The Black Cryptologists

The untold account of the team of overeducated, underpaid Black workers hired to fill Truman-era quotas who, from a basement office near DC in Arlington, Virginia (which they dubbed 'the plantation'), became part of the Cryptanalytic Division in the NSA's most secret program on the 'Russian problem.' Their work was crucial in deciphering key information to win the Cold War - but their contributions have lain hidden. They are the invisible uncelebrated cryptologists whose story is finally getting out. The book will follow characters like sisters Iris and Jewel - their friendships and hardships, the struggles lost and won, and the significance of breakthroughs made for America - against a sweeping backdrop of civil rights tension and nuclear threat.

Sarah Valentine is one of the few Black Slavists in the United States, with a PhD from Princeton in Russian literature and a BA in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon, Valentine is an incisive writer with a command of Russian language and culture, Cold War intelligence, and civil rights history.

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