The Secret Sentry

by Matthew M. Aid

  49. Confidential interviews; U.S. Sixth Fleet, 1986 Sixth Fleet Command History, 1987, p. III-6, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; George C. Wilson, “Alert Brings Out Libyan Military’s Weaknesses,” Washington Post, January 9, 1986; “Gadaffi’s men fear getting lost,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, January 18, 1986, p. 43.

  50. George C. Wilson, “U.S. Planes Retaliate for Libyan Attack,” Washington Post, March 25, 1986.

  51. Woodward, Veil, pp. 444–45; Oliver R. North and William Novak, Under Fire: An American Story (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), p. 216; Bob Woodward and Patrick E. Tyler, “U.S. Shows Spy Systems’ Capabilities,” Washington Post, April 15, 1986; Bob Woodward, “Intelligence ‘Coup’ Tied Libya to Blast,” Washington Post, April 22, 1986; Leslie H. Gelb, “How Libya Messages Informed U.S.,” New York Times, April 23, 1986; Rick Atkinson, “Bomb Suspect Sent to Germany,” Washington Post, May 24, 1996; “Trial Begins in the 1986 Bombing of Berlin Disco,” Seattle Times, November 18, 1997.

  52. Frank Greve, “Spying on Libya Yields Information Bonanza,” Houston Chronicle, May 18, 1986.

  53. Hersh, “Target Qaddafi,” p. 74.

  54. W. O. Studeman, “The Philosophy of Intelligence,” p. 105, Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, December 1991.

  55. Stephen Engelberg, “Head of National Security Agency Plans to Retire,” New York Times, February 23, 1988; Molly Moore, “Odom to Resign as Head of NSA,” Washington Post, February 23, 1988; Gertz, “Superseded General.”

  56. Studeman background from biographical data sheet, RADM William Oliver Studeman, Department of the Navy, Office of Public Affairs, October 1, 1987; “Agency Welcomes New Director RADM William O. Studeman,” NSA Newsletter, September 1988, p. 2, NSA FOIA.

  57. John Barron, Breaking the Ring: The Rise and Fall of the Walker Family Spy Network (New York: Avon Books, 1987), pp. 196–97.

  58. Confidential interviews.

  59. Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 111; Bernard E. Trainor, “Bush Bars Normal Ties Now; Beijing Is Warned,” New York Times, June 9, 1989; Daniel Williams and David Holley, “China Hard-Liners Appear in Control,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1989; “Communications Vacuumed: Satellite Intelligence Provides Key to Bush China Decision,” Communications Daily, June 12, 1989, p. 5; “Reign of Terror,” Newsweek, June 19, 1989, p. 14. See also the declassified morning intelligence summaries for the secretary of state, examples of which are at http://www.seas.gwu.edu/ nsarchive/NSAEBB16/ documents.

  60. Oral history, Interview with Warren Zimmermann, December 10, 1996, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  61. For the deterioration of U.S. relations with Panama, see Seymour M. Hersh, “Our Man in Panama: The Creation of a Thug,” Life, March 1990, pp. 81–93. For intelligence efforts in Panama prior to the U.S. invasion, see U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Annual Historical Report INSCOM Fiscal Year 1990, 1991, pp. 41–42, INSCOM FOIA. Also, confidential interviews. For quote concerning elimination of SOUTHCOM and CIA HUMINT sources, see Captain Brian J. Cummins, USA, National Reconnaissance Support to the Army (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1994), p. 101.

  62. Department of the Army, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Annual Historical Review: 1 October 1989 to 30 September 1990, 1991, p. 4-52, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Command Chronology, Marine Support Battalion, for the Period 1 July–31 December 1989, 1990, enclosure 4; Command Chronology 2nd Radio Battalion for the Period 1 July–31 December 1989, 1990, enclosure 2, pp. 1, 4, both in Marine Corps Historical Center, Quantico, VA; “Just Cause,” Insight, January–March 1990, pp. 11–13, AIA FOIA; Technical Sergeant. Mark Harlfinger, “Flight Operations End at 94th IS,” Spokesman, May 1997, p. 23, AIA FOIA. For creation of a Panama Cell at NSA, see W. O. Studeman, “The Philosophy of Intelligence,” p. 109, Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, December 1991.

