* ‘This sos ome of several talks Tsvas invited 1 give t0 computer: commamnications engineers om the subject of the prison proven in tative ability of the oman mind. The message to them was that they were overbuilding their very expensive Petagonto foxhole twcsny Inks. The writeup that follows won thir profesional ‘association’ prize forthe est esa ofthe year. ‘COMMUNICATING WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Syteme Society Neuslter, March 1980 ee Being Presiden of che Naval War College ian exciting job. Throughout the scademic year, I work with and teach some ofthe finest middle-grade of fiers of all he Defense Depactment serves and selected civilian agencies. [My simmers are equally intersing. Last sume, we hosted the Defense [Repamed fiom IEEE AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS SOCIETY (NEWSLETTER, Vol 15, No, 3, March 1960 This atic ceigaly appeared ix18 A VIBTNAM EXPERIENCE Science Board and wild so again this yea. Thi roup of bright and exci Ing people can eeally raise some unexpected questions. 'A year apo, 1 met wich a mathematics profesior from Massachsets o- state f Technology who wanted to know if Thad any evidence support ‘he idea that atthe Bate of Taal, Lord Neloon had ued a eactia plan thar anticipated a rlaonship beween Brepower and maneuver that wat Inter formalized mathematically a+ Lanchester's Law. This information dumbfounded me, Inte owo-hour dicusion that followed, I became sc- ‘qsinted with Lancherter (2 mathematis profesor, raed oreraged infan- ty oficer ia World War I, and his Law Sure enough, Lord Nelson's batle plan at Trafalgar seemed t match Lanchester’ theory. ‘Other questions that have come up at such mectings have involved ae ‘itil inellgene. Ihave learned that theory holds hat wid rail itl Tigence devices « man can interact witha databank in atursl language. ‘This, of cours, brings to my mind the Hkenases and dillerences of comput 5 ad brain. Since teach a philosophy coarse at the War College, tend to stress the Aiderences between computers and brains. Communicators, eleconicsex- tincers and computer experts in this aadhence may be intrested to know that I teach the peace dat although a computer might be deemed sor. fof mechanical or eleronie mind, one should never concade tha the mind {s merely sophisticated computer The difecence is eral. T think you can el already hat Iam launching myself on a tack (a good-natured one | hope) which icalclated to callenge some of the ideas (tthe communications and computer professions ae Tundertand the think i was Imanuel Ken, who lived inthe same era as George ‘Washington, who best sorted out he computer and brain ive. He wae an bitrator who best handed or resolved the conice between the rationalists (Rene Descartes was the archetype andthe empiricist (particularly David Hiame). Hame thought that the mind worked on bits like « computer snd the output of the mind wae acmlly jos rearranged inputs of srrangd bits Immanuel Kant sid tha the mind is more than abt procesor—it sap plies creative ideas and intrprecations. Kant’ ideas on this came tobe ap preciated much later bythe hard science commantesof quantum mecha fez and nuclear cheory. As fr ab T know, his dea of how the min worked bas never ben challenged by the scenic highbrows. Kant upgraded the ‘human mind tos central potion inthe conmos, by saying, ifyou are Lok SIONAL, the ofc journal of the Armed Forces Conauoiations wd Becwonis Assocation, Ocoee 1979. Copright 197. Communicating Without Tecology 19 ing for order inthe universe its not ‘ou there it iin herein the hue ‘man mind (One of or Naval War College vistors mot clotly associated with your profession is Bere Fowler of the MITRE Corporstion. We have had some {20d long discussions about commurications theory, or, at Tundertand i, the ascrpton of meaning 0 sensory dat.” “Thats what | want o tall about today. (My view of communications theory icritcal of your profession not gi- ing the harman mind enough credit. The reule i overbat, overpriced sys tems that disgorge bales of unnecesrary data whic have the ll eller of ot ‘only inecieney, bu also the encouragement ofbad command habit song ‘our oer in the ld Tam going to talk about commusizatons theory inthe context of a prison camp during the Viewam War in which everybody lived in slay ‘onfinement-—a solitary confinement in lence in which the ure of tortare ‘vas a punishment for those who broke that lene fo communicate with ‘hci flows ‘Our Vietnam enemies gave us