James Tate's Final Poem

I just found out from The Paris Review that James Tate's final prose poem was left in his typewriter. It's witty and surreal. Fantastic! This is good, but I'm fond of "Very Late, But Not Too Late."

The Countdown to the Type-In and Type-In Press

If you were looking to gather with some like-minded typewriter lovers this weekend, you are in luck because the 6th Phoenix Type-In is happening this weekend at First Draft in Changing Hands. From 1-4 you can get a chance to meet typewriter collectors from across the valley, have a refreshing drink from First Draft, possibly win a typewriter, and see some great machines.

The 6th Phoenix Type-In will include:

• A typewriter clinic with Bill Wahl from the Mesa Typewriter Exchange. Bill will be on-hand to give his professional opinion about your typewriter.

• Jake Fischer, the typewriter wunderkind, will be holding a speed typing competition which may include fabulous prizes.

• A special exhibit of The Typewriters of Mad Men. You can see, in person IBM Selectrics and a small collection of typewriters featured on the show. 

• A chance to win a typewriter. Just put your First Draft receipt in the box and you can win one of three fantastic, beautiful, mid-century typewriters.

Please come out! You'll have a lot of fun.

On another note, the 6th Phoenix Type-In was featured in a New Times article. You can find that story here:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/the-6th-annual-phoenix-type-in-celebrates-typewriters-at-changing-hands-7343100

I hope to see you on Saturday!

The Selectstar

The Rt. Rv. Munk on To Type, Shoot Strait, and Speak the Truth describes his recent purchase of a Selectric at a garage sale. $5 was the price and that seems about fair. Selectrics are everywhere and many in The Typosphere have at least one lying around somewhere. To my eyes the IBM Selectric type element always looks a little suspicious.

Thanks should go to Georg Sommeregger because I used his Selectric
type ball image for this frightening composite.

Selectic Stairway to Heaven

It happened almost by accident; three IBM (Ee-bee-ems as Toddler Magic Margin calls them) Selectrics. The strangest thing is that they are all the same color. One, two, and three. The Right Reverent Munk has also seen a surfeit of Selectrics come his way, although his come with natty keys.  Mine are more...serious?...somber?...Blue Chip! All typewriters are welcome during ITAM!

Silencing Chatty Selectrics: Operation GUNMAN

On March 25, 1985 Dan Rather reported that the Soviet Union had successfully penetrated the United States Embassy in Moscow. The Soviets had placed bugs inside IBM Selectric IIs located in sensitive areas. These bugs were able to easily read what was being typed on these typewriters. Until this incident occurred, US Security agencies believed that the USSR had only been bugging audio, but the typewriter bugs were the first plain-text threat they ever encountered. Moreover, the bug itself was uniquely created to take advantage of the electro-mechanical nature of the IBM Selectric II. All-told 16 bugs were found hidden inside IBM Selectrics (both IIs and IIIs) and the story of their discovery and operation is a fascinating part of typewriter lore.

The relationship between the United States and Soviet Union during the late 70s and 80s was strained and both sides were actively using covert methods to infiltrate each other’s embassies. While the extent of the United States’ eavesdropping program is still shrouded in mystery, the Soviets’ exploits are well documented.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. having show-and-tell in the UN.

Take, for example, the great seal given to the American Ambassador and hung in his private residence in Russia. This seal was a gift from Young Pioneer Organization and in addition to being a beautiful carving, contained an ingenious bug that was powered using radio frequency, RF. This is the same technology that makes RFID tags work. The operation of this device stymied US investigators who didn’t understand how it worked.

The history is mum, but something prompted the start of a new program called Operation GUNMAN. This program was designed by the NSA to replace equipment and technology in America’s embassy in Moscow and Leningrad in a manner that would not alert the Soviets to the discovery of the Selectric bugs.

Replacing the entire American mission's compliment of communication equipment was going to be a serious task. 250 IBM Selectrics would be required, and they needed to transport the typewriters without raising the suspicions of the Soviets. The NSA contacted IBM's Office Products division looking for the required typewriters.

No dice.

Why? 250 Selectrics that ran on 220v mains would be hard to come by in short-order. They were out of stock and getting the right motor would take a while. IBM sent the NSA all 50 of the 220v typewriters they had. A decision was made to replace the typewriters in the 50 most information-sensitive departments in the embassy. 

The timing was right because these typewriters (along with teletypes and other devices) were going to be delivered in the spring when the embassy received other major shipments. The new non-bugged typewriters would be swapped out for the old machines. 

