Monday, January 7, 2008

Stanley Edward Coffin, 91, a retired analyst with the National Security Agency, died of respiratory failure Dec. 18 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County. He was an Arlington resident for 62 years.

In 1945, Mr. Coffin was a student at Columbia University when he saw a job notice for a "code clerk," a job that he thought sounded interesting and would help pay his college expenses. He found out shortly afterward that the employer was the NSA.

He dropped out of Columbia and went to work at the NSA's Arlington Hall headquarters, where he was put in charge of a 26-person section. He trained the group in code breaking and also received a bachelor's degree from American University in the late 1940s.

Mr. Coffin had a penchant for code breaking that predated his career at the NSA, his son said. In a family oral history, the elder Coffin recalled that he worked on German intelligence toward the end of World War II and was able to uncover vital intelligence on Germany's ally, Japan, German activities in Argentina and Nazi spies in the United States.

In the oral history, he also recalled decoding a message that the shah of Iran, in the United States for medical treatment, was targeted for assassination when he returned home. Government officials in Iran were alerted, and the shah was unharmed.

Mr. Coffin also worked on solving codes from intelligence agencies in China, Vietnam and Eastern Europe. He was in charge of a code-breaking section throughout his NSA career and was proud of being voted top supervisor. He retired in the mid-1980s.

"There was never a code I couldn't solve," he said. "Some just took longer than others."

Mr. Coffin was born in Boston. His parents were ministers who rotated to different churches, so he grew up in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. He was a football and baseball player in high school and was valedictorian of his 1935 graduating class.

He was a student for two years at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., before dropping out to help his father run a gas station during the Depression. After 15 months at the gas station, he enrolled at Columbia.

A cross-country runner in college, he enjoyed sports his whole life, particularly baseball, football and hockey. He was a member of Central United Methodist Church in Arlington, where he taught a Sunday school class for 40 years. He also enjoyed reading and writing and at the time of his death was doing Library of Congress research for a book about George Washington.

Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Margaret Coffin of Arlington, and a son, Richard E. Coffin of Waldorf.

-- Joe Holley