MovieChat Forums > The Bletchley Circle (2012) Discussion > Why the big secrecy?

Why the big secrecy?

posted 11 years ago by cherns-2
36 replies | jump to latest

So much of the show revolves around the fact that these women are not allowed to tell anyone what it was they did during the war.

My father was in Canadian Army Intelligence during WW I. He always told us that he had had a job in intelligence, and that he couldn't say anything more about it; and we didn't press him on it. A few decades later, the official wartime history of his outfit (which much later grew into Canada's equivalent of the US NSA) was unclassified, and we learned a bit more.

It could not have been a secret that he attended Japanese-language school for a year or so in Vancouver (my own first year, as it happens); it wasn't a secret that he was then posted to Ottawa. It certainly hadn't been a secret, since Roman times or before, that cryptography and code-breaking was an important part of war.

Canada's Official Secrets Act, I believe, was modelled on the British one. I don't understand why our heroines, when asked "What did you do in the war?," just have replied something like, "I worked in intelligence," or even "I was a clerk," "and I can't talk about it." I expect that in just-post-war Britain that would have been a very common situation. Less dramatic, to be sure...

[–] nicky-682-764451 10 years ago

Without reading all the replies, (no time as yet), it was all to do with the continuing cryptography.

Because of the cold war, it became essential that Russia did not find out that we had had such success in cryptography during the war.

Enigma was initially broken by the Poles, long before the outbreak of WW2. That was when the code changed once in a few months. It was the fact that Bletchely (Turing et al) who managed to create the Bombe machine to break the codes when they were changed every day that enabled the whole translation of messages right to the very top level stuff to be deciphered.

But our allies still had no idea the level of success we had had, and so the Russians were still in the dark.

Once the Cold War was underway, what is now GCHQ was set up, but without many of the women who had only been recruited for the war-time effort. Had those women been allowed to talk about their work, it would have all come out - think Chinese whispers!

It was only in the 70s that someone wrote a book and revealed the extent of the work, that it then became legal to discuss it.

No point in an intelligence service if everyone knows about it!! Even now, if you're James Bond the 975th, you can't tell anyone, not even your wife/husband/parents etc. We know far more about the existence of security services but not what they actually do. It was only at the start of the millennium that we started finding out the names of the head of MI5 and MI6. Not sure if that's a good idea myself but hey.

GCHQ is still shrouded in secrecy, although we do at least know where they're based.

[–] cherns-2 10 years ago

I started this thread by questioning, not the need for secrecy which I completely accept, but the show's apparent contention that the women's post-war lives had been blighted by their not being able to talk about what they did.

[–] nicky-682-764451 10 years ago

Ah, mis-understood you there, sorry!

I suppose if you'd been recruited on the basis of an exceptional ability then it must have been pretty galling to go back to being an ordinary housewife at the end of the war.

Some of the women obviously did transfer to GCHQ, but I guess that would mainly have been the younger, single women. And I imagine not all got the chance.

But there again, I guess the women from the ATC or SOE had similar issues....

Blighted is a bit strong, but certainly frustrated at being unable to tell people anything at all because of the total shroud of secrecy - that I can understand.

[–] chocknog 8 years ago

The 'Official Secrets Act' didn't make transgressing it 'Secret'... It made it 'Official' so after signing it, the Signee could be Nailed for breaching it - if caught out.

Two examples of which are;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Welchman#cite_note-hut6-4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] chocknog 8 years ago

I had to sign them as well when I was in the British Army from 1968-1974.

As for 'Porton Down' (Series 2) Every once in a while, during the years I was in the Army, there would be a general Request notice circulated throughout all units and pinned up on the Notice Board asking for volunteers to undergo 'Medical Tests for the Common Cold' there. More Pay and Leave were offered as an incentive for a couple of Weeks or so. The (Whispered) consensus of everyone in my Regiment was to Avoid Volunteering or getting Conned into going to 'Porton Down' - like the Plague. No one I knew volunteered for it as it had a Dark and untrusted Reputation throughout the Armed Forces. The details of what happened there were suppressed by the authorities using the 'Official Secrets Act' although it was common practice for everyone to do 'Gas Chamber' Training where we had to inhale 'CS Gas'. We were then guided swiftly out by Gas Mask wearing personnel from the inside of the Chamber and guided away by personnel outside the Gas Chamber as we couldn't see as our eyes were streaming,our throats and exposed skin was stinging. We were Choking, Coughing, Spluttering and generally in a bad way. we were left to recover in the open air whilst others went through the same 'Training'. All soldiers had to do this 'CS Gas' exposure Training and other NBC Warfare training. The imbibing of a concoction of Anti Chemical Agent Drugs that Military Personnel took leading up to 'Gulf War 1' proved 'disadvantageous' to more people than could just be considered a coincidence, The after effects of which are still ongoing in Veterans.

The 'Common Cold' Tests carried out on 'Volunteers' who went to 'Porton Down' though were quite different but it would be decades before these 'Tests' would be revealed to the Public. The Ministry of Defence have always opposed these revelations.

Here's a few related Links;

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/may/06/science.research

http://rense.com/general39/secret.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome

[–] pauli_gomez 9 years ago

In the first season Susan told the deputy that she was a clerk. Apparently that was the only thing she was allowed to say. I imagine Susan told her husband she worked as a clerk during the war years. So of course he thought she had a boring job while he was a brave soldier.
But if Susan had added "and I can talk about that" it would have been obvious that she had been more than a common clerk, thus ruining the secret. So no, she couldn't say that. When you say "I can't tell you more" you are stressing the importance of what you are hiding. That is why kids do the singalong "I know something you don't know".
So yes, they can't reveal that they did ANYTHING at all of interest during the war.

[–] cherns-2 9 years ago

So yes, they can't reveal that they did ANYTHING at all of interest during the war.

Certainly saying "I can't reveal ANYTHING about what I did during the war" would be the same kind of tip-off. However, the key words are "of interest." As I have been asking all along, how would "I was a clerk" (or maybe a typist) tip off spies or nosy neighbours? What was the big deal? Not being recognized for being as clever as they really were? Ungratifying maybe, but I can't imagine that it would have been as traumatizing as depicted in the show.

[–] pauli_gomez 9 years ago

But that's not it. As far as I understand the girls tell people that they were clerks. They just couldn't tell people that they have done something else, more than "just clerk"