The Secret Sentry

by Matthew M. Aid

  7. For Truman’s meeting on June 13, 1952, with Smith and Lay, see President Truman’s Presidential Appointments Calendar for June 13, 1952, Matthew J. Connelly Files, HSTL, Inde pendence, MO.

  8. Memorandum, Bradley to Lovett, July 17, 1952, RG-218, Bradley CJCS File, box 4, file 334 (A-L1952), NA, CP; memorandum, Samford to Twining, August 6, 1952, RG-341, entry 214, box 66, file 2-24400-2-24499, NA, CP; memorandum, G-2 to Chief of Staff, Brownell Special Committee Report, August 7, 1952, RG-319, entry 1 (UD) Army Chief of Staff Top Secret Correspondence, box 11, NA, CP; Official Diary, August 7, 1952, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79-01041A000100020158-9, NA, CP; memorandum, Twining to Secretary of Defense, August 8, 1952, RG-341, entry 214, box 66, file 2-24500-2-24599, NA, CP; memorandum, Howe to Armstrong, October 9, 1952, RG-59, entry 1561 Lot 58D776 INR Subject Files, box 27, file NSA, NA, CP (this document was reclassified by the CIA in 2005); Official Diary, October 10, 1952, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79-01041A000100020105-7, NA, CP; Official Diary, October 11, 1952, p. 1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79-01041A000100020104-8, NA, CP; ASA, Annual Historical Report, Army Security Agency Fiscal Year 1953, p. 15, INSCOM FOIA.

  9. For Truman signing the directive, see President Truman’s Presidential Appointments Calendar for October 24, 1952, Matthew J. Connelly Files, HSTL, In depen dence, MO.

  10. Memorandum, President Truman to Secretaries of State and Defense, Communications Intelligence Activities, October 24, 1952, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP77-00389R000100090045-8, NA, CP; NSA, National Security Agency Orga nization Manual, April 19, 1954, chap. 3, p. 1, NSA FOIA; CIA Historical Staff, Allen Welsh Dulles as DCI, vol. 2, pp. 157–58, RG-263, NA, CP; ASA, History of the Army Security Agency and Subordinate Units for Fiscal Year 1953, vol. 1, pp. 3–4, INSCOM FOIA; ASA, Annual Historical Report ASA G-3 Fiscal Year 1953, p. 16, INSCOM FOIA.

  4: The Inventory of Ignorance

  1. CIA, Office of Current Intelligence, Caesar-1, “The Doctors’ Plot,” July 15, 1953, p. 13; CIA, Office of Current Intelligence, Caesar-2, Death of Stalin, July 16, 1953, pp. 1–2, 11–14; CIA, Office of Current Intelligence, Caesar-4, Germany, July 16, 1953, p. 1, all in CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Caesar-Polo-Esau Papers, http://www.foia.cia.gov/ cpe.asp.

  2. For early HUMINT reporting on the East Berlin riots, see OCI No. 4491A, CIA, Office of Current Intelligence, Comment on East Berlin Uprising, June 17, 1953, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000677387, http://www.foia.cia.gov. For NSA per formance, confidential interviews.

  3. 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. 227, NSA FOIA.

  4. Commission on Orga nization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Task Force Report on Intelligence Activities in the Federal Government (Hoover Commission Report), May 1955, appendix 1, part 1, Report of Survey of National Security Agency, p. 48, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP86B00269R000900010001-0, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, pp. 228–29; interview with Frank Rowlett.

  5. CIA 36337-c, “The Foreign Intelligence Program,” February 10, 1954, p. 5, attached to memorandum, Office of Intelligence Coordination to Director of Central Intelligence, NSC Status Report, February 17, 1954, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001100070001-4, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 178. The “very dark” quote is taken from IAC-D-55/4, Intelligence Advisory Committee, NSC Status Report on the Foreign Intelligence Program, July 28, 1953, p. 6, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80R01731R000800070010-0, NA, CP.

  6. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, RP 77-10141CX, Probable Soviet Reactions to a Crisis in Poland, June 1977, pp. 3, 21–22, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000498549, http:// www.foia.cia.gov.