Here the official narrative is silent, but this is what I think happened: the NSA worked with several other agencies to create several anti-surveillance systems to be imbedded in the Selectrics. This would need to be done stateside and the completed machines would then be sent to Moscow and Leningrad in diplomatic pouches. What they did to the typewriters is still classified, but on the NSAW (Naval Support Activity, Washington) campus four trailers were set up. In the first trailer new machines were removed front their cartons and tested. They were x-rayed and those x-rays and operational information were included in a dossier on each machine so if one was suspected of being compromised, there would be non-compromised photos of all parts of the typewriter. In the second trailer secret counter-espionage methods were applied. The equipment was reboxed and sealed in the third trailer. The fourth trailer was for storage.

The equipment was transferred by diplomatic pouch and the swap occurred over the course of ten days. The swapped equipment was then returned to NSAW where a detailed analysis of how these devices were bugged was conducted. X-rays of the machines were done and by luck an unnamed technician found an interesting coil on the power switch of the Selectric.

Power switch.

This coil was hidden within the switch and would have never been visible to the naked eye. Also, because of the electrical nature of the coil it probably would have been overlooked had the technician not been familiar with the Selectric switch design. Further x-rays were completed and the ingenuity that went into creating this listening device became evident.

The Selectric uses a series of interposers and bails to determine rotation and the angle of the type element. The process utilizes a device called a whiffletree (for more information on the A/D converter in a Selectric see Bill Hammack’s very good video). The Soviets replaced the interposers with non-magnetic and non-magnetizable version. At the end of each interposer was placed a very strong magnet. This magnet, when an interposer was moved, tripped a Hall Effect sensor embedded in the interposer support comb. This corresponded to a letter on the keyboard and was sent to a small memory space in the device. When this storage was full, the device would send out the signal in a radio burst that could be picked up by agents listening elsewhere.

Location of replaced equipment.

When the device was not transmitting, the radio was silent. That was the genius of the system. Power came from the typewriter itself. 

There were also reports of another bar in the typewriter and the location and purpose of this was not clear. I find it likely that the bar was part of the antenna system. Selectrics were made of steel with aluminum housing. Without a properly tuned antenna it would have been difficult to hear a low-power device through the Selectric’s bodywork; it would have acted like a Faraday Cage.

Interesting as the technology was, what really caused the breach was a systemic failure in the State Department’s security. Inventory control was never completed on these typewriters and when they were first installed Soviet customs had the typewriter in their possession. No one knew how long, but it was evidently long enough for them to apply this special bug.

Soviet Portable from PTF/Davis

As compared to Soviet systems for data protection, the US was very lax. The USSR did not allow the use of electric typewriters to be used for drafting secure and classified information in their own embassies. Typewriters used for classified work were sent from Moscow to foreign embassies in diplomatic pouches. When the typewriters were not in use, they were stored in sealed containers in sealed location. Considering how the Soviets bugged the United States’ typewriters, their actions were in keeping with their own surveillance techniques.

In the Cold War spying and espionage was a central activity designed to keep the superpowers equal. For typewriter aficionados it is an interesting footnote in the history of typing.

Selectric Memory

This summer, so far, has been filled with teacher-y stuff. I have been revising the Junior English curriculum to ensure that it aligns properly with the new Common Core nation-wide standards. It has been an onerous task and pretty dry. I can say that Junior English now looks a lot like Junior English of yesteryear. Blessedly, not much has changed. Most of our work was done on the computer and that was a challenge.

I am not used to sitting in front of a computer for extended periods of time. The on-your-feet nature of teaching is much more my style. After hours of staring at a monitor I started to feel tired and my eyes started twitching. How do people in offices cope? Computers...pah!

In my time working in the purely digital realm, I found some time to tap out notes on an IBM Selectric still lurking in the school library. It was a joy to unplug form the digital even if I was still plugged into an outlet.

My interest in them has been piqued. That brings me to the picture above.

The Collective Noun Escapes Me

As you can tell from the picture that heads this post, I have come into a fair few IBM Selectric type elements. I echo the title of this post and wonder what collective noun should be applied to such a gathering? Would they be a grip, group, cache, herd, mob, clutch, murder, dole, plump, balding, team, bed, ward, convocation, stalk, leash, skulk, leap, or an exultation? Comment with your ideas.

With this new infusion of stuff I have become more and more interested in the IBM Selectric. Heretofore I have described them as "nice" and "not my thing," but as I spend more time with it I can see why so many people enjoy the company of this particular electric giant.

The hum is hypnotic.

I can remember a red one in the office where my Grandmother worked. I was allowed to use it whenever we visited. I–as many people–remember the sound of the motor gently humming while the element spun and bobbed across the surface of the paper.

I have more ideas beginning to take shape around this very intriguing typewriter.

In the mean time I have been neglecting the kindness of others. I should have posted a picture tonight, but I forgot. Absentmindedness does not diminish the kindness and generosity embodied in the lovely typewriter that Bill M. sent to me for use in the CTP. We have an identical brother to this particular typewriter and I know that it will be a welcome addition to the classroom. Thank you, Bill!