The Secret Sentry

by Matthew M. Aid

  55. AFSA’s fiscal year 1951 budget (all of which came from financial contributions made by the three military services) came to about $23 million, $13.9 million of which was “donated” to AFSA from ASA’s fiscal year 1951 command budget. See Tentative Plans for FY 1952 Budget of Armed Forces Security Agency—Part I Operating Plans . . . Part II Budget Summary, April 6, 1950, RG-319, entry 1 (UD) Index to Army Chief of Staff Top Secret Decimal File 1950, box 5, file 040 Armed Forces Security Agency, NA, CP; memorandum, Pace to Director, Armed Forces Security Agency, Fiscal Year 1951 Financing for AFSA, June 14, 1950, RG-319, entry 2 (UD) Army Chief of Staff Decimal File 1950, box 552, file 040 AFSA, NA, CP.

  56. JCS 2010/10, Report by the Armed Forces Communication Intelligence Advisory Council to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Orga nization of the Armed Forces Security Agency, September 30, 1949, Enclosure B, p. 47, RG-218, CCS 334 (NSA), sec. 2, NARA FOIA.

  57. TS Cont. No. SD-39819, memorandum, Stone to Director of Intelligence, U.S. Army, Command Responsibility for ASA Fixed Intercept Installations, March 3, 1950; memorandum for the record, AFSA Conference with ASA Concerning Policy Questions, March 1, 1950, both in RG-319, entry 47A G-2 Top Secret Decimal File 1942–1952, box 13, file 676.3 thru 800.2 ’50, NARA FOIA.

  58. NSA OH-1981-01, oral history, Interview with Herbert L. Conley, March 5, 1984, p. 59, partially declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

  59. NSA OH-11-82, oral history, Interview with Captain Wesley A. Wright, USN, May 24, 1982, p. 75, NSA FOIA.

  60. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 184.

  61. Williams and Dickerson, The Invisible Cryptologists, p. 19.

  62. As of 1950, the other members of Jack Gurin’s plaintext unit were Olin Adams, Susan Armstrong, James Hones, James Honea, First Lieutenant Justin McCarty, Juliana Mickwitz, Nicholas Murphy, and Constantin Oustinoff. ASA, ASA Summary Annual Report FY 1948, p. 33n, IN-SCOM FOIA; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 169. Gurin background from NSA Newsletter, October 1965, p. 13, NSA FOIA; Williams and Dickerson, The Invisible Cryptologists, p. 17.

  63. Study of Joint Organizations for the Production of Communications Intelligence and for Security of U.S. Military Communications (Stone Board Report), December 27, 1948, part A: Communications Intelligence, p. 16, DOCID: 3187441, NSA FOIA.

  64. Memorandum, USCIB to Secretary of Defense, Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, May 12, 1949; memorandum for the Secretary of Defense from Admiral Louis Denfield, USN, Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, June 30, 1949; memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, June 23, 1949, all in RG-330, entry 199 OSD Decimal File 1947–1950, box 61, file CD 11-1-2, NA, CP. For the precipitous decline of AFSA Far Eastern, Chinese, and North Korean missions, see Guy R. Vanderpool, “COMINT and the PRC Intervention in the Korean War,” Cryptologic Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1996): p. 8, NSA FOIA.

  65. Brownell Committee Report, June 13, 1952, pp. 83–84, NSA FOIA.

  66. In lieu of decrypts, the best that the American and British intelligence analysts could do was try to map the Soviet diplomatic radio nets in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and monitor the flow of communications traffic along them. See, for example, ASA, ID, RU-TAF-GEN-I #24, Opening of Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv, August 13, 1948, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2744, NA, CP; ASA, ID, RU-TAF-GEN-1 #28, Soviet Operated Diplomatic Radio Links, December 2, 1948, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2742, NA, CP; S/ARU/C728, Soviet Diplomatic W/T Network, December 9, 1948, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2739, NA, CP; S/AQP/C61, Cipher Traffic Between Moscow and Soviet Embassy, New Delhi, January 3, 1949, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2742, NA, CP; ASA, ID, RU-TAF-GEN-P #1, Traffic Analysis Fusion General Periodic #1, January 12, 1949, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2742, NA, CP; S/ARU/C880, Soviet Diplomatic Wireless Link: Moscow-Oslo, March 14, 1949, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2739, NA, CP. All reclassified by the U.S. Navy.