  63. Cummins, National Reconnaissance Support, pp. 104–05. For more concerning NSA’s attempts at tracking Noriega, see Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), p. 514; Bill Gertz, “NSA Eavesdropping Was Vital in Panama,” Washington Times, January 10, 1990.

  64. Patrick E. Tyler, “U.S. Commander Decries Leak on Panamanian Invasion,” Washington Post, February 27, 1990; Cummins, National Reconnaissance Support, pp. 104–05.

  65. Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–1989, bk. 3, Retrenchment and Reform, 1972–1980 (Fort Meade: Center for Cryptologic History, 1995), p. 21, NSA FOIA. For the seventy-five thousand NSA personnel figure, see declaration of Dr. Richard W. Gronet, Director of Policy, National Security Agency, June 14, 1989, in CIV. No. HM87-1564, Ray Lindsey v. National Security Agency/Central Security Service, p. 5, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

  66. Confidential interviews.

  67. Bob Drogin, “NSA Blackout Reveals Downside of Secrecy,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2000.

  68. Memorandum, Vice Admiral Bobby R. Inman, USN, to Special Assistant, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Transition Coordination, sec. 8, Modernization Objectives, December 9, 1980, NSA FOIA; Codev illa, Informing Statecraft, p. 124; Loch K. Johnson, Secret Agencies: U.S. Intelligence in a Hostile World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 21.

  11: Troubles in Paradise

  1. This era in NSA’s history is covered in greater detail in Matthew M. Aid, “The Time of Troubles: The US National Security Agency in the Twenty-first Century,” Intelligence and National Security, vol. 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): pp. 1–32.

  2. David Y. McManis, “Technology, Intelligence, and Control,” p. 20, Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, February 1993.

  3. The literature on Operations Desert Shield/Storm is substantial. The most detailed official accounts of the war can be found in: United States Central Command, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Executive Summary, July 11, 1991, p. 1, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington, DC: GPO, April 1992); Brigadier General Robert H. Scales Jr., USA, Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994). The conduct of the air campaign is detailed in Dr. Thomas A. Keaney and Dr. Eliot A. Cohen, eds., Gulf War Air Power Survey (Washington, DC: GPO, 1993), 5 vols. The best all-around books on the war are Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993); Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The General’s War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995). The Saudi perspective on the war can be found in HRH General Khaled bin Sultan, Desert Warrior (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995).

  4. NSA’s successes and failings in Operation Desert Storm are detailed in David A. Hatch, Shield and Storm: The Cryptologic Community in the Desert Operations, vol. 5, Special Series, Crisis Collection (Fort Meade: Center for Cryptologic History, 1992). SIGINT’s success against the Iraqi air defense system from Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: GPO, 1992), pp. 12, 150, 154, 164; Keaney and Cohen, Gulf War Air Power, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 77–82, vol. 4, p. 182, and vol. 5, part 2, pp. 51, 190; Scales, Certain Victory, p. 178; Richard G. Davis, On Target: Orga nizing and Executing the Strategic Air Campaign Against Iraq (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002), p. 152.

  5. Final draft, SIGINT 101 Seminar Course Module, 2002, NSA FOIA. McConnell quote from letter, McConnell to Senator Sam Nunn with enclosure, April 28, 1992, p. 6, NSA FOIA.

  6. Monograph, John F. Stewart Jr. and the Vigilant Eye of the Storm (Fort Huachuca, AZ: History Office, U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, no date),
p. 18.

  7. bin Sultan, Desert Warrior, p. 399; Mark Urban UK Eyes Alpha (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 170; David A. Fulghum, “Yugoslavia Successfully Attacked by Computers,” Aviation Week &Space Technology, August 23, 1999, p. 31.