wo options to choot frome could lie low and not communicate and go to seed over the yeas of ience and soli- tude or we could communicate as a mater of milary duty and take ou lamps. Myself and all duos neat me were clearly inthe second camp, So the problem became howto communicate stealthy. Asa stares of couse, You secretly tp on wall. The Morse Cade na good—ir soa becomes obviows that you cannot cope withthe limitations ‘f 3 bitonal system. eis just aot practical besate you have got to have & reliable, epeive bet. ‘Bat how do you build a monotonal syste? Thete are maay ways you ‘ould apply mogotonal sytems tothe descriptions of letters: belive the most eficen is a method devised bac inthe days of the American Gl ‘Wa. The system drops tele "K" ot ofthe alphabet (2 "C” can alway bbe used where you would use a "K" and the meaning is preserved), and with the reultane 25 leer alphabet, sex up a 5 % $ matrix The syste is om prised of line across the top where the letters "Ay" "By "Gy "Dy" and E™ se assigned beats (uch as 1~1 for an "A"; 1~2fora“"BYs 1-3 fora "C's 14 fora “D"; and 1-5 for an “E). Using the same convention, on the second in five more leer ae added: 2-1 for “" 2-2 for "G” and s0 forth. Ie fellows that dhe most nein leer to tenant 2,” with 525 beat. Bu his is about as good as you are gong tbe abe 9 do with ‘iene with one tone and 28 leer. ‘What Ihave discussed o far and throughout this ecountng is all om: ‘mon sense ll human mind, The tame alo hos tue for operating spe ‘nals—you do not need many. Lam suteifI put any number of you inc80 A VIETNAM EXPERIENCE, bicle and gave yous contacto devise a system of operating (OP) signals you ‘would produce a complisted and cumbersome cossindexed monstrosity. In our situation, we devised operating signals under pressure and under the theeat of pain, with 2 ral appreciation for safety and efcency. We found tht only four OP signals were needed. The fasts one that say "no," “ange,” “atop oF any connotation ofthe negative For this you should tse any “one” signal—a single thump, a single noise, a singe as, a single trave The second neestary operational signal sould 2y “ye,” "go," “con bin execute," ood.” For chi we wed to of snything—the most fi ‘ent signal except forthe single beat "oo" signal. The third necessary signal {s repeat” which was thee for ae. And the fourths "wait™—four beats of {our what-have-ou in our method In seven and hal yeas of communicating almost soley by some appi- ‘ition of the § % S mati, nether Tor any one of my 400 companions ‘Experienced a ned for another operating sigial Tht fat alone cold sve nls of dollars today. ‘One quickly reales that dhe need to protec the channel is paramount you have been insolation fora pend of months and maybe years (8 had been) and suddenly pe back o the mainstream and want to establish Contac, you Team abe cautions abou ashing nto conversation. You learn to slow down ands fis gee with your parmer about danger signal; sec ‘ond, you mute agree on a cover sory if you are aught, and third, you need te devi on s backup communication system. "Faking the wouble in that fst few minutes of contact to say what hap- ‘pens “when we love this et” har aved me nore than onc. You might sin Diy specify a bent wire shat indicates a hiding pace fra note or an aerate Elkup proceduce-simplicty wil get you by, bu to ignore the need to ‘tablish fallback procauces fst can mean months of commanications interuption “You are probably wondering a this point, "How in the world do you leacn this monotonal code with is matix alphabet without prior know fcige?” That i good question, lesen out to be more ofa theoretical than § practical problem, Sometimes you can stick notes in bowls of rice ached ‘led eo be served, sometimes you can whisper under doors. One of my fttends knew the matic frat when he came nto the cel Block for heist time, He explained that he rae while forced tole on the floor in the for: ture room, The matrix was diagrammed onthe bottom of table with the ‘admonition, “Al prisoners learn this code” Tn the move omonon cae, the teacher had ro wait until the new pris ‘once had overcome his intial feat of working the wall by brashing it or thumping i (He would have been threatened with going through the tr- ture cle again if he broke silence) The new petsone had to decide o take Communicating Without Tecbrology 81 ‘chance and hope chat was not a guard trying to re him ino violating the camp rule of sbsolute sence or some ro overcome sich apprehension