  67. T/S/002/103, Periodic Note— the RUR Networks, February 12, 1949, RG-38, Translations of Intercepted Enemy Radio Traffic, 1940–1946, box 2739, NA, CP. Reclassified by the U.S. Navy.

  68. Benson and Warner, Venona, pp. xxiv–xxvi.

  69. Of the 206 Russian spies identified by the FBI, 101 had left the United States by 1955 and could not be prosecuted, including 61 Russian officials; 11 had died; 14 were cooperating with the FBI; and 15 were prosecuted. These individuals were Abraham Brothman, Judith Coplon, Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Valentine A. Gubitchev (Judith Coplon’s KGB handler), Miriam Moskowitz, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, Alfred Slack, Morton Sobell, Jack Soble, Myra Soble, William Perl, and Alger Hiss. This left 77 individuals whom the FBI had investigated but the U.S. Justice Department could not or would not prosecute. Memorandum, Belmont to Boardman, November 27, 1957, pp. 2–3, FBI Venona Files, FBI FOIA Reading Room, Washington, DC.

  70. Currie moved to Colombia in 1950 to help that nation liberalize its economy. He remained there for the rest of his life, dying in Bogotá on December 23, 1993, at the age of ninety-one. Memorandum, Belmont to Boardman, February 1, 1956, p. 9, FBI Venona Files, FBI FOIA Reading Room, Washington, DC.

  71. Weisband FBI File, Documents No. 65-59095-15, 65-59095-606, and 65-59095-628, FBI FOIA; Howard Benedict, “Book Says U.S. Broke Soviet Code, Implicating Rosenbergs,” Associated Press, March 3, 1980.

  72. Brownell Committee Report, pp. 113–14, NSA FOIA; Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, “American Cryptology During the Korean War— A Preliminary Verdict,” June 2000, p. 3, paper presented at the 26th Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, June 23, 2000, Toronto, Canada.

  73. Woodrow J. Kuhns, ed., Assessing the Soviet Threat: The Early Cold War Years (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997), p. 11, n. 39.

  74. Memorandum, Hillenkoetter to Executive Secretary, NSC, Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, April 20, 1949, p. 46, enclosure to memorandum, Allen to Secretary of the Army et al., Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, April 28, 1949, RG-319, 1949–1950 TS, Hot File 091.412, box 165, file 091 Soviet Union, NA, CP; memorandum, Bauman to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Military Personnel Requirements of AFSA, June 6, 1950, RG-319, entry 47E Army G-2 Decimal File 1949–1950; memorandum, Brown to Wenger, Military Personnel Requirements of the Armed Forces Security Agency, June 7, 1950, RG-319, entry 47E Army G-2 Decimal File 1949–1950, both in box 87, file 320.2 1949–1950 (2 Aug 46), NA, CP; memorandum, Chief, Staff C and D to Assistant Director, Special Operations, Steps Necessary to Place CIA, Particularly OSO, in a Position to Adequately Fulfill Basic Responsibilities During the Present and Inevitable Future Emergencies, July 10, 1950, p. 3, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP84-00499R000700090019-1, NA, CP.

  75. Johnson, “A Preliminary Verdict,” p. 3.

  76. David Halberstam, The Coldest War (New York: Random House, 2007), p.1.

  2: The Storm Breaks

  1. This chapter supplements with newly declassified documents the author’s previously published detailed examination of the role played by SIGINT in the Korean War, for which see Matthew M. Aid, “U.S. Humint and Comint in the Korean War: From the Approach of War to the Chinese Intervention,” Intelligence and National Security, vol. 14, no. 4 (Winter 1999): pp. 17–23; Matthew M. Aid, “American Comint in the Korean War (Part II): From the Chinese Intervention to the Armistice,” Intelligence and National Security, vol. 15, no. 1 (Spring 2000): pp. 14–49.

