Gordon Welchman - After World War II

After World War II

Welchman moved to the United States in 1948, and taught the first computer course at MIT. He followed this by employment with Remington Rand and Ferranti. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1962. In that year, he joined the MITRE Corporation, working on secure communications systems for the US military. He retired in 1971, but was still retained as a consultant. In 1982, McGraw-Hill published his book The Hut Six Story in the USA, the British version being published by Allen Lane. The book was frowned on by the National Security Agency, and its author lost his security clearance (and therefore his consultancy with MITRE), and was forbidden to discuss his book or his wartime work with the media. The offending book was, however, not banned. His final conclusions and corrections to the story of wartime codebreaking were contained in a paper published posthumously in 1986 (Welchman having died in 1985) 'From Polish Bomba to British Bombe: the birth of Ultra' in Intelligence & National Security, Vol 1, No l. The entire paper was included in the revised edition of The Hut Six Story published in 1997 by M & M Baldwin.

He was survived by three children, two stepchildren, and eight grandchildren.