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Series V Volume VI

The Quest for Cryptologic

Centralization and the Establishment of NSA:

1940 -1952

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UNITED STATES CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY

Series V: The Early Postwar PeriodVolume VI

The Quest for Cryptologic Centralization and the Establishment of NSA:

1940 - 1952

Thomas L. Burns

CENTER FOR CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY2005

The Quest for Cryptologic Centralization and the Establishment of NSA:

1940 - 1952

Page iii

Table of Contents

Page

Forewords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Introduction: The Struggle to Control a Unique Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter I: Early Army-Navy COMINT Relations, 1930-1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Chapter II: The Military Services and the Joint Operating Plan, 1946-1949. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Chapter III: The Emerging National Intelligence Structure and the United States CommunicationsIntelligence Board, 1946-1949. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Chapter IV: Creation of the Armed Forces Security Agency, 1949-1952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Chapter V: AFSA, the CONSIDO Plan, and the Korean War, 1949-1952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter VI: The Brownell Committee and the Establishment of NSA, 4 November 1952 . . . . . . . . . 81

Chapter VII: Summary: The Struggle for Control Continues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Notes on Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

Page v

Forewords

The Center for Cryptologic History (CCH) is proud to publish the first title under its own imprint,Thomas L. Burns’s The Origins of NSA.*

In recent years, the NSA history program has published a number of volumes dealing with excit-ing and even controversial subjects: a new look at the Pearl Harbor attack, for example. Tom Burns’sstudy of the creation of NSA is a different kind of history from the former. It is a masterfully researchedand documented account of the evolution of a national SIGINT effort following World War II, begin-ning with the fragile trends toward unification of the military services as they sought to cope with agreatly changed environment following the war, and continuing through the unsatisfactory experienceunder the Armed Forces Security Agency. Mr. Burns also makes an especially important contributionby helping us to understand the role of the civilian agencies in forcing the creation of NSA and thebureaucratic infighting by which they were able to achieve that end.

At first glance, one might think that this organizational history would be far from “best seller”material. In fact, the opposite is the case. It is essential reading for the serious SIGINT professional,both civilian and military. Mr. Burns has identified most of the major themes which have contributedto the development of the institutions which characterize our profession: the struggle between cen-tralized and decentralized control of SIGINT, interservice and interagency rivalries, budget problems,tactical versus national strategic requirements, the difficulties of mechanization of processes, and therise of a strong bureaucracy. These factors, which we recognize as still powerful and in large measurestill shaping operational and institutional development, are the same ones that brought about the birthof NSA.

The history staff would also like to acknowledge a debt owed to our predecessors, Dr. George F.Howe and his associates, who produced a manuscript entitled “The Narrative History of AFSA/NSA.”Dr. Howe’s study takes a different course from the present publication and is complementary to it,detailing the internal organization and operational activities of AFSA, and serves as an invaluable ref-erence about that period. The Howe manuscript is available to interested researchers in the CCH.

It remains for each reader to take what Tom Burns has presented in the way of historical fact andcorrelate it to his/her experience. This exercise should prove most interesting and illuminating.

Henry F. SchorreckNSA Historian

1990

*The Quest for Cryptologic Centralization and the Establishment of NSA: 1940-1952 is anunclassified version of The Origins of NSA, released for public review.

Page vii

It may not be politically correct to say it, but the National Security Agency may be the last institutionallegacy of the New Deal. NSA was established by President Harry S. Truman in late 1952, drawing on

activities and organizations that traced from the 1930s and 1940s.

The United States had had vigorous communications intelligence (COMINT) activities in the AmericanCivil War and World War I. After each of these conflicts, however, the organizations had been abolishedand the activities ended.

Although the contribution of cryptology — both cryptanalysis and cryptography — was so far-reachingon the operations of World War II, there was little question that the activities would continue. However,the shape of the organizations to do it, their institutional home, and the level of effort were far from certain.

The post-WWII period in American politics was a bad time for fostering cryptology. The war had shownthat it was necessary to use expensive machines to make and break codes or ciphers. Yet, this was a timeof drastic budget cuts and personnel reductions in the government. For the major figures in the nationalsecurity field, cryptology was a small but important issue; they were concerned primarily with the questionof unification of the armed services and the possible creation of a central intelligence organization.

Thomas Burns clarifies the struggle of disparate forces concerned with cryptology, and shows clearly theintermediate steps taken before the creation of NSA. He deals forthrightly with the positive and negativeaspects of the predecessor organizations, with their accomplishments and missed opportunities, and thefactors that triggered the emergence of a new COMINT organization.

This is a story that in the past has been only partially glimpsed. Mr. Burns originally intended this asan in-house study. It is now available to help those interested in intelligence or cryptologic history to under-stand the forces that produced a major institution in the field.

For background, the reader might also want to consult Robert L. Benson’s A History of U.S.Communications Intelligence during World War II: Policy and Administration, published by the Centerfor Cryptologic History in 1997.

David A. HatchNSA Historian

2005

Page ix

Acknowledgments

Many people played a part in developing this expanded report on the origins of NSA. In particular, Iwant to extend thanks for the research help I received from the Office of Archives and Repository Servicesof the Telecommunications Organization and from my colleagues in the Center for Cryptologic History(CCH).

During the saga associated with the preparation of this volume, I became indebted to Henry F.Schorreck, NSA Historian, for his continuing confidence and support. In the latter stages of the reviewprocess, David W. Gaddy, Chief, CCH, and David A. Hatch, drawing on their broad experience and knowl-edge of the Agency , provided fresh perspective and comments. My appreciation goes to Arleone (Archie)M. Fisher for entering the draft manuscript into the word processor. Among the cycle editors, Gwen L.Cohen provided the initial editing of text, as well as the selection of photographs. Barry D. Carleen and hisstaff provided the editing actions associated with the final preparation of the manuscript. Special thanks aredue to Jean M. Persinger and Donald K. Snyder for their editing contributions.

Finally, my appreciation goes to Gerald K. Haines, our former colleague, for his unfailing assistance inthe shaping and organizing of the report, for his enthusiasm about the project and its scope, and for hishelpful suggestions for sharpening and clarifying the text.

Thomas L. Burns

More than sixty years have passed since theoutbreak of World War II. During that war, asmall number of organizations provided the totalintelligence gathering activities of the UnitedStates government. Army and Navy authoritiesplayed a preeminent role in the production of thisintelligence. Since 1945 a great number of organi-zational changes have occurred in the manage-ment and direction o f U.S. intelligence activities,and the intelligence community has greatlyexpanded. There is now a National SecurityCouncil (NSC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), NationalForeign Intelligence Board (NFIB), and NationalSecurity Agency (NSA), as well as the militaryservices, Department of State, Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI), Department of Energy,Department of the Treasury, and CommerceDepartment. All are involved in intelligence activ-ities, and all rely on or have access to communi-cations intelligence (COMINT). COMINT is aunique, extremely valuable intelligence source.This study traces the evolution of the militarystructures from the early 1930s to the establish-ment of a unique agency to deal withCOMINT–the National Security Agency–in 1952.

In the late 1930s, the major COMINT issueamong the services related to the coverage of for-eign diplomatic targets. Regardless of duplica-tion, each service insisted on holding onto what-ever diplomatic targets it could intercept. Therealities of World War II, however, finally forcedthe services to work out an agreement on wartimecryptanalytic tasks. The Navy, because of its lim-ited resources and its almost total preoccupationwith Japanese and German naval traffic, ulti-mately softened its position and asked the Armyto take over the entire diplomatic problem for theduration of the war. Based on an informal agree-ment by the Army and the Navy, the Army

assumed responsibility for all targets in the diplomatic field, as well as its own commitmentsin the military field.

As late as 1942, however, the Army and Navystill resisted the introduction of any majorchanges in their relationship and sought to main-tain their traditionally separate cryptanalyticroles. Each service worked independently andexclusively on its assigned cryptanalytic tasks, aswas agreed upon previously, and later endorsedby President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The servicesnot only continued to demonstrate little enthusi-asm toward closer cooperation in COMINT mat-ters, but maintained their traditional hostilitytowards proposals for merger, or even towardsopening up new dialogue on operational prob-lems. Consequently, their interaction onCOMINT matters was minimal.

Nevertheless, out of the disaster at PearlHarbor came persistent demands for the estab-lishment of a truly centralized, permanent intelli-gence agency. As early as 1943, proposals for theestablishment of a single United States intelli-gence agency became the routine topic for discus-sion in the various intelligence forums of the JointChiefs of Staff. At the same time, the militaryCOMINT authorities foresaw their vulnerabilityto congressional criticism and future reductionsin resources since they conducted their COMINToperations on a fractionated and sometimesduplicatory basis. Recognizing these threats to acontinuation of their separate existence, the serv-ices, after two years of superficial coordination,established closer technical cooperation amongtheir COMINT organizations.