  8. Keaney and Cohen, Gulf War Air Power, summary vol., p. 98.

  9. Brigadier General John F. Stewart, Jr., Operation Desert Storm. The Military Intelligence Story: A View from the G-2, 3rd U.S. Army, April 1991, p. 6, INSCOM FOIA; U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Annual Historical Review, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM): Fiscal Year 1991, appendix K, 1992, p. 29, INSCOM FOIA; Daniel F. Baker, “Deep Attack: A Military Intelligence Task Force in Desert Storm,” Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, October–December 1991, p. 39; Lt. Colonel Richard J. Quirk, III, USA, Intelligence for the Division: A G2 Perspective (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), p. 307; Major Raymond E. Coia, USMC, A Critical Analysis of the I MEF Intelligence Performance in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 1995), p. 6; Major Robert H. Taylor, USA, Heavy Division Organic Signals Intelligence (SIGINT): Added Value or Added Baggage (Fort Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1996), p. 24; Lt. Colonel John J. Bird, USA, Analysis of Intelligence Support to the 1991 Persian Gulf War: Enduring Lessons (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), pp. 7–8. For Iraqi communications security being more thorough than the Soviets’ during the Cold War, see Barbara Starr, “Measur ing the Success of the Intelligence War,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, April 20, 1991, p. 636.

  10. Keaney and Cohen, Gulf War Air Power, vol. 1, part 2, p. 270. McManis quote from David Y. McManis, “Technology, Intelligence, and Control,” p. 31, Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, February 1993.

  11. U.S. Senate, Armed Services Committee, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriation, FY 1992 and FY 1993, part 2, 102nd Congress, 1st session, 1991, p. 19; Scales, Certain Victory, pp. 222, 237, 251; Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, p. 365; Taylor, Heavy Division p. 24; Colonel John Patrick Leake, Operational Leadership in the Gulf War: Lessons from the Schwarzkopf-Franks Controversy, undated, http:// www.cfcsc.dnd.ca/irc/ amsc1/024.html.

  12. According to Defense Department records, the Iraqis fired forty-two Scud missiles at Israel, targeting Tel Aviv, Haifa, and the Israeli nuclear reactor and weapons facility at Dimona in the Negev Desert. OGA-1040-23-91, Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Assessment: Mobile Short-Range Ballistic Missile Targeting in Operation DESERT STORM, November 1, 1991, p. 1, partially declassified and on file at the National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Captain Brian J. Cummins, USA, National Reconnaissance Support to the Army (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, June 1994), pp. 69–70.

  13. Defense Intelligence Agency, OGA-1040-23-91, Defense Intelligence Assessment: Mobile Short- Range Ballistic Missile Targeting in Operation DESERT STORM, November 1, 1991, p. 7, partially declassified and on file at the National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Cummins, National Reconnaissance Support, p. 70.

  14. Confidential interviews with a number of U.S. Army and Marine Corps division, brigade, and regimental commanders conducted between 1992 and 1995. For “sanitization” problems, see Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence), Intelligence Program Support Group, Final Report: Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Intelligence Dissemination Study, 1992, p. 4–15, DoD Electronic FOIA Reading Room. See also Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, The Gulf War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), p. 296.

  15. Use of Iraqi Americans in the military for SIGINT service from anonymous letter, “Army Linguists,” Soldiers, August 2001, http:// www.army.mil/Soldiers/ aug2001/ feedback.html. The secret hiring of three hundred Kuwaitis from U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Annual Historical Review, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM): Fiscal Year 1991, appendix K, 1992, p. 31, INSCOM FOIA. Quote from Brigadier General John F. Stewart, Jr., USA, Operation Desert Storm: The Military Intelligence Story: A View from the G-2 3rd U.S. Army, April 1991, p. 22, INSCOM FOIA

  16. Major William E. David, USA, Modularity: A Force Design Methodology for the Force XXI Divisional Military Intelligence Battalion (Fort Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1995), pp. 18–19.

  17. U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Report No. 101-1008, Report by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 101st Congress, 2nd session, January 2, 1991, p. 9.

  18. Defense Department, Office of the Inspector General, Report No. 96-03, Final Report on the Verification Inspection of the National Security Agency, February 13, 1996, p. 2, DOD FOIA.

  19. NSA/CSS, report of the Director’s Task Force on Organizational and Procedural Dysfunction, Bureaucracy and NSA: Management’s Views, March 1991, pp. 1–2, NSA FOIA.

