Re: OBITUARY : Frank Lewis

Thanks for posting the obituaries of Frank Lewis.  I was fortunate 
enough to have known and worked with him at NSA during the 1950s, and I 
remember well, as surely must all who knew him.  He had probably the 
quickest mind of any person I've ever known.  Physically, he was short, 
thin, and continually bouncing with energy.  He talked fast, and 
invariably walked faster than anyone around him.  Most important of all, 
he had a "nose for plain test" that could have rivalled a bloodhound's.  
He was spectacularly unique.

Ron Wyllys
(A 1950s NSAer)


On 12/05/2010 02:04 PM, Martin Postranecky wrote:
> 04 Dec 2010
>
> OBITUARY : Frank Lewis
> ----------------------
> Frank Lewis, who has died aged 98, was an American codebreaker who set
> eccentrically difficult cryptic crosswords for more than 60 years in the
> American political weekly The Nation.
>
> Many cryptanalysts were recruited during the Second World War after
> displaying a fondness and aptitude for crosswords. Lewis, however,
> discovered the joys of the puzzles only after being seconded to Bletchley
> Park. On his return to the United States he joined the National Security
> Agency, but embarked on a side-career as a crossword setter.
>
> He was particularly cunning when punning. When he clued "Doth thith make
> the heart grow fonder", the solution - "Absinthe" - prompted
> groans from coast to coast. Of his clues that contained a question- or
> exclamation-mark, Lewis's personal favourite was "Little skipper"
> Answer : "Truant".
>
> His anagrams could be devilishly daunting or pointedly pithy - in one of
> his puzzles "Change of heart" yielded the solution "Earth". Such a
> clue might affront some British setters, but Lewis ignored the convention
> whereby clues divide into two or more components, one of which is a
> definition of the answer. Indeed he would think nothing of using multiple
> components, or sometimes only one. His clue "S", for example, led to
> the solution "Largess".
>
> But he did not always submit to his flights of fancy. Though tempted to
> provide "Summer" as the clue to the answer "Pride" ( summer, in
> American parlance, also coming before a fall ) Lewis conceded that such a
> clue would be "carrying things a trifle too far".
>
> Many solvers struggled with "Upbraided after dinner" before realising
> that the solution was "Dessert" - the inversion ( going up ) of
> "tressed", meaning "braided". But such was the popularity of his
> puzzles that even registered Republicans were known to subscribe to the
> famously liberal Nation, purely to be able to settle down with a Lewis
> brainteaser..../snip/
>
>
> ....In 1939, while languishing in the death benefits section of the civil
> service, he was headhunted by Colonel William Friedman, head of the US
> Army's cryptography operations, who gave him a job helping to break the
> code used by the Japanese navy to coordinate its wartime fleet.
>
> Towards the end of the war this assignment led to a posting at the
> Bletchley Park code breaking station.
>
> At Friedman's invitation, Lewis then followed him back to Washington and
> the National Security Agency, helping American spies to crack top-secret
> codes. He remained at the NSA as a cryptanalyst until his retirement in
> 1969. Much of his work remains classified..../snip/
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/8180268/Frank-Lewis.html
>
> http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01777/lewis_1777783f.jpg
>
>
> http://www.thenation.com/article/156802/puzzlers-puzzler-frank-w-lewis
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/arts/03lewis.html
>