TheCodeBreakers
I.M.'s theft of cryptologic
documents. In 1941 alone, the S.I.M. obtained possession of about 50
such items, or about one a week. Some of these probably were only
plaintext versions of coded telegrams. But many were the codes or
ciphers themselves, and one of them, which led to probably the greatest
Axis communications-intelligence results of the war, was a secret code of
the United States of America.
The spy who stole it appears to have been Loris Gherardi, a
messenger in the office of the American military attaché in Rome. An
Italian national just turned 40, he had worked for the Americans since
about 1920. His duties included the carrying of telegrams from the
attache's office to the Italian telegraph bureau. In August of 1941
IN LHK E1HKR: II 249
he apparently obtained for the S.I.M. the key or an impression of the
key or the combination to an embassy safe. This enabled the Italians
annaabi.ee 
