Sabornisms

I was determined to keep it absolutely secret from the agency and everyone else. Then I thought about it, and I said well, you know, the agency's going to want to know what I said for obvious reasons.You know, did I write something pornographic, did I write something that absolutely torpedoed the agency? And so I offered it -- actually, the agency suggested that I give it to the Department of Historical Intelligence.

So I, with trepidation, said OK, how am I going to do this without giving them something tangible to remember? And so I went into the office of Historical Intelligence, which at that time was comprised of three people in a fairly dark room. And I had three pieces of paper with me, and I asked, "Listen, who has the best memory? I really want to entrust this code with the person with the best memory."

And two of the people pointed to one person and said, "She has an institutional memory. She remembers everything." And I asked her to leave the room.

So then I had two pieces of paper with the same thing on it. Which basically had the code, the plain text, but it was scrambled in such a way that you could read sentences, but you wouldn't get the whole picture. Sort of a need to know situation. So they, the two people, started reading it, and I realized quickly, and they realized quickly, the import of what they were doing. Because frankly, if I had deceived them in some way, and they had read this and said, "Oh, this is fine," and then the sculpture had gone up and it wasn't fine, then it was their job on the line.

It was a tremendous responsibility that they ended up not being able to accept. So at that time it was decided that I would give the code to William Webster at the dedication ceremony, which I did. In a sealed envelope, as carefully masked in such a way that you couldn't see inside as I could do at the time.

The CIA required Sanborn to write the solution down and present it to Webster so the agency wouldn't be embarrassed if the sculpture turned out to contain a message that was pornographic or critical of the agency. Sanborn gave officials an envelope with a wax seal. But Sanborn said he didn't give Webster the whole story.

"Well, you know, I wasn't completely truthful with the man," Sanborn said, laughing. "And I'm sure he realizes that. I mean that's part of trade craft, isn't it? Deception is everywhere.... I definitely didn't give him the last section, which has never been deciphered."