During the war, the independent Army andNavy organizations accomplished a great numberof spectacular intelligence successes in support of

Introduction

The Struggle to Control a Unique Resource

the Allied war effort. These included cryptanalyt-ic breakthroughs against the communications ofGerman submarines, German and Japanesearmed forces, and the diplomatic communica-tions of the Axis countries of both the Europeanand Pacific theaters. The victory at Midway andthe submarine war in the Atlantic are but twoexamples of how intelligence derived from enemycommunications contributed to the success of theU.S. war effort. Ironically, these successes laterbecame the measuring rod for criticism of thepostwar military COMINT organizations.

By the end of World War II, many policy mak-ers had a new respect for COMINT. However,there were also major questions concerning themanagement and control of this valuableresource. In 1951 President Truman established apresidential commission under the chairmanshipof George A. Brownell to study the communica-tions intelligence effort and to make recommen-dations concerning the management of the effort.From the Brownell Report grew the managerialfoundation of the organization now known as theNational Security Agency.

This study documents the origins of theNational Security Agency. It is an attempt to setbefore the reader the “what happened” in termsof the issues and conflicts that led to Truman’sdecision to establish a centralized COMINTagency. It traces the evolution of the militaryCOMINT organizations from the 1930s to theestablishment of the National Security Agency on4 November 1952.

While the lineal origins of the NationalSecurity Agency are clearly traceable to the mili-tary COMINT structures and represent a fairlysimple audit trail of organizations, there is moreto the origin of NSA than a mere chronology oforganizations. The political struggles and opera-tional considerations that led to the establish-ment of NSA are complex. The National SecurityAct of 1947, the expanding intelligence require-ments of the growing intelligence community,

and the continuing controversy between the mili-tary and civilian agencies over the control of intel-ligence became prominent factors in the move toreorganize the nation’s cryptologic structure.

This account seeks to highlight the mainevents, policies, and leaders of the early years. Itsmajor emphasis is directed toward communica-tions intelligence and its identification as aunique source of intelligence information. Onetheme persists throughout: the jurisdictionalstruggle between the military and civilian author-ities over the control and direction of theCOMINT resources of the United States. Specialattention is also directed toward consumer rela-tionships, intelligence directives, and consumerneeds–particularly when those considerationsmay have influenced the shaping and formulationof the cryptologic structure.

The communications security (COMSEC) roleof NSA is addressed only in the broad context ofrepresenting a basic responsibility of the newagency. The development of national COMSECpolicies did not take place until after the estab-lishment of NSA, which is outside the scope ofthis report. As directed by President Truman on24 October 1952, the solutions to national COM-SEC problems and the formulation of those solu-tions in directives became the responsibility of aspecial committee of the National SecurityCouncil for COMSEC matters. The beginnings ofan expanded COMSEC role for NSA did not occuruntil the mid-1950s, following the issuance of apreliminary report (NSC 168) on 20 October1953, which provided the basis for a later clarifi-cation of COMSEC roles and responsibilitieswithin the government.

The study is organized basically in a chrono-logical approach with chapters reflecting the pre-war period, the war years, and the immediatepostwar era. Major events or policy actions arereflected within this chronology. The early chap-ters address the evolution of the Army and NavyCOMINT relationships from 1930 through the

war years and later the establishment of a thirdcryptologic service, the Air Force Security Service(AFSS), in 1948. Next, emphasis is placed on thethree-year period from 1946 to 1949, whichmarked the passage of the National SecurityAct of 1947 and the beginning of high-level effortsto centralize U.S. intelligence responsibilities.This section traces the organization of theCOMINT structure as military authorities movedin the direction of a joint Army and NavyCommunications Intelligence Board (ANCIB)and closer cooperation. This period of experi-mentation included the establishment of theJoint Army and Navy Operating Plan in 1946 andof the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) in1949. Both structures encountered great difficul-ties, with AFSA receiving continuing criticismfrom the consumer community for its perform-ance during the Korean War. Finally, as the pro-logue to the establishment of NSA, there is anextensive discussion of the Brownell Committee,including the reasons for its establishment andthe nature of its deliberations. The study con-cludes with an overall review of the organization-al changes and a suggestion that struggle for con-trol of this unique resource is far from over.

During the 1930s and throughout World WarII, the United States Army and the United StatesNavy dominated the U.S. COMINT effort. TheArmy and Navy COMINT organizations operatedas totally autonomous organizations. They werefiercely independent, with little dialogue or coop-eration taking place between them. Their workingrelationship represented a spirit of strong rivalryand competition, with overtones of mutual dis-trust. During the first two years of the war, theArmy and Navy persisted in maintaining theirtotally separate cryptanalytic roles. Each workedindependently and exclusively on its assignedcryptanalytic tasks, as approved earlier by theJoint Chiefs of Staff and President Franklin D.Roosevelt. Each service continued to opposecooperation in COMINT matters. Both main-tained a traditional hostility toward thoughts ofmerger, or even of opening up a dialogue with theother on cooperation.

Near the end of World War II, as the serviceCOMINT organizations foresaw major reductionsin their COMINT programs, their attitudestoward cooperation began to change. Moreover,as the pressures mounted for organizationalchange in the entire U.S. intelligence structure,the service COMINT authorities now initiatedvoluntary moves toward closer interservicecooperation, primarily as a self-preservationmeasure. In 1944, for example, the servicesexpanded their cooperation on operational func-tions related to collection and cryptanalysis.The services also established the last joint forumfor discussion of cryptologic matters,the Army-Navy Communication IntelligenceCoordinating Committee (ANCICC). ANCICC, inturn, quickly evolved into the first overallCOMINT policy board, the Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Board (ANCIB). As

further evidence of the broadening of theCOMINT base. the Department of State acceptedan ANCIB invitation to join the Board inDecember 1945. A civilian agency was now a partof the COMINT decision-making process.

As early as the World War I era, the U.S. Armyand Navy COMINT organizations interceptedand processed foreign military and non-militarycommunications for intelligence purposes. For allpractical purposes, each functioned on a totallyautonomous basis. Each service operated independently of the other, and each conductedits own intercept and exploitation activities. Inthis early period, intelligence requirements didnot exist as we know them today. Generally. eachservice determined its own intercept targets andthen, based on its own processing priorities,decrypted or translated whatever communica-tions could be exploited. The Army and theNavy COMINT organizations disseminated the decrypts to the intelligence arms of their parent services, as well as to other governmentalofficials.

Except for a very restrained and limitedexchange concerning cryptanalytic techniques,little cooperation or dialogue took placebetween the military COMINT organizations.Traditionally, each worked exclusively on thosemilitary and naval targets of direct interest toitself. Thus, the Army handled military radio sta-tions and military messages, and the Navy han-dled naval radio stations and naval messages. Thecoverage of diplomatic targets, however, reflecteda totally different story.

The coverage of diplomatic links alwaysranked as a top priority for both the Army andNavy, as it represented the only intelligence of

Chapter I

Early Army-Navy COMINT Relations, 1930-1945

real interest to non-military consumers, namely,the Department of State and the White House.1

Recognizing the need for budgetary support fromthese influential customers, each service soughtto retain a posture of maximum coverage ondiplomatic targets. Consequently, the Army andNavy, operating under an unwritten and looseagreement, shared the responsibility for the intercept and processing of diplomatic traffic,with each service making its own determinationconcerning what diplomatic coverage it wouldundertake.2

Despite the increasingly apparent need forcooperation, neither service, because of strongmutual distrust, pressed very hard for a coopera-tive agreement. The nearest that the servicescame to concluding an agreement during the1930s occurred in April 1933. The occasion was aplanning conference of representatives of theWar Plans and Training Section of the Army andrepresentatives of the Code and Signal Section ofthe Navy.3 The agenda for the conference wasvery broad, including items on both communica-tions security and radio intelligence matters. Theconferees reached a very limited informal agree-ment on a delineation of the areas of paramountinterest to each service.4 Although formal imple-

mentation of the agreement never took place, theconference itself was a significant milestone. Forthe first time in the modern era, the services hadagreed, at least in principle, on the need for a jointArmy-Navy dialogue on COMINT matters.

