its very first director was william friedman. he starts with a staff of four individuals and by the end of world war ii there are 10,000 people working for the s.i.s., but in the beginning one of the most important missions they had was to try to help american policy makers and war fighters ascertain the future intentions of the japanese empire. they began a program in the early 1930's to break japanese diplomatic traffic. and the first system that they went after was called red. and what i'd like to do now is to point out to you a very rare and treasured artifact. this is an authentic japanese red machine. it was used during the 1930's to send and receive messages within the diplomatic corps. we believe this might be the last existing one -- we don't even think there's one in japan. the red code was broken by the signals intelligence service in 1935, due to the hard work of a team led by a man who would become a very famous and accomplished cryptanalist, or cryptologist, frank rowlett. his team is able to design a cipher wheel t

williams was 63 years old. >> brown: and we're joined now by budd friedman, he's the founder of the improv comedy club in hollywood, where williams often did his standup comedy act as a young man. and a. o. scott, who followed his movie and television careers as the new york times chief film critic. budd friedman, what do you remember of those early performances? what did you see in the young robin williams? >> i guess what is memorable, i've never forgotten his first time on stage. he knocked me out. he went all over the place physically and mentally. he was a joy to behold. he became a regular at the improvimprov from the first time set foot on stage. he would tear the audience apart. >> brown: was the show different every night? did he look like he was working at it? >> he never looked like he was working at it. my favorite story, i was courting this young lady about 34 years ago, i was crazy about her, i thought, she's got everything i need and she's not in show business. our first date, we went to see robin at the club, and she watched him and she said, you know, i think i could do this. i said, be a stand-up