| John, The context matches up closely with all of the ones the Russians have released and that I have translated as well as FBIS and other organizations who seek honest reports. I doubt the ROK government did anything to skew the translations. As regards messages, umm -- let me put it this way. Cables are sent via "landline" or ground cable transmission (think Western Union) and as such are very difficult to intercept. The reason for encryption is to prevent unwanted people handling the message from reading its contents (e.g. DPRK government or PRC government agencies.) What are now referred to as "air gapped" messages -- radio messages sent via radio waves in some portion of the spectrum -- are likely to be interecepted and cryptanalysis can be applied to them. But in this case, these were cables and not radio telegrams. For attempts to read Soviet cable messages, read the book "Blind Man's Bluff" about how the US Navy and NSA worked to tap into cables in the later part of the 1950s. Cookie Sewell AMPS |