The Army’s Top Secret

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 formed to counter the growing threat of Soviet nuclear war. A top-secret operation, they worked under armed guard and were the Allies’ main source of Soviet intelligence from 1947 until the early 1950s.

 TOP SECRET highlights the Black cryptologists’ critical contribution to national security in the civil rights era and promises to captivate readers with its fresh perspective on World War II and the Cold War.

Coming from HarperCollins in 2025.

TOP SECRET tells 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.

“I am excited about this project. It is long overdue.”

―Liza Mundy, author of Code of Girls and The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA

“As a black cryptologist on submarines for 10 years, I was often unable to reconcile the contradictions of my race, cryptology, and the U.S Military. Nobody talked about the black cryptologists, and if I’d known about them and read a book, I prolly woulda felt less alone and had more historical context to what I was doing. I run a veterans writers workshop. I told them about the book, and it inspired them.”

― Steven Dunn, author of Water & Power

From the Archives

  • 1944

    The Commercial Code Unit. Coffee’s group was the first and only professional unit of African Americans in the Agency.

  • 1946

    Salvage Dump and Supply Division. Most African Americans held service positions in the Agency until the late 1950s.

  • 1948

    Building A, Arlington Hall Station. There are no official photos of the Russian Plaintext Unit, and their work remains classified.

  • 1954

    Bus Trip, Arlington Hall Station. The Army was officially desegregated in 1948, but racial tensions remained.