Decoding the Deviltells the shocking true story of two segregated codebreaking units in the Army's intelligence agencies during World War II and the Cold War.

The result of a racial hiring quota, the Commercial Code unit freed the US from relying on British intelligence on the Axis powers’ trade relations and broke critical Japanese codes.

Led by William Coffee, the unit employed professors, college graduates, and other professionals who decrypted and translated messages from Spanish, German, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

After World War II, the Russian Plaintext Unit countered the growing threat of Soviet nuclear war. A top-secret operation, the all-Black unit worked under armed guard and was the Allies’ main source of intelligence on the Soviet atomic program from 1947 until the early 1950s.

Decoding the Devil highlights the Black cryptologists’ critical contribution to national security in the civil rights era and promises to captivate readers with its fresh perspective on this pivotal moment in American history.