  7. “Situation in Hungary,” Current Intelligence Digest, October 24, 1956, p. 3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119732, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, NSC Briefing, Hungary, October 25, 1956, pp. 1–2, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119733, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; “The Hungarian Situation (as of 0100 EDT),” Current Intelligence Bulletin, October 27, 1956, pp. 3–4, 13, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119738, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum, Office of Current Intelligence to Deputy Director (Intelligence), Military Activity Connected with the Hungarian Crisis, October 27, 1956, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119739, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; “The Situation in Hungary (as of 0900, 1 November),” Current Intelligence Weekly Review, November 1, 1956, pp. 5–6, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119766, http://www.foia.cia.gov. For Bad Aibling monitoring these Russian radio transmissions, see David Colley, “Shadow Warriors: Intelligence Operatives Waged Clandestine Cold War,” VFW Magazine, September 1997.

  8. Memorandum, Office of Current Intelligence to Deputy Director (Intelligence), Military Activity Connected with the Hungarian Crisis, October 27, 1956, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119739, http://www.foia.cia.gov; “The Situation in Hungary (as of 0900, 1 November),” Current Intelligence Weekly Review, November 1, 1956, pp. 5–6, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119766, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  9. “New Large-Scale Mobilization in Israel,” Current Intelligence Bulletin, October 27, 1956, p. 6, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79T00975A002800070001-3, NA, CP; “Israel Approaching Complete Mobilization,” Current Intelligence Bulletin, October 28, 1956, p. 5, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79T00975A002800080001-2, NA, CP; message, JCS 91289, Joint Chiefs of Staff to Commander in Chief Strategic Air Command, October 29, 1956, box B206, file Item B-57673, Curtis E. LeMay Papers, Library of Congress; CIA, History Staff, Allen Welsh Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence, vol. 5, p. 12, RG-263, NA, CP; U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–57, vol. 16, Suez Crisis (Washington, DC: GPO, 1990), pp. 798–800, 834, 849.

  10. John L. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952– 1992 (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1996), p. 44.

  11. “The Situation in Hungary,” Current Intelligence Weekly Review, November 8, 1956, p. 8, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000119763, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  12. Op-922Y2F/jcr, Ser: 000582P92, memorandum, Chief of Naval Operations to Secretary of State et al., Marked Increase Noted in Soviet Submarine Operations Away from Home Waters, September 22, 1956, p. 2, DDRS; Watch Committee Report, undated but circa November 6–7, 1956, RG-218 JCS, Chairman’s File, Adm. Radford 1953–1957, box 47, file ME 1956, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 235.

  13. TS #141612-e, IAC-D-55/12, Annual Report to the National Security Council on the Status of the Foreign Intelligence Program (as of 30 June 1957), September 3, 1957, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79R00961A000300110011-1, NA, CP.

  14. Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Summary Study of Nine Worldwide Crises, Tab 7: Hungarian Crisis, October 1956, September 25, 1973, p. 2, DoD FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 984-4, Pentagon, Washington, DC; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 235.

  15. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 239.

  16. NSA Newsletter, December 1968, p. 3; NSA Newsletter, November 1977, p. 8, both NSA FOIA.

  17. John Prados, The Soviet Estimate (New York: Dial Press, 1982), pp. 41–43; interview with former senior intelligence official.

  18. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 107.

  19. Commission on Orga nization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Task Force Report on Intelligence Activities in the Federal Government, appendix 1, part 1, “Report of Survey of the National Security Agency,” May 1955, p. 18, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP86 B00269-R000900010001-0, NA, CP; “Response of USCIB to Report on Intelligence Activities in the Federal Government Prepared for the Commission on Organization of the Exec
utive Branch of the Federal Government by the Task Force on Intelligence Activities,” undated but circa June–July 1955, p. 2, DDRS; “Staff D Comments on Part I of Clark Report,” undated but circa July 1955, pp. 7–8, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78S05450A000100150023-8, NA, CP; CSM No. 374, CIA, Office of Research and Reports, current support memorandum, Soviets Plan Extensive High-Capacity Microwave Systems, March 29, 1956, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000234174, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA/RR IM-444, CIA, Office of Research and Reports, Intelligence Memorandum: Major Telecommunications Goals of the Soviet Sixth Five Year Plan (1956–60), January 9, 1957, p. 15, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79-T00935-A000400210004-4, NA, CP; U.S. Air Force Security Service, History of COMINT Collection Operations: Fiscal Year 1958, no date but circa 1959, pp. 14, 32, AIA FOIA; James S. Lay, History of the United States Intelligence Board, Part 2, sec. P, Summary of USIB Annual Reports to the NSC, no date, p. 194, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP79M00098A000200020001-7, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 231; David A. Hatch, “Quis Custodiet Ipsos Cus-todes?,” Cryptologic Almanac, February 2003, p. 2, NSA FOIA.