From 1933 to 1940, little change took place inthis relationship. Each service continued to go itsown way, working generally on whatever trafficwas available to it. In the fall of 1939, GeneralJoseph A. Mauborgne, Chief Signal Officer, U.S.Army, and Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, Director ofNaval Communications, attempted an informalagreement concerning diplomatic traffic.5 Theyagreed that diplomatic traffic would be dividedbetween the two services on the basis of national-ity. This agreement, like the one in 1933, however, was never implemented. The ArmySignal Corps, on orders from its General Staff,worked on German, Italian, and Mexican diplo-matic systems, thereby duplicating the Navy’sefforts in this area. This effort completely nullified the earlier agreement negotiated byMauborgne and Noyes.6

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By the summer of 1940, the war in Europe,coupled with the increasingly warlike posture ofthe Japanese in the Pacific, brought renewedpressures for closer Army-Navy cooperation. Inaddition, changes occurred in some foreign cryp-tographic systems that foretold the beginning ofnew technical challenges for both services.Despite the strong service antagonisms, theinevitability of closer cooperation and pooling ofCOMINT resources in some manner becameapparent to many Army and Navy officials.

In mid-1940, a new round of formal Army-Navy discussions took place concerning“Coordination of Intercept and DecryptingActivities.” The services established a Joint Army-Navy Committee, under the chairmanship ofColonel Spencer B. Akin and CommanderLaurance F. Safford, to develop a method ofdividing intercept traffic between them.7

The Army and Navy planners had no problemin reaching agreement on the division of respon-sibility for the coverage of counterpart targets.They simply opted for the status quo in the inter-cept coverage of military and naval targets. Thus,the Army retained the sole responsibility for theintercept and analysis of all foreign military traf-fic, and the Navy concentrated on the interceptand analysis of all foreign naval radio traffic.8

The discussions, however, failed to generate asolution to the issue of diplomatic coverage. Eachservice presented a number of proposals andcounterproposals, but neither would yield any ofits responsibility for coverage of diplomatic traf-fic.9 The primary diplomatic targets under discus-sion at this time were German, Italian, Mexican,South American, Japanese, and Soviet.

Given the attitudes of the two services, thereseemed little likelihood of achieving any agree-ments on diplomatic targets. The Army, havingcanceled the earlier 1939 understanding with theNavy, continued to work on German, Italian, andMexican diplomatic systems, as well as on a num-ber of machine problems of interest to the Navy.By 1940, the Navy, because of its heavy commit-ment to operational naval problems, stoppedworking on the German, Italian, and Mexicandiplomatic targets. As a matter of principle, how-ever, the Navy refused to concur on the exclusiveassignment of these diplomatic targets to theArmy on a permanent basis.1o Another even morecontentious item arose at the conference concern-ing the coverage of Japanese diplomatic traffic.Japan had become a prime intelligence targetwhose diplomatic communications were obvious-ly of paramount interest and importance to eachservice – as well as to civilian U.S. officials.Neither service would relinquish any coverage ofJapanese diplomatic communications.

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In short, the joint conference resolved little.Since each service COMINT organization viewedits survival as being contingent upon the production of diplomatic intelligence, neitherconsented to giving up diplomatic coverage on apermanent basis. Colonel Akin and CommanderSafford finally opted to refer the matter to theirsuperiors – General Mauborgne and AdmiralNoyes – for a decision on how to divide theJapanese COMINT problem.

As a last resort, Mauborgne, attempting aSolomonic approach, suggested that the Armyand Navy simply alternate daily in their diplomatic coverage of certain functions such asdecryption and translation duties. Adopting thissuggestion as the way out of their dilemma,Mauborgne and Noyes informally concluded an agreement in August 1940, which becameknown as the “odd-even day” agreement. Theagreement established the immediate prewarbasis for the division of labor on all Japaneseintercepts and delineated the responsibilities fordecryption, translation, and reporting ofJapanese diplomatic traffic. 11

Under the terms of the agreement, the Armyassumed responsibility for decoding and translat-ing the intercepts of the Japanese diplomatic andconsular service on the even days of the month.The Navy became responsible for translating themessages of the Japanese diplomatic and consular service on the odd days of the month.The agreement also included a restatement of theCOMINT responsibilities for the intercept ofJapanese military and naval traffic. The Armyretained its responsibility for decoding and translating intercepts of the Japanese Army(including military attachés). The Navy continuedto have the exclusive responsibility for the intercept and translation of the Japanese Navytargets (including military attachés).12

As a corollary to the informal odd-evenarrangement, Mauborgne and Noyes ratified asupplemental technical agreement on 3 October

1940 concerning the division of intercept.13

Colonel Akin and Commander Safford counter-signed this agreement for the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations. The agreement essen-tially represented a joint analysis of the existingintercept facilities and their capabilities. It reiter-ated the need for closer Army-Navy cooperationin order to provide better intercept coverage andto reduce duplication of effort. The report alsoreflected the considerable reliance placed at thattime on the courier forwarding of traffic, both byair mail and surface transport, to achieve timeli-ness.14 During the early part of World War II, theintercepted traffic was sent by sea, or by aircraft,and often arrived months late at its destination.This situation gradually changed as new radioteletype systems were installed.

The Mauborgne-Noyes odd-even verbalagreement remained in effect from 1 August 1940until shortly after the Japanese attack on PearlHarbor on 7 December 1941.15 This odd-evenarrangement proved to be fundamentallyunsound. Cryptanalytically, alternating theresponsibility for reporting greatly increased therisk of error, duplication, and omission. It alsodestroyed the element of continuity so crit-ical to COMINT reporting and cryptanalysis.16

Politically, however, the odd-even day arrange-ment accomplished a public relations functionthat was vitally important to the services. Thisarrangement divided the problem equally andpermitted each to retain visibility with the WhiteHouse and those officials who controlled thebudget process.

Ten years later, Admiral Joseph N. Wengerdefended the odd-even day arrangement. Heindicated that in 1940 each service had all theavailable intercept in the Japanese diplomatictraffic and in some cases the means for breakingthem. As a result, whenever an important mes-sage was read, “each service would immediatelyrush to the White House with a copy of the trans-lation in an effort to impress the Chief Executive.”According to Wenger, the awkwardness of this

situation was the main reason for the adoption ofthe odd-even day arrangement as the only accept-able and workable solution for the services.Wenger conceded that the odd-even arrangementfor processing traffic was a strange one, but in hisview it was practical since traffic could be readilysorted according to the cryptographic date.17

Wenger did not mention that it also achieved itsmain purpose, as each service remained visible tothe White House.

The Wenger view represents the pragmaticview traditionally taken by the Army and Navyauthorities at the time. Later assessments, how-ever, differ in their treatment of the odd-evensplit, and are generally not as charitable. In arecent NSA cryptologic history, author FredParker presents a new perspective on the issue.While recognizing the Navy’s limited resources,compounded by the primacy of the war in theAtlantic, he contends that the Navy misgaugedthe relative importance of Japanese diplomaticcommunications, and in the process lost valuabletime in its pursuit of the more critical Japanesenaval targets. He concludes that “had Navy crypt-analysts been ordered to concentrate on theJapanese naval messages rather than Japanesediplomatic traffic, the United States would havehad a much clearer picture of the Japanese mili-tary buildup and, with the warning provided bythese messages, might have avoided the disasterof Pearl Harbor.18

The attack on Pearl Harbor brought aboutincreased activity in the conduct of U.S. intelli-gence activities. By the spring of 1942, a growingnumber of U.S. agencies began to conduct theirown communications intelligence operations.Agencies now engaged in COMINT activitiesincluded the Department of State, FederalBureau of Investigation (FBI), and FederalCommunications Commission (FCC), as well asthe Army and Navy.19 This proliferation ofCOMINT activities became a matter of great con-cern to the military COMINT organizations.Because of security considerations, as well as the

scattering of scarce analytic resources, the Armyand Navy sought to restrict sharply the number ofU.S. agencies engaged in the cryptanalysis of for-eign communications.

Turning to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the mili-tary authorities requested a high-level decisionlimiting governmental activities in COMINT mat-ters. Since the Joint Chiefs of Staff had thenational responsibility for adjudicating issuesrelated to intelligence, it represented the onlyforum available for defining U.S. jurisdictionalresponsibilities in the field of cryptanalysis. In itsresponse, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)of the JCS established a new Inter-DepartmentalCommittee, entitled “Committee on Allocation ofCryptanalytical Activities.” This committee,which had the task of surveying the entire field ofcryptanalysis in the United States, included mem-bers from the Army, Navy, and FBI. It scheduleda conference for 30 June 1942.20

Leaving nothing to chance in their advancepreparations, Army and Navy officials held anumber of closed meetings prior to the meeting ofthe full committee. They sought primarily toresolve their long-standing disagreement on cov-erage of diplomatic targets. Five days before theirmeeting with the FBI, the Army and Navy suc-ceeded in reaching an agreement on the divisionof COMINT responsibilities between their organ-izations.21 The solution, urgently promoted back-stage, resolved the nagging question of how toallocate service responsibility for diplomatic traf-fic. At the Navy’s request, on 25 June 1942 theArmy-Navy participants agreed to transfer theentire diplomatic problem to the Army for theduration of the war.