took months, fr some days, and fora ver few, hours "Experienced men found dat forthe most sluggish student it was best co commence by tapping 26 times onthe wall a mater of minutes, hours, ‘dys, or maybe longer (depending upon who the eraden ws) the person o8 ‘he other side realized thet you vere talking about an alphaber He even: tually made sme Kind of recognition signal of his own design and let you ‘now he understood that another human was using an alphabet "That i the sare. Communication is fondamentally the connection of fone bean to another and they are sensi istumenss. I sues this point ‘hroughout—do not sell our brain shor, because ean do beter than Da vid Hutne says and perfocm bee than the ata inelgence designers ‘ink tea, Once the novice knows that you are talking about an alphabet, iis a good assumption that “A” is probably one bet and 26 is probably "7." If this understanding was slow to develop one way that was used was to send your partner an "6" and then x pause and then 4 °9." Eventually his mind fighesup—"8," "9"; "H,""T'—"HI" Then you are in business—an inefi- lent busines, but 2 commer har been turned ia ths bein-to-bainrelation- hip. Now you can sar the laborious hoor and days of tying describe ‘he regula communications system by this very priv code Bat how did we call hem up? Howe dd we “roger”? What was the pro- cedare? The answer was that We boerovted from a very American thy pattern fora callup signa: The “shave and ahaieut” When an American fears “shave and hai,” even ihe bas never thought of = ode, he al- ‘most automaticaly lunges tothe wall and supplies his “two bis." We ros- red with 2 "2," "yes" as anafrmatve signal after each word was copied foc understod lof couse, with some ofthe words that wer long, you ould tap them off eaty once you were ready #9 “buy” on te basi of what you bd bes) [Avery primitive form of encryption thus developed from the early tap- ‘off The itrioper who doesnot now your language and does not know ‘what has tanspized between your two minds and how well you understand ‘one another cannot inereept. Abbreviations confuse im even more, and brevaton paras can change over tne with any two parte "Arman whois ranted conracto come up wi an abbreviation table ‘would probably gre you something the would have to be changed almost ‘atl alter the rst moot of use, But abbreviations hammered oat inthe Bel ae solid For example, fequently you had to use the word “think” which was shorrenedt0 "TK" could go on ad give you hundreds more examples.82 A VIETNAM EXPERIENCE, “They grew up in dierent camps with substantial visions, As people were nixed and new eappers came on the other wal it amounted oa system of Ulalecs Yer we became accustomed to one anothers dialects easily If we did rot understand their abbreviason, we Would not give them the “2” signal {ntl dey had spelled out the entire word. "What have described thar far jam-fe system that eannoc be coun- tered. ust ofall you had the discrete sgnarore of your parter—hisindivid- tal sje. For instance, no two peopl ave te old Steve Canyon flamboyant "Rogen, Roger" exact the same way because the appers personality came ‘ont. You could secognizeyoor fend bythe way e expressed the "Roget, Rogee™—by the speed, the touch, and whether he meant “yes;" “OK? concur" of “good” "WILCO,” "oh yeah?” or “ye sit oe whatever, un- derstand thatthe Soviets back up al oftheir telemetry nes with 2 Key. T ‘certninly understand why. "This matrix system lent elf to oter applications sucha visual flash system, Also, every tine 2 detailed man Would sweep the courtyard, be ‘Would be sending ov a egular newspaper Snickers woud be heard inthe {ll block and the guard would become rated. Everytime we swept ov tole buckets ut we wete ating town cies. We even developed a vocal fap code-I gave crdi tomy clasmate Jetty Denton for that. nes oF £0 twere made with coughs or ani. The number thre was throat clear the number four wae «hack, and number ve was either an exaggerated sneeze ta spit, depending on the conditions. For oil crate, the seioecankingofcer insisted chat all members memorize the message, Tht was our la, 25 nothing wat writen dows, of Cours. We thus became acquainted wit the storage capacity of our minds Sind how snany words we coud memorize. Of couse, ieplaced a large weight ‘Sh the message composer Beenie he had to puc things out in logical ps {ern so that a seasonable man could memorize them handily. can remember one afternoon inthe litle prison nicknamed