  20. This conclusion came through loud and clear in a March 1992 report to the director of the CIA, which held NSA out to be a model of what the U.S. intelligence community should have been aspiring to, stating, “NSA’s control and influence over almost all aspects of the SIGINT discipline offers a sense of cohesion, focus and accountability that would be advantageous to invest in.” ICS-4548/92, memorandum, Imagery Blue Ribbon Task Force to Director of Central Intelligence, Transmittal of Report Regarding Restructuring the Imagery Community, March 6, 1992, p. 11, MOR DocID: 924226, CIA FOIA.

  21. President George H. W. Bush, “Remarks at a Presen tation Ceremony for the National Security Agency Worldwide Awards in Fort Meade, Mary land,” May 1, 1991, http://csdl.tamu.edu/ bushlibrary/papers/1991/91050101.html.

  22. U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Report Together with Additional and Minority Views: Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1994 for Intelligence Activities, 103rd Congress, 2nd session, July 28, 1993, p. 4; memorandum, Studeman to All Employees, Farewell, April 8, 1992, p. 1, NSA FOIA; “A Visit with the Deputy Director,” NSA Newsletter, November 1990, p. 2, NSA FOIA.

  23. Confidential interviews.

  24. Cummins, National Reconnaissance Support, p. 5.

  25. Memorandum, Studeman to All Employees, Farewell, April 8, 1992, NSA FOIA.

  26. Memorandum, Taylor to DIRNSA, Thoughts on Strategic Issues for the Institution, April 9, 1999, p.3. The author is grateful to Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson for making available a copy of this document.

  27. SOV 91-10039X, CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, The Implications of a Breakup of the USSR: Defense Assets at Risk, September 1991, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document 0000499575, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  28. Confidential interview.

  29. “Third Party Nations: Partners and Targets,” Cryptologic Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 4 (Winter 1989): p. 17, DOCID: 3221078, NSA FOIA.

  30. Confidential interviews.

  31. McConnell background from biographical data sheet, Rear Admiral John Michael McConnell, Department of the Navy, Office of Public affairs, August 1, 1991; “Agency Welcomes New Director Vice Admiral John Michael McConnell,” NSA Newsletter, August 1992, p. 2, NSA FOIA.

  32. For McConnell’s recollections of this time period, see John M. McConnell, “The Role of the Current Intelligence Officer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, August 1994.

  33. Lawrence Wright, “The Spymaster,” New Yorker, January 21, 2008, p. 44.

  34. Letter, McConnell to Senator Sam Nunn with enclosure, April 28, 1992, p. 5, NSA FOIA.

  35. “NSA Plans for the Future,” NSA Newsletter, January 1993, p. 4, NSA FOIA; Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, Report No. IR 96-03, Final Report on the Verification Inspection of the
National Security Agency, February 13, 1996, p. 6. “Not warmly embraced” quote from John M. McConnell, “The Evolution of Intelligence and the Public Policy Debate on Encryption,” p. 153, Seminar on Intelligence, Command and Control, Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, January 1997.

  36. This period at NSA is detailed in Aid, “Time of Troubles.” For the decline in the size of the bud get and personnel of the U.S. intelligence community, see Charlie Allen, Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection, PowerPoint presentation, “Intelligence Community Overview for Japanese Visitors from Public Security Investigation Agency,” June 22, 1998, http://cryptome.org/cia-ico.htm; “Statement for the Record by Lt. General Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Director NSA/CSS Before the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” October 17, 2002, p. 6. “One of the side effects” quote from U.S. Senate, Report No. 107-351, and U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 107-792, report of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, 107th Congress, 2nd session, December 2002 (declassified and released in July 2003), p. 76.

  37. Major Harold E. Bullock, USAF, Peace by Committee: Command and Control Issues in Multinational Peace Enforcement Operations (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: School of Advanced Airpower Studies, 1994), pp. 9–10; Norman L. Cooling, “Operation Restore Hope in Somalia: A Tactical Action Turned Strategic Defeat,” Marine Corps Gazette, September 2001, p. 92. “Somalis from salami” quote from Robert F. Baumann, Lawrence A. Yates, and Versalle F. Washington, “My Clan Against the World”: US and Co alition Forces in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2003), p. 48.