Many factors contributed to this decision.One related directly to a question of COMINTresources and capabilities. At the time, the warwas primarily a naval war in both the Atlantic andPacific theaters. As a result, the Navy, with itslimited personnel resources, wanted to place itstotal emphasis on the naval problems. It recog-

nized that its original ambitions for COMINTactivities far exceeded its level of COMINTresources. For example, because of the restrictiveNavy policy permitting only military personnel towork on COMINT-related matters, the Navy hada grand total of thirty-eight people assigned todiplomatic operations.22 The Army, however,with a larger and predominantly civilian organi-zation, was doing relatively little in military crypt-analysis. Since military traffic was virtuallyimpossible to copy at long distances because ofthe low power used, the Army had very little to

work on except diplomatic traffic.23 As a result,the Army was able to assume exclusive responsi-bility for the diplomatic field without prejudicingits work on military targets.

A second factor, known to be of great concernto the Navy, was the planned relocation of theArmy’s COMINT facility from the old WarDepartment Munitions Building on ConstitutionAvenue in Washington, D.C., to a site nearFrederick, Maryland. Because of the distance toFrederick, the Navy viewed such a relocation asvirtually ending the close daily collaboration

between the Army and Navy on the diplomaticproblem. In addition, both services, now sensitiveto criticisms following the attack on Pearl Harbor,were anxious to forestall future charges aboutduplication of effort, wasted COMINT resources,and critical delays in the reporting of intelligenceinformation.24

The new agreement concerning the transfer ofdiplomatic coverage also included guidelines gov-erning the dissemination of COMINT from diplo-matic sources to U.S. authorities.25 Despite the

transfer of the basic responsibility for the diplo-matic problem to the Army, the prior Army-Navyarrangements for the dissemination of diplomat-ic COMINT product remained in effect. The Armycontinued to supply the State Department withintelligence, and the Navy supplied the presidentwith COMINT product. Following the 25 June1942 agreement, the Army provided translationsand decrypts to the Navy for delivery in the NavyDepartment and to President Roosevelt.

At the insistence of the Army, the 25 June1942 agreement was a purely verbal arrangement

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between the officers in charge of the cryptanalyt-ic sections. Commander John R. Redman, USN,represented the Navy, and Colonel Frank W.Bullock, USA, spoke for the Army.26 The agree-ment later became known as the “Gentlemen’sAgreement.” Despite its informal nature, thisunderstanding constituted a landmark in termsof Army-Navy collaboration in cryptanalysis. Theearlier agreements were, in effect, little more thanagreements “to talk” and generally resulted in nochanges in the service roles. This agreement,however, became the first joint arrangement ofany substance and the one that determined theshape and scope of a later wartime cooperationbetween the Army, Navy, and FBI.

When the full committee of Army, Navy, andFBI representatives convened on 30 June 1942, itsimply accepted the earlier Army-Navy agree-ment and formally incorporated its provisions ina new document. The new document alsoaddressed other issues that directly influencedthe scope of U.S. cryptanalytic actions for the nextfew years. The agreement concluded that the con-duct of cryptanalytic actions should be confinedexclusively to the Army, Navy, and FBI, and itestablished the wartime policy governing the dis-semination of the intelligence. In addition, thecommittee created a permanent standing com-mittee to monitor the implementation of the

agreement and to facilitate resolution of anyproblem areas. The formal Agreement of 30 June1942 now became the official benchmark for thedivision of cryptanalytic responsibilities withinthe United States.27

On 6 July 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staffreported to President Roosevelt that such anagreement had been reached, and recommendedthat other U.S. agencies be excluded from thefield.28 On 8 July 1942, Roosevelt instructedHarold D. Smith, Director of the Budget, to issueinstructions “discontinuing the cryptanalyticactivities of the Federal CommunicationsCommission, the Office of Strategic Services, thedirector of Censorship as well as other agencieshaving this character .”29

The presidential memorandum did not relateto or affect the division of responsibilities devel-oped by the Army, Navy, and FBI in the 30 Junemeeting. It was always clear (at least to the mili-tary participants) that the 30 June 1942 agree-ment, as endorsed by the president, was awartime arrangement made primarily to elimi-nate the FCC, OSS, and others from the cryptan-alytic field, and to restrict the COMINT activitiesof the FBI.30

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In implementing the agreements of June1942, the Army assumed the Navy’s previousresponsibility for all cryptanalysis on other thannaval problems and naval-related ciphers.31 Thus,all foreign military traffic and all diplomatic com-munications fell to the Army. The Navy acquiredresponsibility for enemy naval traffic, enemynaval air and weather systems, and through itswartime control of the Coast Guard, surveillanceof clandestine communications. The conferenceconcluded that there was sufficient clandestinematerial to occupy both the FBI and the Navy(Coast Guard) with reference to WesternHemisphere clandestine work since both wereengaged in it and had a vital interest in the

results. For other than the Western Hemisphere,the Navy (Coast Guard) acquired exclusiveresponsibility for international clandestine communications. The FBI in addition to sharingthe responsibility with the Navy for clandestinetargets in the Western Hemisphere, workeddomestic voice broadcasts and domestic criminal actions.32 This overall division of cryptanalytic effort proved to be an effectivewartime arrangement.

Coincidental with the negotiations over theallocation of cryptanalytic targets and in anticipa-

tion of new and greatly expanded operationalmissions, each service initiated search actions forthe acquisition of new sites to house their alreadyovercrowded facilities. Within one year, the serv-ices accomplished major relocations and expan-sions of their operations facilities within theWashington, D.C., area.

The site ultimately selected by the Army cameto the attention of the authorities quite by chancein the spring of 1942. On returning from aninspection of the proposed site for a monitoringstation at Vint Hill Farms, near Warrenton,Virginia, the Search Team, among whom wasMajor Harold G. Hayes, Executive Officer, Signal

Intelligence Service (SIS), happened to notice theimpressive grounds and facilities of the ArlingtonHall Junior College at 4000 Lee Boulevard,Arlington. Almost immediately, the Army soughtto acquire the property, which was then inreceivership. The property, as it turned out, wasnot on the governmental list for possible pur-chase, nor was it on the market at the time. TheArmy, however, sought to acquire it through astraight purchase arrangement, but failed toreach agreement with the seller on the price.Arlington Hall Junior College officials valued thebuildings and grounds (approximately ninety-six

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acres) at $840,000 while the Army appraised theproperty at $600,000. Following litigationactions and condemnation of the property underthe War Powers Act, the court established thefinal price at $650,000. The SIS took official pos-session of the property on 14 June 1942. By thesummer of 1942, the Army’s Signal IntelligenceService organization completed the move fromthe Munitions Building on Constitution Avenuein Washington, D.C., to its new location, nowcalled Arlington Hall Station.33

The Army then began a major building program to accommodate the wartime expansionof personnel and equipment. The building pro-

gram provided for the construction of temporarybuildings, without air conditioning or otherrefinements. The initial expansion included arehabilitation of the main school building and theconstruction of barracks for enlisted men andoperations buildings. In September 1942 theArmy started construction of the new barracksand broke ground for the construction of a newoperations building. Operations A Building, 607feet long by 239 feet wide, provided approximate-ly 240,000 square feet of floor space, and wasdesigned to accommodate 2,200 personnel.Within two months, operational elements started

to move into the new quarters as the spacesbecame ready for occupancy. By November 1942,however, the SIS announced a further expansionof its civilian personnel to a total of 3,683 employees. Consequently, the Army brokeground on 4 December 1942 for the constructionof a second operations building similar toOperations A Building, but somewhat smaller insize. The new Operations B Building became fullyoccupied by 1 May 1943.34

The same situation applied to the Navy –namely, a pressing need for additional personnel,space, and security in order to meet the increasedoperational requirements of war. In 1942, Navy

planning called for a major expansion of itsCOMINT unit, the Supplemental Branch (OP-20-G) located in the Navy Department onConstitution Avenue in Washington. The Navy,preferring to stay in Washington, acquired thesite of the Mount Vernon Seminary at 3801Nebraska Avenue. On 7 February 1943 OP-20-Gmoved from the Navy Department to its new siteof thirty-five acres, now called theCommunications Supplementary Annex,Washington (CSAW). Commensurate with thesize of the property, which was considerablysmaller than Arlington Hall Station, the Navy

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undertook a building program to meet its partic-ular needs. Unlike the Army, however, the Navytended to construct permanent buildings ratherthan temporary structures. The expansion of theCSAW site included modifications of existingstructures, construction of new support facilities,and construction of a major new building.35

During the first two years of the war, the serv-ices continued to expand their COMINTresources, both in Washington and overseas.Despite the proximity of their COMINT head-quarters and the working agreement, each serviceremained aloof and zealously guarded its ownoperations. Each worked independently of theother. By the end of 1943, however, with the endof the war in sight, the COMINT authorities inboth services foresaw that the survival of theirCOMINT operations would be in jeopardy if theypersisted in maintaining totally independentoperations. This factor became the main catalystin developing closer cooperation.

