probe of Historian David Kahn Over Cryptography Manuals
Declassified records detail an FBI investigation into David Kahn for mailing restricted Army documents in 1953. The case reached FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover before the agency later shared information with Kahn on espionage cases.
Jul 10, 11:49 AM·1m read1 source
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Newly released FBI files show that agents investigated historian David Kahn in 1953 after he mailed restricted Army cryptography manuals to another civilian. The documents, obtained by Reason under the Freedom of Information Act, indicate the case reached FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover. Agents had set up a stakeout at a New Jersey post office after the Army Counterintelligence Corps reported the mailing.
Kahn, then a 23-year-old Army reservist, told agents he considered the materials collector's items. The FBI confiscated the documents and a cipher machine from both Kahn and recipient Frederic C. Flindt. Hoover wrote to the Department of the Army in September 1953 asking whether the materials could be used as evidence in a potential prosecution.
Kahn's father later contacted the FBI to argue his son should not receive a permanent security-risk label.
Later Contacts The FBI declined prosecution.
In 1961 the bureau provided Kahn, then a Newsday reporter, with information on Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. Kahn went on to publish The Codebreakers in 1967.