  2. ASA, History, Army Security Agency and Subordinate Units, Fiscal Year 1951, vol. 2, p. 2, INSCOM FOIA; Report to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, June 13, 1952, p. 29, NSA FOIA; Russell “Hop” Harriger, A Historical Study of the Air Force Security Service and Korea: June 1950–October 1952, October 2, 1952, p. 4, AIA FOIA; Jame
s E. Pierson, A Special Historical Study: USAFSS Response to World Crises, 1949–1969 (San Antonio, TX: USAFSS Historical Office, 1970), p. 1, AIA FOIA; Richard A. “Dick” Chun, A Bit on the Korean COMINT Effort, working notes prepared for the NSA History Office, 1971, DOCID 321697, NSA FOIA; Thomas L. Burns, The Origins of the National Security Agency: 1940–1952 (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1990), p. 84, NSA FOIA; Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–1989, bk. 1, The Struggle for Centralization, 1945–1960 (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1995), p. 39, NSA FOIA; Benson K. Buffham, “The Korean War and AFSA,” The Phoenician, Spring 2001: p. 7; report, On the 20th Anniversary of the Korean War: An Informal Memoire by the ORE Korean Desk Officer, Circa 1948–1950, undated, p. 22, RG-263, entry 17, box 4, file CIA Reporting on ChiComs in Korean War, NA, CP; letter, Morton A. Rubin to author, May 5, 1992. The “North Korean target was ignored” quote is from Jill Frahm, So Power Can Be Brought into Play: SIGINT and the Pusan Perimeter (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 2000), p. 4.

  3. Memorandum, USCIB to Secretary of Defense, May 12, 1949; memorandum, Denfield to Secretary of Defense, Atomic Energy Program of the USSR, June 30, 1949, both in RG-330, entry 199 Central Decimal File 1947–1950, box 61, file CD 11-1-2, NA, CP; Russell “Hop” Harriger, A Historical Study of the Air Force Security Ser vice and Korea: June 1950–October 1952, October 2, 1952, p. 2, AIA FOIA; historical paper, The U.S. COMINT Effort During the Korean War: June 1950–August 1953, January 6, 1954, pp. 2–3, DOCID 3216598, NSA FOIA; interviews, Frank B. Rowlett and Louis W. Tordella. Quote from Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, p. 4. Rubin quote from interview with Morton A. Rubin.

  4. Historical paper, The U.S. COMINT Effort During the Korean War: June 1950–August 1953, January 6, 1954, p. 2, DOCID 3216598, NSA FOIA; Richard A. “Dick” Chun, A Bit on the Korean COMINT Effort, working notes prepared for the NSA History Office, 1971, p. 1, DOCID 321697, NSA FOIA; Burns, Origins, p. 85; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 39; David A. Hatch and Robert Louis Benson, The Korean War: The SIGINT Background (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 2000), p. 5; Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, p. 4.

  5. ASA, Pacific, ASAPAC Summary Annual Report, FY 1951, p. 63, INSCOM FOIA; Hatch and Benson, The Korean War, p. 8; interviews with Morton Rubin and Clayton Swears.

  6. Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, “Signals Intelligence in the Korean War,” paper presented at the 26th Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, June 23, 2000, Toronto, Canada; Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, pp. 6–7; John Milmore, #1 Code Break Boy (Haverford, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2002), pp. 33, 40–41, 47.

  7. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, pp. 43, 55; Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, p. 7; NSA OH-1999-51, oral history, Interview with Benson K. Buffham, June 15, 1999, p. 33, NSA FOIA.