The year 1944 marked the beginning of a newperiod in Army-Navy collaboration in cryptanaly-sis. During 1944 the Army and Navy completed anumber of supplemental agreements, all of whichreflected logical extensions or clarifications of theearlier 1942 agreement and which moved in thedirection of establishing closer coordination. On19 January 1944, for example, a joint agreementsigned by General George C. Marshall andAdmiral Ernest J. King promulgated the “JointArmy-Navy Regulations for the Disseminationand Use of Communications IntelligenceConcerning Weather.” The agreement addressedthe special nature and perishability of Japaneseweather intelligence. Heretofore, the services tra-ditionally handled weather intelligence as a spe-cial category of intelligence, with each havingtotally separate rules to govern its classification,handling, and dissemination. The King-Marshallagreement changed this by establishing new uni-form security regulations to govern all U.S. serv-ices in their handling of Japanese Special

Weather Intelligence (SWI).36 On 7 April 1944 anadditional Army-Navy agreement defined thebasic allocation of cryptanalytic tasks againstJapanese weather systems. This second agree-ment included specifics on the realignment ofcryptanalytic tasks on the weather problem, anew policy statement authorizing a completeexchange of all information concerning weathersystems, and new guidelines governing theexchange of weather intelligence.37

The Army-Navy authorities also completedtwo additional policy agreements in 1944. On 4February 1944 Marshall and King issued a “JointArmy-Navy Agreement for the Exchange ofCommunications Intelligence.” This agreement,applicable only to the Washington area and onlyto the Japanese problem, provided for the firstexchange of liaison officers between Army andNavy communications intelligence organizations.In addition to their liaison role, the officers wereto “have access to the . . . intelligence files andrecords” in the Army (SSA) and Navy (OP-20-G)COMINT organizations.38 (As the Army’s SignalIntelligence Service evolved, it became the SignalIntelligence Division (1942); the Signal SecurityService (1942); the Signal Security Agency (1943);and the Army Security Agency (1945). The secondagreement, which formalized a long-standingworking arrangement, concerned the sharing ofcommunications circuits. During the early yearsof the war, the Army permitted the Navy to usethe Army’s communications circuits to Australia.In response to a Navy request, on 15 June 1944Major General Harry C. Ingles, Chief SignalOfficer, agreed to the “continued and perhapsincreased movement of Navy traffic over thechannels of Army Communications Service,extending between the United States andAustralia.”39

Despite the progress taking place in thecourse of Army-Navy cooperation in COMINTmatters, the June 1942 agreementremained the dominant and most importantcomponent governing their intelligence relation-

ships. While the services did agree to a minimalexpansion of intelligence arrangements existingon the periphery of their basic dealings, neither

sought to amend the earlier agreement. As thewar progressed, the cryptologic services contin-ued to concentrate on the targets previously allo-cated to them. The Army processed the foreigndiplomatic communications, while the Army andNavy targeted their efforts, on a counterpartbasis, against the military and naval communica-tions of Japan and Germany. This breakout ofcryptanalytic tasks proved to be conceptuallysound and completely acceptable to each service.

Also, the communications security practicesof foreign countries reinforced the U.S. decisionconcerning the division of the intelligence effortbetween the Army and Navy. Developments dur-ing World War II indicated that there existed nocentralized control within Japan and Germanyover the development of their cryptosystems. Thesystems employed by the Japanese and Germanusers were designed separately by their foreignoffices and armed services. Having worked inde-pendently for so many years, this fractionation offoreign responsibility for crypto-developmentworked to the advantage of the Army and Navy intheir technical efforts to exploit enemy communi-

cations. Moreover, the organizational design of the U.S. cryptologic structure facilitated the targeting of enemy communications on a totallydecentralized basis by existing organizations – and without the requirement for establishing a unified center for the analysis of communications.40

Devoting extensive resources and talent totheir missions, the Army and Navy COMINTorganizations accomplished some remarkableexploitation of enemy communications duringthe war. The Army enjoyed extraordinary suc-cesses against foreign Japanese diplomatic trafficenciphered in an electro-mechanical systemknown as the “Red” and subsequently as the“Purple” machine. The Army also exploited theJapanese Water Transport Code, which it brokein April 1943, as well as other military systems.41

In its exploitation of the Water Transport Code,which utilized a Japanese Army cryptographicsystem, the Army provided valuable advancewarning about the movements of Japanese mer-chant shipping that operated in support of enemyground forces and helped eliminate nearly nine-ty-eight percent of the Japanese merchant fleetby the end of the war. Similarly, the Navy enjoyedits share of spectacular successes againstJapanese and German naval communications.Navy COMINT provided the breakthrough to JN-25, the major Japanese fleet system, that helpedthe United States win the battles of Coral Sea andMidway, the turning points in the Pacific War.42

The Navy also achieved a number of other criticalbreakthroughs in the decoding of Japanese con-voy messages, as well as German communica-tions concerning the movements of submarinesin the Atlantic.43

While their cryptanalytic accomplishmentswere impressive, both services recognized thattheir joint efforts were far from ideal. The warcompelled them to develop closer COMINT rela-tionships with each other, but there still persisteda highly competitive and frequently hostile rela-tionship. Each service cooperated with the other

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to the extent agreed upon – but there was littleevidence of enthusiasm or voluntary efforts to gobeyond the formal arrangement. A spirit of com-petition rather than coordination continuedthroughout the early years of World War II. Insuch an atmosphere, the intensity of competinginterests tended to create unnecessary difficultiesfor each organization. Recurring problems, suchas the recruitment of suitable personnel or theprocurement of highly complex and unique crypt-analytic machinery, were often complicated bythe competition of both services for the sameitems.44 Thus, limited coordination and theabsence of free and open dialogue between theservices on day-to-day operational relationshipsmeant that the Army and Navy were often work-ing at cross-purposes.

Even in such a sensitive area as foreign rela-tionships, each COMINT service demonstrated apredisposition to act completely independently.For example, the Army and Navy persisted inestablishing their own technical agreements withtheir British counterparts, but without coordina-tion or dialogue with the other U.S. service. Theseagreements frequently conflicted, usually withrespect to the amount and kinds of intelligenceinformation to be exchanged. Because of thesediverse agreements, a potential for serious dam-age to American intelligence interests alwaysexisted.45

Similarly, on U.S. intelligence matters, eachservice operated with little consideration for theparallel activities and interests of the other. A pol-icy of non-coordination seemed to prevail, whichapplied particularly to the relationships of theintelligence services with each other and with theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) and the FBI.Lacking any central authority for intelligenceactivities, the services for the most part had freerein in their operations. An internal FBI memo-randum in 1939 to FBI director J. Edgar Hoovertestifies to the disunity in noting that “anotherfeud had broken out between the Army and NavyIntelligence sections” because the Army Military

Intelligence Division (G-2) had approved therequest for representatives of the Japanese Armyto examine certain plants and factories in theUnited States after the Navy had turned down therequest.46 This pattern of independent andautonomous operations by the intelligence services continued throughout the war years.