  20. The two best sources for details of the U-2 program are Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The CIA and the U-2 Program: 1954–1974 (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998); and Chris Pocock, The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown: A New History of the Early Years (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2000).

  21. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 175.

  22. SAPC 6081, memorandum, [deleted] to Project Director of Operations, NSA Support for AQUA-TONE, May 9, 1956, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP33-02415A000100100074-7, NA, CP. Quote from the “Cold War 101” chapter, p. 49, of the Jack M. Gallimore home page at http://www.aipress.com/jackmem/.

  23. Memorandum, ELINT Staff Officer to Special Assistant to the Director for Planning and Coordination, Review of Implementation of CIA Responsibilities Under Technological Capabilities Panel, July 11, 1957, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP61S00750A000400050014-6, NA, CP; NSA, 3/0/TALCOM/8-59, Status of Siberian Air Defense District Installations as of [deleted], December 1, 1959, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000500070004-9, NA, CP; CHAL-0914, Situation Estimate for Project Chalice: Fiscal Years 1961 and 1962, March 14, 1960, pp. 1– 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP33-02415A000200420002-0, NA, CP; TCS-7519-60-b, Accomplishments of the U-2 Program, May 27, 1960, p. 6, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP33-02415A000100070007-5, NA, CP. See also Pedlow and Welzenbach, CIA and the U-2 Program: 1954–1974, p. 101; Pocock, U-2 Spyplane, p. 48.

  24. Paul L. Allen, “Pusk Bad News for Spy Crews,” Tucson Citizen, November 23, 1998.

  25. The story of the Powers shootdown has been extensively covered in a number of books and articles, such as Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday (New York: Harper and Row, 1986). For the Rus-sian version of the U-2 shootdown incident, see Anatoliy Lokuchaev, “Okhota v Stratosfere,” Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, no. 4 (2000): p. 17.

  26. For SIGINT identification of ICBM construction activity at Plesetsk, see Utilization of Aerial Reconnaissance to Determine the Status of the Soviet ICBM Threat, September 8, 1959, p. 8, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP92B01090R002600270002-9, NA, CP; TCS No. 5819-59, Tab C, USSR Targets for Highest Priority Collection, 1959, p. 1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP92B01090R002600270004-7, NA, CP; memorandum, Reber to Deputy Director (Plans), ARC Recommendations for Future Targets as of 14 April 1960, April 14, 1960, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP61S00750A000600150007-1, NA, CP; Deployment Working Group of the Guided Missiles and Astronautics Intelligence Committee, Soviet Surface-to-Surface Missile Deployment, Tab I-P-1, October 1, 1962, p. 18, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T04757A000300010003-3, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 175. For Norwegian detection of signals coming from Plesetsk, see Rolf Tamnes, The United States and the Cold War in the High North (Oslo: ad Notam forlag AS, 1991), p. 135. For a description of the construction of the Plesetsk launch site based on Russian materials, see Steven J. Zaloga, Target America (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993), pp. 150–51.

  27. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 183.

  28. CHAL-1088-60, The Future of the Agency’s U-2 Capability, July 16, 1960, p. 6, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP62B00844R000200160034-9, NA, CP; letter, Prettyman et al. to Mc-Cone, February 27, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000009451, http://www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum for the record, Board of Inquiry— Francis Gary Powers, March 20, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002200070001-2, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 183; Beschloss, Mayday, pp. 30, 37, 356–57.