  8. Johnson, “Signals Intelligence”; Hatch and Benson, The Korean War, p. 9. See also Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953 (New York: Times Books, 1987), p. 171. Polk quote from April 25, 1991, letter to author from General James H. Polk. Woolnough quote from Senior Officers Debriefing Program, Oral History of General James K. Woolnough, vol. 1, p. 31, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

  9. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 43; Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, “American Cryptology During the Korean War—A Preliminary Verdict,” June 2000, p. 5, paper presented at the 26th Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, June 23, 2000, Toronto, Canada; Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, p. 12; “SIGINT in the Defense of the Pusan Perimeter: Korea 1950,” manuscript, date unknown, NSA FOIA; Blair, Forgotten War, p. 240.

  10. Memorandum, GHQ FEC G-2, Operations Branch to C/S ROK, JSO/KLO Report No. 17, 130030K Aug 1950, RG-6, box 14, folder 6, Correspondence: Memoranda/Messageforms, 23 July–August 30, 1950, MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, VA; memorandum, GHQ FEC G-2, Operations Branch to C/S ROK, JSO/KLO Report No. 19, August 15, 1950, RG-6, box 14, folder 6, Correspondence: Memoranda/Messageforms, 23 July–August 30, 1950, MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, VA; message, G 10011 KGI, CG, EUSAK REAR to CG EUSAK FORWARD, August 19, 1950, RG-338 Records of the Eighth U.S. Army, entry 116 ACofS, G-2 Outgoing Radio Messages 1950–1951, box 50, file: Comeback Copies— 1950, NA, CP; DA TT 3708, Telecon, WASH and CINCFE, August 30, 1950, p. 8, RG-59, Decimal File 1950–1954, box 4268, file: 795.00/8-3050, NA, CP.

  11. Memorandum, GHQ FEC G-2, Operations Branch to C/S ROK, JSO/KLO Report No. 17, 130030K Aug 1950, RG-6, box 14, folder 6, Correspondence: Memoranda/Messageforms, 23 July–August 30, 1950, MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, VA; SRC-3927, CIA, Situation Summary, August 25, 1950, p. 1, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file: Situation Summary, HSTL, Independence, MO.

  12. HQ Eighth U.S. Army Korea, Appendix No. 1 to Annex A (Intelligence) to Operations Plan 10, September 10, 1950, pp. 4–5; TS message, Dickey to Davidson, undated but circa September 11, 1950, both in RG-338, Rec ords of Eighth U.S. Army, entry 113, box 44, file 322.1 1950, NA, CP.

  13. CIA, Situation Summary, August 18, 1950, p. 1, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file Situation Summary, HSTL, In de pen dence, MO; report, AFSA [deleted]-1230/50, WS-[PKC 321], North Korean, September 14, 1950, NSA FOIA; report, AFSA [deleted]-1305/50, WS-[PKC 360], North Korean, September 14, 1950, NSA FOIA; SRC-4232, CIA, Situation Summary, September 15, 1950, p. 2, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file Situation Summary, HSTL, Independence, MO; SRC-4397, CIA, Situation Summary, September 22, 1950, p. 1, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file Situation Summary, HSTL, Inde pen dence, MO; Frahm, Power Can Be Brought, p. 13.

  14. Milmore, #1 Code Break Boy, pp. 57–58.

  15. ASA, History, Army Security Agency and Subordinate Units, FY 1950, p. 28, INSCOM FOIA; ASA, History, Army Security Agency and Supporting Units, FY 1951, vol. 2, pp. 3, 18–22, INSCOM FOIA; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 44; Guy R. Vanderpool, “COMINT and the PRC Intervention in the Korean War,” Cryptologic Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1996): pp. 9–10, NSA FOIA; Hatch and Benson, The Korean War, p. 9; Johnson, “Signals Intelligence in the Korean War.”

  16. CIA, Situation Summary, October 27, 1950, p. 3, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, HSTL, Independence, MO; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, pp. 44–45; Vanderpool, “COMINT and the PRC Intervention,” pp. 11, 14; Hatch and Benson, The Korean War, p. 9.

