Why did Roosevelt and Churchill use voice-based telecommunication, instead of simpler text-based options which were easier to encrypt?

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Accepted answer

During that period, both Churchill and Roosevelt were old men more used to hand written letters than "high technology" teletype writers.

Teletype writers are NOISY!

Using teletype writers can be a slow process & thus make a l-o-n-g conversation.

Telephones, despite sophisticated encryption technology, are immediate and more intimate. In addition to hearing what the other person is saying, much can be ascertained from tone of voice, pace of speech, pauses and delays of speech.

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For a print work I recommend Francis L. Loewenheim, Harold D. Langley, & Manfred Jonas, Editors; Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence, Dutton, 1975. Contains some 600 or so of the more than 1700 cable messages which passed between Roosevelt and Churchill from shortly after the start of the war in 1939 until April 1945.

Or if you really want to see something on the subject of Roosevelt-Churchill communications visit here at the FDR Library. Scroll down to the Series 1 messages and find the list of communiques October 1939 to April 1945 all available in digital format.

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