"Geese that laid the golden eggs"

[Editor/Finest Hour]

Does anyone have a copy of Ronald Lewin's book, "Ultra Goes to War,
the Secret Story" (London, 1978)? Can you check Lewin's footnote on
page 64, if there is one, to the famous quotation about Bletchley:
"...geese that laid the golden eggs -- but never cackled."

A link to Milton Keynes News on our website (http://
www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/757-great-grandson-speaks-at-the-annual-churchill-weekend)
reads: "The former Prime Minister only came to the Park officially on
September 6, 1941 to thank the codebreakers, dubbing them 'the geese
that laid the golden eggs - but never cackled'".

A Danish student has written asking us to run down the first
appearance. We cannot track it to 1941 in any published document in
our scans. The Bletchley decrypts were an official secret long after
the war and even Churchill could not allude to them in his postwar
memoirs, although he certainly might have said this privately to the
Bletchley codebreakers. The question is: when?

Sir Martin Gilbert tracks the quotation in the official biography,
Winston S. Churchill, vol. VI, Finest Hour 1939-1941 (London:
Heinemann, 1983), page 612:

After a short while, the code name 'Boniface' was replaced by 'CX',
the standard two letter symbol for a British-run secret agent in enemy
territory. In his own notes and telegrams, however, Churchill
continued
to refer to the Enigma messages as 'Boniface', and was later heard to
refer to the decyphering staff at Bletchley as 'the geese who laid the
golden eggs and never cackled'.* He also called them, more
colloquially,
his 'hens'.**

Footnotes:
* Quoted in Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War, The Secret Story, London,
1978, page 64.
** Communication from a Bletchley ‘hand’.

[Jon Lellenberg]

Full Lewin quote re golden eggs:  "Certain circles invented their own private code-words for the Bletchley intelligence, whether as an insurance or as an in-joke. Churchill's entourage knew Ultra as Boniface. Churchill himself, asking for Ultra papers, would say 'Where are my eggs?': he had a way of referring to the people at Bletchley as 'the geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled.'"  Then on in that paragraph to the Uncle Henry, Fred, and Z terms for the same intelligence product.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 8:46 AM, Jon Lellenberg <jonlel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Fn 3 on that page of Lewin's book (actually an endnote with its text on p. 365) deals with the classification marking ULTRA.  Two paragraphs down on p. 64, Lewin gives the "golden eggs" story briefly, along with other common euphemisms at the time for the source of the information -- Boniface, Uncle Henry, Fred, and Z.  There is no footnote to this paragraph giving further sources for the terms.

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[Jon Lellenberg]

Fn 3 on that page of Lewin's book (actually an endnote with its text on p. 365) deals with the classification marking ULTRA.  Two paragraphs down on p. 64, Lewin gives the "golden eggs" story briefly, along with other common euphemisms at the time for the source of the information -- Boniface, Uncle Henry, Fred, and Z.  There is no footnote to this paragraph giving further sources for the terms.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Editor/Finest Hour <tcc...@sneakemail.com> wrote:

[Editor/Finest Hour]

Jon, many thanks. Thus far we can only conclude this remark was made
passim, but it would seem logical that he might have said it to the
noble souls at Bletchley on his visit.

[Jim Lancaster]

From Anthony Cave Brown's 'C' The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Menzies (Macmillan, New York, 1987, page 398)

Aware of the discontent, Churchill visited Station X to encourage the staff, accompanied by "C," who kept well in the background. Churchill toured the entire project and appeared to be greatly impressed by what he saw and the high spirits he encountered; he described all and sundry as "the geese who lay the golden eggs and never cackled." At the end of the visit he gave a short address to a large number of Bletchleyites, using the bole of a demolished tree as a platform. He is supposed to have referred admiringly to the "conditions of creative anarchy" that he had encountered and remarked to "C" that "I know I told you to leave no stone unturned to find the necessary staff, but I didn't mean you to take me so literally." [9]

The [9] gives the primary source as Ronald Lewin's Ultra book (which regrettably I do not have) but the attribution differs from the one in OB VI, page 612, note 2, viz.

Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War (London, Hutchinson, 1971). p. 184

The date of WSC's visit is confirmed in Malcolm Kennedy's diary entry for 6 September 1941, viz.

The PM paid us a surprise visit this morning and after inspecting some of the work of BP gave a short talk thanking us for what we have done and stressing the great value of our work. Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, paid a similar visit of thanks at the time of the Bismarck show. Very decent of these old boys to come down in person to thank us when they themselves must be terribly loaded down with their own work and vast responsibilities. Instructions issued to keep Churchill's visit a secret, but all Bletchlev seems to know about it.

Malcolm Smith Station X (Channel 4 Books, 2000, page 78)

Malcolm Kennedy, specialising in diplomatic codes, was one of the first recruits to BP, and was one of the few to keep a diary.

Jim Lancaster

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[Chris Sterling]

I do have it and shall check when I get home...though mine is the American edition...

 

chs