  17. Department of the Army, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Intelligence, Periodic Intelligence Report on Soviet Intentions and Activities, July 7, 1950, tab “A,” p. 1, RG-319, entry 4 1950 Chief of Staff Top Secret Decimal Files, box 3, 091 Russia Case #5, NA, CP; memorandum for record, November 15, 1950, RG-341, entry 214 file 2-17100-2-17199, NA, CP; Cynthia M. Grabo, “The Watch Committee and the National Indications Center: The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Warnings, 1950–1975,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, vol. 3, no. 3: p. 367.

  18. Interviews with Morton A. Rubin and Louis Tordella. Panikkar’s background from K. M. Panikkar, In Two Chinas: Memoirs of a Diplomat (London: Allen and Unwin, 1955) and K. M. Panikkar, An Autobiography (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1977).

  19. Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Current Soviet and Chinese Communist Intentions, No. 1, August 8, 1950, p. 2, RG-59, entry 1561 Lot 58D776 INR Subject Files 1945–1956, box 17, file: Current Soviet and Chinese Intentions 8-8-50, NA, CP; CIA, Interim Situation Summary, September 30, 1950, p. 1, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file: Situation Summary, HSTL, Independence, MO.

  20. SRC-4635, CIA, Situation Summary, October 6, 1950, p. 2, President’s Secretary’s files, box 211, file: Situation Summary, HSTL, In de pendence, MO.

  21. CIA, Interim Situation Summary, September 30, 1950, p. 1, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 211, file: Situation Summary, HSTL, In de pen dence, MO; Vanderpool, “COMINT and the PRC Intervention,” p. 14; Hatch and Benson, The Korean War, p. 9. See also message
no. 792, Moscow to Secretary of State, September 29, 1950, RG-59, Decimal File 1950–1954, box 4298, file: 795A.5/9-2950, NA, CP.

  22. Memorandum, McConaughy to Jessup and Rusk, Credibility of K.M. Panikkar, Indian Ambassador to Communist China, October 12, 1950, RG-59, entry 399A Office of Chinese Affairs Top Secret Subject Files: 1945–1950, box 18, file: 1950 TS Formosa: August–December, NA, CP.

  23. Thomas J. Christensen, “Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace,” International Security, vol. 17, no. 1 (Summer 1992): pp. 151–52; Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 172–77.

  24. For the Panikkar warning, see message no. 828, New Delhi to Secretary of State, October 3, 1950, RG-59, Decimal File 1950–1954, box 4268, file: 795.00/10-350, NA, CP; British Embassy, Washington, DC, Message Received from His Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires, Peking, dated 3rd October, 1950, RG-59, Decimal File 1950–1954, box 4298, file: 795A.5/10-550, NA, CP; memorandum, Clubb to Merchant, Chinese Communist Threat of Intervention in Korea, October 4, 1950, RG-59, entry 399A Office of Chinese Affairs Top Secret Subject Files: 1945–1950, box 18, file: 1950 TS Korea: June–October, NA, CP. See also memorandum, Bolling to Chief of Staff, U.S. Intelligence Coverage of the Relationship of Communist China to the Korean War from 25 June to 24 November 1950, May 7, 1951, p. 12, RG-319, entry 1041, ID No. 928809, NA, CP; Bruce W. Bidwell, Col., USA (Ret.), History of the Military Intelligence Division, Department of the Army General Staff, 1962, part 7, Korean Conflict: 25 June 1950–27 July 1953, p. V-16, OCMH FOIA. For the Dutch warning, see Department of State, Daily Staff Summary, October 3, 1950, p. 1, RG-59, entry 3049 Daily Staff Summary 1944-71, box 10, NA, CP; message no. 490, The Hague to Secretary of State, October 3, 1950, Papers of Harry S. Truman, Selected Rec ords Relating to the Korean War, box 7, item no. 18, HSTL, Inde pen dence, MO; memorandum, Clubb to Merchant, General Whitney’s Latest Remarks Concerning Chinese Communist Intentions to Intervene in North Korea, April 22, 1951, p. 2, RG-59, entry 1207 Rec ords of the Office of Chinese Affairs— “P” Files, box 22, file 13p Korea TS, NA, CP.