Meredith Gardner

Meredith Knox Gardner
Gardner, at far left, working with cryptanalysts
Born	October 20, 1912 Okolona, Mississippi
Died	August 9, 2002 Chevy Chase, Maryland
Residence	Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Education	master's degree in languages
Alma mater	University of Texas University of Wisconsin
Occupation	linguist, cryptographer
Years active	retired–1972
Employer	National Security Agency and its predecessors
Known for	decrypted Venona papers, leading to arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Spouse(s)	Blanche Hatfield Gardner
Children	son, Arthur Hatfield Gardner daughter, Ann Martin 11 grandchildren
Relatives	cousin, Patrick Buchanan
Notes

Meredith Knox Gardner (October 20, 1912 – August 9, 2002) was an American linguist and codebreaker. Gardner worked in counter-intelligence, decoding Soviet intelligence traffic regarding espionage in the United States, in what came to be known as the Venona project.

Gardner was born in Okolona, Mississippi, and grew up in Austin, Texas. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, he earned a master's degree in German from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was a teaching assistant from 1938 to 1940. He was a linguist and professor of German at the University of Akron when the United States Army's Signals Intelligence Service recruited him to work on breaking German codes. Soon after, he started working on the Japanese codes instead, mastering the Japanese language in only a few months.

In 1946, Gardner began work on a highly-secret project (later codenamed Venona) to break the Soviet cryptosystems. The Soviet encryption system involved the use of one-time pads, and thus was thought to be unbreakable. However, the Soviets made the mistake of reusing certain pages of their pads.