Since no national intelligence structure exist-ed, the Joint Chiefs of Staff served as the primaryU.S. mechanism to govern U.S. intelligence activ-ities during World War II. The need for establish-ing a coordinating committee composed of repre-sentation from the various departments andagencies was recognized early in the war, result-ing in the creation of the Joint IntelligenceCommittee (JIC) under the Joint Chiefs of Staff.At its first meeting in March 1942, the member-ship consisted of the intelligence chiefs of theArmy and Navy, and one representative eachfrom the Department of State, the Board ofEconomic Warfare (later the Foreign EconomicAdministration), and the Coordinator ofInformation (subsequently the Office of StrategicServices). The intelligence chief of the Army AirCorps was added in 1943.47

As its principal function, the JIC providedintelligence estimates of enemy capabilities foruse in developing strategic war plans for the JCS.In addition, the JIC provided advice and assis-tance to the JCS on other intelligence matters andalso served as a coordinator of intelligence opera-tions conducted by the member agencies. TheJIC, with its many subcommittees, provided theprimary forum for community discussion of intel-ligence reports, estimates, requirements, andrelated topics. During the first two years of thewar, it was within the JIC that the first joint pro-ducer and consumer discussions concerningCOMINT matters took place. The topics includedsuch recurring items as possible ways to improveCOMINT product, COMINT dissemination procedures, and the matter of cooperationbetween the COMINT organizations.48

As early as 1942, however, it became evidentthat COMINT agencies were making independentdecisions concerning requirements and the prior-ities of intercept, cryptanalysis, and reporting.While the consumer representatives such as Stateand OSS may have been uneasy about this situa-tion, they were unable to change things becauseof their lack of influence in directing the overallCOMINT structure. It was basically controlled bythe U.S. military. Toward the end of the war, thequestion of how to influence and guide the collec-tion and reporting priorities of the U.S. COMINTstructure surfaced as a fundamental issue withinthe U.S. intelligence community. Nothing reallychanged at the time, however, and the ramifica-tions of this unresolved issue extended well intothe postwar period.49

In much the same vein, recognizing the mag-nitude of the intelligence picture, and seeking tobenefit from “lessons learned” during the war, theJoint Intelligence Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staffstarted to explore the concept of establishing acentral intelligence organization for the UnitedStates for the postwar period. Brigadier GeneralWilliam J. Donovan, head of the Office ofStrategic Services, became a major catalyst forthese discussions.50 In late 1944 Donovan, func-tioning as a member of the Joint IntelligenceCommittee of the JCS, presented his first propos-al for the establishment of a central intelligenceagency. Among other things, Donovan’s proposalrecommended the establishment of a nationalintelligence authority and a central intelligenceagency. While Donovan’s proposal generatedmuch discussion in the JCS Committee structure,it never went beyond the proposal stage duringthe war and remained within the JCS structure.51

When discussing COMINT activities, the var-ious JCS committees always emphasized the needfor much closer cooperation by the COMINT pro-ducers. This consideration, coupled with therecurring proposals for centralization of intelli-gence activities, brought new fears to theCOMINT service organizations, however. The

COMINT authorities in each service recognizedthat a disunited COMINT structure would bemore vulnerable to a takeover in the event centralization of intelligence actually was forcedupon them.52

Yet another consideration influenced thethinking of the COMINT hierarchy. Recalling anearlier parallel from World War I, both Army andNavy policy makers became apprehensive aboutthe effect of demobilization on their COMINTorganizations. They were concerned lest the situation that had occurred at the end of WorldWar I might happen again – namely, dwindlingappropriations and the inability to provide forfuture COMINT needs. In looking at the patternfollowing World War I, one Navy study concluded that “lost opportunities and neglect,which was the fate of all American military andnaval enterprises in the postwar era, was suffered[sic] by United States Army and NavyCommunication Intelligence organizations.”53 Noone in the Army or the Navy wanted a repeat ofthe World War I experience.

Moving in the direction of still greater cooperation,on 18 April 1944 the services set up an unofficial working committee known as the Army-Navy RadioIntelligence Coordinating Committee. Members of thecommittee were Colonel Carter W. Clarke and ColonelW. Preston Corderman for the Army; and CaptainPhilip R. Kinney, Captain Henri H. Smith-Hutton, andCommander Joseph N. Wenger for the Navy. The committee’s mission involved policy, planning, andtechnical matters. It met monthly, and, in general,worked on postwar plans, coordination of future operating plans in the Pacific, and coordination of relationships and agreements with allied radio intelligence activities. Initially, the committee had noformal organization and little official power.54

Following its first two meetings (18 April and 19 May1944), the committee changed its name to Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee(ANCICC) to reflect the increasing usage of the term“communications intelligence” in place of “radiointelligence.”55

The establishment of ANCICC represented asignificant step forward in the area of servicecooperation. There now existed a forum, albeitinformal and with a limited charter, empoweredto consider a broad range of COMINT problems.On controversial or critical issues, ANCICClacked the authority to make decisions. COMINTofficials from both services, such as Carter Clarke,Preston Corderman, and Joseph Wenger, recog-nized the obvious need for another, higher levelboard, with broader authority, to discussCOMINT problems independently of other formsof intelligence. Each service, therefore, agreed tostudy the possibility of establishing a higher levelmilitary board to govern COMINT matters.56

In less than a year, the services succeeded inestablishing such a policy board. In an exchangeof letters in 1945, Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief ofNaval Operations and Commander in Chief, U.S.Fleet (COMINCH), and General George C.Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, agreed inprinciple to the establishment of an Army-NavyIntelligence Board. Based on national intelligenceinterests, they considered it imperative that theArmy and Navy intelligence organizations workmore closely together on an interdepartmentaland permanent basis.57

On 10 March 1945 Marshall and Kingcosigned a Joint Memorandum to the AssistantChief of Staff (G-2), to the Commanding General,Signal Security Agency, to the Director of NavalIntelligence, and to the Director of NavalCommunications, that formally established theArmy-Navy Communication Intelligence Board(ANCIB). The Marshall-King memorandumdefined the authorities and responsibilities of thenew board, and redesignated the informal ANCI-CC as an official working committee of ANCIB.58

Because of security considerations, Marshalland King insisted that ANCIB function outsidethe framework of the Joint Chiefs of Staff andreport directly to them. Their major concernabout security was the exposure of sensitive

COMINT information via the multilayered corre-spondence channels of the JCS. The placement ofANCIB within the JCS structure would haverequired the automatic routing of all papers andreports through the JCS Secretariat, therebyexposing ULTRA intelligence to personnel notconsidered as having the “need-to-know.”59

According to its charter, ANCIB was estab-lished primarily to avoid duplication of effort inCOMINT matters and to ensure a full exchange oftechnical information and intelligence betweenthe services. However, it also included a self-restricting provision that required unanimity ofagreement on issues requiring a decision by theboard. This rule enabled the military COMINTstructures to appear to coordinate operations ona voluntary basis without, in fact, yielding any oftheir independence. By simply exercising its vetopower, a service could prevent the implementa-tion of any controversial proposal. In later years,the rule of unanimity developed into a majorproblem for the entire intelligence community.Nevertheless, the Marshall-King agreement rep-resented a significant milestone in service coop-eration–the establishment of the first interde-partmental board devoted solely to COMINTmatters. With the establishment of a joint Army-Navy board, the services created their own self-governing mechanism to administer theirCOMINT effort. When discussing the merits ofestablishing a new Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Board, Rear Admiral Joseph R.Redman presented very bluntly some of the fearsand concerns of the military services. He stated ina letter to Vice Admiral Richard S. Edwards, Chiefof Staff, Office of Naval Operations:

. . . The public is acutely conscious of the

lack of unified direction. . . in American

intelligence activities. The supposedly

secret plan of the OSS for coordination

of all these activities is widely known...

In addition, there seems to be little

doubt that other civilian agencies will

insist on a reorganization of American

intelligence activities. It is important

that the Army and Navy take progres-

sive steps. . . to ensure that their legiti-

mate interests in communication intelli-

gence are not jeopardized by the

encroachment of other agencies. The

formal establishment of an Army-Navy

Communications Intelligence Board

will ensure that communication intelli-

gence, the most important source of

operational intelligence, will be dis-

cussed independently of other forms of

intelligence. . . . Finally, informed

observers will have some assurance

that nothing has been left undone to

ensure that another Pearl Harbor will

not occur.60

Whatever motivations may have contributedto the establishment of ANCIB, the new boardbecame a powerful joint institutional force in theadjudication of COMINT matters, both at the pol-icy and operational levels. The establishment ofANCIB did not diminish the competition betweenthe Army and Navy COMINT organizations, how-ever. Despite the new ANCIB, the services weremore determined than ever to preserve their sep-arate COMINT organizations. They viewedANCIB as a valuable joint mechanism that wouldassist in sheltering their COMINT activities fromexternal scrutiny and in the resolution of jointproblem areas. But they also foresaw that thestructure of the new board would permit eachservice to remain totally independent.61

In the closing days of the war, the servicesseemed to be driven by two compelling and over-lapping objectives. First, they desired to find away to formalize their joint day-to-day relation-ships as an initial step toward protecting theexisting COMINT resources of the Army andNavy from drastic budget cuts. Second, theybelieved some way had to be found to continuethe progress achieved during the war in conduct-ing COMINT collaboration with Great Britain.62

This wartime liaison with the British in COMINT

proved to be highly beneficial to each country, asit permitted a sharing not only of cryptanalytictechniques but also of cryptanalytic successes.