Alcatran, ‘where several of s spent couple of years, and whet asthe senior ofcer, Td been sending out along series of messages concerning how we were ping o combat what we called the Fink Release Program (tis program tras one people ac home were supposed to tink was a benevolent eat te Tease progrem, bu it actually amounted to buying your way out by becom ing a propaganda to) ras a complicated abject, Lsent out six SO-word group, flashing them om ell across to Nels Tanner (bad to fas ther Because my cell was lctos the courtyard). After receiving each group, Nels would have to leave bis place under the door where he had seen my Snge, gov the wall and tap ivout in both divections and come back under the door. I would cake a ‘couple af hours or more w ge a300-word message Out fo everyone com Commaciating Without Tecnology 85, posed well enough that they could all memorize i. semember just before being pue in fas for che nigh (as we were every atecoon at 4a) Nels ‘war saving goodnight (GN), under the door ashe alway sid to me. He added that be had handled about 5,000 words that day—-that is lot of trac. ‘Allof his was happening in a place Uke “Alatraz” where eleven of cach ina tin cl, were supposedly being thwarted in our communication latempes by two armed guards, each constandy palling, leering, and ting fd here wee ny autre sounds oe. Ts ais sweat on for yeas ‘Ceyptography got more sopisscaed as we handled clasifed informs: tion. We had dateme groupe and we would “slide” the alphabet, adai- tionally, we ured a matrix to develop serip tha cally looked like chicken ‘tacks sotating the anes depending onthe day andthe date. What Lam say- ing thtif you take about Sve good commonsesical manipolatons with some versity (suc a a rotating exis, aside, and a convention foreach ‘dy), and pot them in series, you ean come up with code that eannot be broken. When Igo home, challenged the Defense Ieligence Agency £0 bres sample dhe was writen out to demonstrate ro them the serengih of ‘our system and they could nt do t because there were just too many vat ‘bles, Thisiluserates the point ha the man mind can come up with com binstion in 30 mines tae computers cam aver break ‘Why dd sy eater that we as communicator, when immersed inthe technical world, donot give enough eed co the human mind? Pst of lly wwe complicate matters by always looking fora perfect apie. A pevece sys tem serves an idiot-—it bound tobe too complex. think thee is alot of ‘wisdom in old Admiral Gorshlors mae that "the bess the enemy of the ‘ood enough” ‘Secondly, [believe chat an overblown communication pacity gives our mltary commanders bad habits. {recently told the Midshipmen at the [Naval Academy in apeech shat hink theresa greater possiblity oftheir Iaving to depend on thei om intative in an out-of communications stua- tion than was necesary for my guneration, especially because ofthe prob- thle diffe of ado wave raisons in mclea lds ‘Yuhave goto think through the possibly of a commoncatons Black- ‘ut, andthe difical when oar oficers are Brought upin an environment ‘of total communications, 1 had mote trouble in Hanoi (even with senior ‘ficers) wasting too much ime tying to speculate abou what they though= ‘Washington would thik of our poses beens they had been conditioned by good communication for yeast be ill tease when they were notable to touch base with headquarter. Imagine ie—we were na postion where ‘we knew more about how to ran a prison organization than anybody else in64 AVIETNAM EXPERIENCE the wor tha tie andor condone fice were uncomfortably. {ng on th own sponta apd iiont ‘Thirdly, T badoouch yoorprofesion because i scems to ignore Shel lings and ober strategie admonitions on forge the tcl advantages tf bong ou of communiaion Thnk about Ii pstety dato yout sivas ou coc eh Ret thee no way en ed Sr chinatim, Ther ar advantages commander when he oo Tow he camot be contac They canot sk freee. . "Te bottomline hatter fn gueton of the importance ofthe linking of nan minds in the face of an adversary. Communication cannot bestopped as long asthe wil to communicate ext: Lhas ben my beer Vaso tat inti computes age of specie technology, ee ll eo Jabwtiue forthe power of the hora besoin meting cemingly insu ‘mountable challenge ‘Bxtaced fom Sigal with permission of The Armed Forces Communica: tions and Hlectonie Atsociaton. Mach of his mater ie alto contained in "The Tap Code” in Miltary Collector © Historian, Journal of The Comm. ony of Miltary Historians, Winter 1979.