  29. Letter, Prettyman et al. to McCone, February 27, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000009451, http://www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum, Blanchard to Director of Central Intelligence, Technical Analysis of Powers U-2 Incident, February 27, 1962, pp. 3–4, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002200030001-6, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 1, p. 183.

  30. Memorandum for the record, Board of Inquiry— Francis Gary Powers, March 20, 1962, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002200020001-7, NA, CP.

  5: The Crisis Years

  1. $654 million SIGINT bud get figure from Memorandum of Discussion at the 473rd Meeting of the National Security Council, January 5, 1961, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 25, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters (Washington, DC: GPO, 2001), located at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ kennedyjf/xxv/index.htm, NSA’s personnel figures from Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–1989, bk. 2, Centralization Wins, 1960–1972 (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1995), p. 293, NSA FOIA; U.S. House of Representatives, Appropriations Committee, Military Construction Appropriations for 1964, 85th Congress, 1st session, 1963, p. 487; U.S. Army Military History Institute, oral history, Lt. General John J. Davis, USA (Ret.), 1986, p. 136, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, DC. CIA personnel and budget figures from report, CIA Activity Inventory, undated but circa 1963, p. 3, RG-263, entry 36, box 8, file 726, NA, CP.

  2. Memorandum, Secretary of Defense to Executive Secretary, National Security Council, August 17, 1960, DDRS; The Joint Study Group Report on Foreign Intelligence Activities of the United States Government, December 15, 1960, pp. 35–36, ASANSA, Matters Received Since January 1961, box 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.

  3. Frost background from “Vice Admiral Laurence H. Frost Is New Director,” NSA Newsletter, December 1, 1960, p. 2; “Admiral Laurence H. Frost, 74, Dies,” NSA Newsletter, June 1977, p. 4, both NSA FOIA; “Vice Adm. Laurence Frost, 74, Dies, Former National Security Agency Chief,” Washington Post, May 26, 1977.

  4. Interviews with Frank Rowlett, Louis Tordella, confidential sources; NSA OH-1983-14, oral history, Interview of Dr. Howard Campaigne, June 29, 1983, pp. 124–25, partially declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

  5. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 294.

  6. After leaving B Group in 1964, Shinn served as the NSA representative on a number of interdepartmental committees, including the Watch Committee. He died on December 11, 1968, at the age of fifty-eight. Shinn’s background from his obituary at NSA Newsletter, January 1969, p. 7, NSA FOIA.

  7. William D. Gerhard, In the Shadow of War (To the Gulf of Tonkin), Cryptologic History Series, Southeast Asia (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1969), p. 29, NSA FOIA; Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945–1975, U.S. Cryptologic History, series 6, vol. 7 (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 2002), p. 73, NSA FOIA. For information about the North Vietnamese direction of the Viet Cong insurgency derived from SIGINT, see SNIE 10-62, Communist Objectives, Capabilities, and Intentio
ns in Southeast Asia, annex: Communist North Vietnam’s Military Communications Nets and Command Structures in Laos and South Vietnam, February 21, 1962, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001166399, http://www.foia.cia.gov; draft memorandum for the president, Covert Operations Against North Vietnam, attached to memorandum, McNamara to Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 3, 1963, RG-200, entry 13230A Records of Robert S. McNamara, box 119, file Reading File January 1963, NA, CP.

  8. Hanyok, Spartans in Darkness, pp. 146–47. For the switch to KTB, see David W. Gaddy, ed., Essential Matters: A History of the Cryptographic Branch of the People’s Army of Viet-Nam, 1945–1975 (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1994), pp. 111–12. See also Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983), p. 74n; James L. Gilbert, The Most Secret War: Army Signals Intelligence in Vietnam (Fort Belvoir, VA: Military History Office, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 2003), p. 18; Robert J. Hanyok, “Book Review: James L. Gilbert, The Most Secret War: Army Signals Intelligence in Vietnam,” Intelligence and National Security, Summer 2004: p. 395.

  9. Oral history, Interview with Dr. Ray S. Cline, May 21, 1983, p. 21, LBJL, Austin, TX.