The establishment of ANCIB marked the firststep toward accomplishing the first objective. The Army and Navy now had an interdepartmental forum for joint discussion ofCOMINT matters. Accomplishing the secondobjective required considerable internal joint discussions, as well as a new round of externalnegotiations with British officials.

The origins of the highly secret U.S.-U.K.COMINT cooperation stemmed from the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 and theGerman blitzkrieg through sections of WesternEurope. By the summer of 1940, Great Britain,under heavy siege by German forces, intensifiedits efforts to acquire military assistance from thethen neutral United States. President Roosevelt,at least in the early days of the war, sought toachieve a partial posture of neutrality for theUnited States, but it was evident that he person-ally favored a policy of “all-out aid” to GreatBritain. When Winston Churchill became theprime minister of the United Kingdom in May1940, Roosevelt and Churchill quickly establisheda direct and personal communications channelon matters related to the war. This extraordinarily close relationship of the two lead-ers reinforced the concept of a strong British-U.S.alliance, and influenced many of the joint militarydecisions during the course of the war.63

In 1940, following a number of high-levelconferences in London and Washington, the twogovernments concluded “a general, though secretagreement. . . for a full exchange of military infor-mation.”64 Following this very broad agreement,the United Kingdom and United States represen-tatives began very limited exploratory talks inAugust 1940 concerning the establishment of acryptanalytic exchange between the two nations.These discussions marked the beginning of acryptanalytic exchange, but one that functioned

on a very limited and cautious basis and that tookplace at a service-to-service level.65 Close cooperation did not actually begin until February1941. Each U.S. service, from the outset, worked independently in developing its ownagreements or understandings with its Britishcounterpart and seldom told the other of itsaccomplishments.

In July 1942, basically unaware of the servicecompetition in this field, Prime MinisterChurchill brought up the subject by informingRoosevelt that the British and American naval“cipher experts” were in close touch but that asimilar interchange apparently did not existbetween the two armies.66 Roosevelt askedMarshall to take this up with Field Marshall SirJohn Dill, British Ministry Office Liaison Officerin Washington.67 In a response to Marshall’srequest for information, on 9 July 1942 MajorGeneral George V. Strong, Assistant Chief of Staff,G-2, stated that an interchange of cryptanalyticinformation between the British and Americanarmies had been taking place for over a year andthat it appeared to be satisfactory to both sides.68

Strong further stated that if the Navy exchange ofcryptanalytic information with the UnitedKingdom seemed to be more advanced, it wassimply because coordination between the two hadbeen necessary for a much longer time.

In 1943, however, the U.S. Army and Britishauthorities completed a formal agreement concerning collaboration on their major militaryCOMINT targets. Under the agreement, the U.S.Army assumed as a main responsibility the reading of Japanese military and air traffic. TheBritish Government Code and Cypher School(G.C. & C.S.) assumed a parallel responsibility fora cryptanalytic effort against German and Italian military and air traffic. The agreementprovided for complete interchange of technicaldata and special intelligence from the sourcescovered, and for dissemination of such intelligence to all field commanders through spe-cial channels. On 10 June 1943, Major General

Strong signed the agreement for the U.S. WarDepartment, and Edward W. Travis, DeputyDirector, G.C. & C.S., signed for the British.”69

Thus, during the war years the Army andNavy followed the established policy of workingindependently with the British, with each U.S.service having separate agreements or under-standings with its British counterpart. In general,because of mutual distrust, each consistentlyfailed – or refused – to inform the other of theexistence or nature of their agreement with theUnited Kingdom.

The first clear indication that the serviceswere beginning to be more open with each otherconcerning their foreign COMINT arrangementsoccurred during 1944. This change of attitudecame about, in part, because of the establishmentof the new Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Coordinating Committee; a generalacceptance of the need for tighter control of for-eign agreements on COMINT matters; and thelikelihood of continuing U.S. collaboration withthe British.7O Using the informal forum providedby ANCICC, each service began to reveal thespecifics of its agreements with foreign nations,especially their COMINT relationships with GreatBritain. It was small progress and did not undoimmediately the independent agreements madeearlier by each U.S. service with foreign organiza-tions. Nevertheless, it was progress.

In exploring the possibility of establishingpostwar collaboration with the United Kingdom,many alarming reports emerged about the earlierlack of Army-Navy coordination and the exis-tence of overlapping agreements with the UnitedKingdom. For example, the Navy noted, “the lackof coordination between the Army and the Navywas strikingly demonstrated by an Army-Britishagreement which was made during the war with-out the concurrence of the Navy, even though itdirectly affected the air material in which theNavy had a vital interest. It also provided for acomplete exchange between the Army and the

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British of all technical material, although theNavy had an agreement to make only a limitedexchange with the British.”71 The Navy cited sim-ilar problems in some of its COMINT relation-ships with U.S. consumers. It noted that bothservices experienced similar difficulties stem-ming from their unilateral dealings with the FBIand OSS. It was not until the creation of the informal ANCICC that the Army and Navyachieved a united front in dealing with theseagencies.72 By the end of the war, Army and Navyofficials came to realize that COMINT agree-ments with foreign governments or other domes-tic agencies could no longer be determined on anad hoc basis by each service.

At the same time, ANCIB undertook its ownefforts to strengthen the U.S. COMINT structure.As a part of this effort, ANCIB sought to find away to continue U.S.-U.K. collaboration inCOMINT, and to establish itself as the sole U.S.spokesman for the conduct of policy negotiationswith all foreign countries on COMINT matters.73

The board saw British-United States coopera-tion as the key. By early 1945, as the primarywartime targets began to dry up, Great Britainand the United States began a redirection of theirCOMINT efforts. At that time, there emerged adominant view among the allied nations that the

Soviet Union was a hostile and expansive powerwith whom good relations seemed highly unlike-ly, at least for the immediate future. Since bothnations recognized the mutual benefits of theirearlier collaborative efforts, they agreed to investigate the feasibility of establishing someform of postwar collaboration on the Soviet prob-lem that heretofore had received minusculeattention. Motivated in large part by sensitivityand security considerations, and seeking to avoida repetition of the many separate wartime agree-ments with each other, representatives of bothnations agreed that a new set of ground ruleswould be necessary for their next round of collab-oration. Both authorities agreed to establishmechanisms within their own countries to bringabout a greater degree of centralized control oftheir COMINT resources. This move to establisha new cycle of British-U.S. collaboration alsomeant that the U.S. services would have to bemore open with each other about their COMINTprograms and successes.

Within the U.S. intelligence structure, theArmy and Navy now endorsed the concept of cen-tralized control to govern their foreign COMINTrelationships. In the negotiation process, theservices agreed to the establishment of well-defined policies and procedures to govern theconduct of United States COMINT liaison with

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the British COMINT authorities. Under the newconcept, all U.S. foreign liaison with GreatBritain on certain problems would take placeunder the auspices of the United States policyboard (ANCIB/ANCICC) rather than individuallyby each service.

Five years after the initial U.S.-U.K. collabora-tion in COMINT, the two nations began a newchapter in their cooperation in COMINT matters.Following several months of technical discus-sions, both in London and Washington, represen-tatives of the London Signals Intelligence Board(LSIB) and the Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Board on 15 August 1945 informallyapproved the concept of establishing U.S.-U.K,cooperation on certain problems.74 This unwrit-ten agreement was predicated on an understand-ing arrived at by Group Captain Eric Jones, RAF,and Rear Admiral Hewlett Thebaud, Chairman ofANCIB. The informal understanding identifiedLSIB and ANCIB as the respective governmentalauthorities for all COMINT negotiations and out-lined in general terms the framework and proce-dures to govern the new working partnership.

