Who will solve this encryption of the spy Brian Regan?
Spy Brian Regan sent a coded message to the governments of China, Libya and Iraq. Can a reader decipher this message?
I have blogged about Brian Regan, the spy with spelling deficiencies, several times. Regan, a satellite specialist with the National Reconnaissance Office in the U.S., wrote a letter to Saddam Hussein offering classified information for sale. He sent similar letters to other government leaders. In each case, he enclosed printouts from a secret database as samples of his work.
His misfortune: There was also a spy on the receiving end, and he informed the U.S. police agency FBI.
Quelle/Source: Wikimedia Commons
A short career
The FBI was now faced with the difficult task of tracking down the author of an anonymous letter. In doing so, the investigators had two leads: First, they recognized the database from which the enclosed printouts came, and second, the letter was riddled with spelling errors.
The FBI therefore systematically searched for individuals with access to the database in question who had been identified as having a spelling deficiency. They soon came across Brian Regan. His problems with spelling were well known among his colleagues.
Suspicions about Regan were growing. On August 23, 2001, he was on his way to the airport, from where he wanted to fly to Zurich. On the bus between the terminal and the plane, the FBI struck. When he was arrested, Regan was carrying four encrypted messages. I have reported on these many times on Cipherbrain and in my books and lectures. The message is quite easy to solve because it was created with the Caesar cipher:
Quelle/Source: Bhattacharjee
Regan was sentenced to “Life without Parole”, so he must expect to spend the rest of his life in prison. Information on this case can be found in this Focus Online article of mine as well as in the highly readable book “The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell” by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee.
Another cryptogram
In the literature there is talk about a fifth cryptogram that Regan made. I have never written about this one. It is the letter mentioned at the beginning, which Regan sent to the governments of China, Libya and Iraq to offer his services. Regan encrypted this letter. Unfortunately, I have found only fragmentary information about it so far. I do not have the letter, but at least there is the following excerpt in a CNN video:
Quelle/Source: CNN
Apparently, Regan sent three envelopes per recipient. The first contained the actual letter – four encrypted pages with a total of 149 lines of text. The second envelope contained instructions for decrypting the letter. The third envelope contained the key in the form of some tables. To decrypt the letter, the contents of the other two envelopes were needed.
Obviously, Regan wanted to send the envelopes separately. Nevertheless, all three of them ended up at the FBI, where they could easily decrypt the letter. Unfortunately, I do not know why Regan’s plan went wrong in this respect.
My question now is first if my readers know more about Regan’s letter to the governments of Libya, China and Iraq. And then it would be interesting to know if the excerpt shown above can be deciphered. I will gladly accept any relevant information.
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