very high up asks, ‘Can you really be absolutely certain that this
particular Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps [German air force squadron] is
outside of Tobruk and not in Italy?’ you can answer, ‘Yes, that
was Oscar, we are absolutely sure.’ ”
The key thing about fists is that they emerge naturally.
Radio operators don’t deliberately try to sound distinctive. They
simply end up sounding distinctive, because some part of their
personality appears to express itself automatically and
unconsciously in the way they work the Morse code keys. The
other thing about a fist is that it reveals itself in even the
smallest sample of Morse code. We have to listen to only a few
characters to pick out an individual’s pattern. It doesn’t change
or disappear for stretches or show up only in certain words or
phrases. That’s why the British interceptors could listen to just a
few bursts and say, with absolute certainty, “It’s Oscar, which
means that yes, his unit is now definitely outside of Tobruk.”
An operator’s fist is stable.
What Gottman is saying is that a relationship between two
people has a fist as well: a distinctive signature that arises
naturally and automatically. That is why a marriage can be read
and decoded so easily, because some key part of human activity
— whether it is something as simple as pounding out a Morse