Francis Raven

Who was Francis Raven?

Francis Raven was an American cryptologist and an early employee of the National Security Agency.

He graduated from Yale University in 1934 and joined the United States Navy as a reserve officer, where he was assigned to the Naval Security Group. His commission was reactivated in 1940 and he rejoined the NSG, working on Japanese problems with Agnes Driscoll. After a brief period working on German ciphers he returned to Japanese issues, and starting in 1942 was part of a group that systematically solved many of the low level codes. These were important as a source of cribs used in working the JN-25 fleet code. He also worked on the JADE and CORAL machines, both of which were successfully cracked.

After the war he stayed on as a civilian employee of the NSG, then joining the Armed Forces Security Agency in 1946 and moving on to NSA at its formation in 1952. From 1956 on he held a series of executive posts within the agency, culminating in his appointment as chief of the Office of NSA's training program and played a major part in the development of two cryptology courses, an effort which won him several civilian awards.

In retirement he established a firm for genealogical research, in which he was active until his death in 1983.