Why do you think these women's contributions to cryptanalysis remained a secret for so long?

Why do you think these women's contributions to cryptanalysis remained a secret for so long?

I don't think the military was ready to acknowledge the women's contributions to ending the war. They were typically a men based organization.

I did a bit of research. I found that at the end the war in 1945, the British had an official 50-year period of secrecy and the US followed their lead. The fear was that if the the defeated enemy ever learned about the cryptanalysis it would give them ”. . . the chance to say they ‘were not well and fairly beaten’.” I couldn’t find anything that warranted the length of the ban.

I believe part of the long-term secrecy may have been government protocol - though I am not sure. What I am more convinced it was male dominancy in the military and in society overall. Even today women do not get the same accolades as men for similar accomplishments.

Although WWII was over, the Cold War was just beginning. I'm sure some of the secrecy had to do with simply wanting to keep the U.S.S.R. in the dark as much as possible. By the time it would have been OK to talk about it, most of the people involved had died, and one would have to undertake a scavenger hunt to find any remaining paper trail (which is pretty much what the author did).

I read the same research that Suzanne did. the fifty year secrecy period.

That part was really hard for me to understand but it does proof the fact that women can keep a secret.

Government bureaucracy.

I don't think that most of the men in the government were ready to give recognition or account for the women's contributions, and were able to keep it "secret" or quiet. I think that the women signed the confidentiality national security papers, and kept it quiet as well.

Military has a time period before events can be disclosed.