This growing collaboration soon resulted in abroad exchange of operational materials betweenthe COMINT centers of both nations, and in theestablishment of reciprocal Joint Liaison Unitsstationed in London and Washington. These liai-son units evolved into the liaison mechanismsthat exist today, the Senior U.S. Liaison Officer,London (SUSLO), and the senior U.K. LiaisonOfficer, Washington (SUKLO).75

In the implementation of this increased coop-eration, ANCICC established the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations as its focal points, toserve on a rotating basis for the conduct of liaisonwith Great Britain. Initially, an Army officer represented ANCICC in London, assisted by aNavy officer. Similarly, a naval officer, assisted byan Army officer, represented ANCICC inWashington. This detail rotated every six months,so that first one service represented ANCICC as

senior liaison officer, followed by a member of theother service. This system worked very well. Itserved to keep each service in the forefront onoperational and policy matters while at the sametime providing a new degree of centralized control over COMINT activities under the aegis ofANCIB. It also helped to prevent the UnitedKingdom from playing one service off against theother, as had occurred frequently during World War II.76

These arrangements became the springboardfor further U.S.-U.K. negotiations to consider theestablishment of even broader collaboration forthe postwar period. With this objective in mind,the COMINT authorities brought the matter ofU.S.-U.K. collaboration to the attention ofPresident Truman through the State-War-NavyCoordinating Committee (SWNCC). In 1945, in ajoint memorandum to Truman, Acting Secretaryof State Dean Acheson, Secretary of War Henry L.Stimson, and Secretary of the Navy James V.Forrestal recommended the continuation of col-laboration between the United States Army andNavy and the British in the field of communica-tions intelligence.77 On 12 September 1945,Truman concurred. He authorized the Army andNavy “. . . to continue collaboration in the field ofcommunication intelligence between the UnitedStates Army and Navy, to extend, modify. or dis-continue this collaboration as determined to be inthe best interests of the United States.”78 Basedon this presidential authorization, the Army andNavy immediately initiated U.S.-U.K. discussionsthrough ANCIB to explore expanded postwar col-laboration in COMINT .79

As ANCIB pursued its objectives, however, anew COMINT unit, outside the military structure,appeared in the U.S. intelligence community: theDepartment of State unilaterally established itsown unit to exploit COMINT. Because of thedesire to bring all the COMINT activities of theUnited States under the control of ANCIB, ANCIBofficials agreed to seek the expansion of its mem-bership to include State.

On 13 December 1945, ANCIB forwarded itsproposal for expansion of the board to GeneralEisenhower and to Admiral King for approval.They approved the recommendation, and theDepartment of State accepted membership onANCIB, effective 20 December 1945. ANCIB andits working committee became the State-Army-Navy Communication Intelligence Board (STANCIB) and the State-Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee (STAN-CICC).80 Alfred McCormack,special assistant to the secretary of state, becamethe first State Department member ofSTANCIB.81 A civilian agency was now an officialpart of the United States COMINT structure.

In summary, by the end of the war. the UnitedStates COMINT services had reason to be proudof their accomplishments. They had achievedspectacular COMINT successes against the military and diplomatic communications ofGermany and Japan. To achieve a greater degreeof efficiency and to avoid costly duplication, theyhad set up their own self-governing mechanisms–a policy board (ANCIB) and aworking level committee (ANCICC). Despite alltheir efforts, however, they still basically functioned as independent units in the COMINT arena.

These successes notwithstanding, out of thedisaster at Pearl Harbor came recurring demandsfor a truly centralized permanent intelligenceagency and increased participation of the civilianagencies in COMINT matters. Proposals for theestablishment of a single United States intelligence agency became routine topics for discussion in the Joint Intelligence Committee of the JCS and in congressional investigations.

The combination of service competition,pending budget reductions, and high-level investigations foretold sweeping changes in theintelligence structure in the postwar years. Theend of World War II signaled the beginning of theend of the exclusive military domination of the

Army and Navy COMINT organizations. Civilianagencies now pressed for a much greater voice inthe direction of U.S. COMINT activities.

Immediately following World War II,American policy makers looked for ways toachieve major reductions in the military budget.Despite the spectacular successes achieved by theArmy and Navy COMINT organizations duringthe war, they quickly became prime candidatesfor reorganization and for major reductions intheir resources. As the Pearl Harbor investiga-tions continued, interest in intelligence mattersalso increased dramatically. For the first time,U.S. intelligence operations came under outsidescrutiny. By 1946 service COMINT officials foundthat they were no longer able to act as free agentsin making many of the basic decisions affectingtheir COMINT operations.

Their days of complete autonomy were numbered. Other fundamental intelligence relationships were also changing. Within theCOMINT community, the addition of the StateDepartment to the membership of the COMINTpolicy board changed not only the composition ofthe board but the scope of its intelligence interests as well. At the international level, theGreat Britain-United States negotiations toextend COMINT collaboration into the postwarperiod were nearing completion. Finally, in themilitary itself, there now existed demands forcloser cooperation between the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations.

In addition, developments during World War IIforced a new reassessment and push toward unificationof the military services at the national level. Despitewidespread agreement on the need for postwar organi-zational reform of the military services, there existeddeep philosophical differences and suspicions amongthe services that could not be resolved easily. As debateprogressed during this period it became clear thatCongress would have to legislate a structure thatwould be acceptable to the military services.

All of these activities – foreign negotiationsand unification – impacted on the COMINTstructure that sought to achieve its own degree ofunification within the intelligence organizationsof the War and Navy Departments. As a principalmeans of achieving closer cooperation, the serviceCOMINT organizations responded to these pres-sures by establishing a joint operating agreement.This new alliance called for a collocation of theArmy and Navy COMINT processing activities inthe United States, as well as cooperation in theirCOMINT collection and reporting programs.While the services remained organizationallyindependent, the joint operating agreement didcall for a totally new managerial concept, namely,operating on the basis of shared” or “joint” con-trol over a number of COMINT targets andresources. While this was a difficult period ofadjustment for the COMINT services, they notonly survived but made some significantCOMINT contributions during this time.

As the services moved into the postwar peri-od, they found that peacetime operations, ratherthan simplifying the conduct of their COMINToperations, brought new problems and highlight-ed even more the glaring disunity of theU.S. COMINT structure. By 1946 the harsh reali-ties of the new situation began to hit home.Operationally, the services had lost their wartimetargets of Germany and Japan, and the source ofmany spectacular successes. At the same time, theservices were confronted with the specter of rap-idly shrinking resources. Shortly after V-E andV-J Days, their parent headquarters ordereddrastic reductions of their COMINT facilities.Demobilization actions were under way with direconsequences for the service COMINT operations.

Chapter II

The Military Services and the Joint Operating Plan, 1946-1949

While the services no longer had the urgencyof a wartime situation to support their requestsfor resources, the likelihood of going through anextended period of austerity did have one practical effect. It forced the services to reevaluatetheir joint posture and to think more seriouslyabout closer cooperation between their organizations. Because of the new public investigation of Pearl Harbor with its intensiveprobings into intelligence matters, the COMINTofficials saw that they would be vulnerable, onceagain to charges of duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources if they continued tomaintain totally separate and independentCOMINT organizations.

Fortuitously, in the postwar period a newoperational target emerged for the U.S. COMINTservices. As the hostility of the Soviet Uniontoward the West became more apparent, theArmy and Navy began to plan for a major adjust-ment of their COMINT coverage, to focus onSoviet targets. But the realignment was not allthat simple. Some very fundamental questionsexisted concerning intercept and processing thatcould only be answered on a communal basis. Forexample, what were the new collection priorities?What were the new intelligence priorities? Whowould establish these priorities? What were theinterests and roles of the non-military con-sumers? How would the intercept and processingof the Soviet material be divided between theservices? It became obvious that the serviceCOMINT organizations, as constituted, could notanswer these questions.

Because of these problems, the services per-ceived an immediate need for accomplishingsome form of cooperation that went well beyondthe scope of any previous efforts. The militaryauthorities fully recognized that, at best, they hadmade only superficial progress toward the estab-lishment of closer cooperation between theirorganizations in the production of COMINT.Earlier moves toward closer cooperation, dictatedby wartime necessity, had been carefully designed

to be limited in scope, as well as to avoid anyinterference with the primary interests of eachservice. The wartime agreements had accom-plished little more than a basic division of laborand had avoided the real issue of establishing acentralized cooperative effort. In the main, thespirit of the earlier measures seemed to reflect aninherent attitude that cooperation in COMINTmatters was a necessary evil, rather than any realconviction about the benefits of centralization orcooperation.

Seeking to shelter their vital COMINT func-tions from further budget reductions, the militaryauthorities intensified their efforts to achievecloser cooperation and coordination betweentheir COMINT organizations. The likelihood offurther budget reductions and the question ofsurvival of their separate COMINT organizationsforced the two organizations together.

A few Army and Navy officials, aware of themagnitude of the COMINT successes duringWorld War II, became the prime movers in theeffort to preserve the Army and Navy COMINTstructures. Three officers in particular stand outin the postwar era – Colonel W. PrestonCorderman, USA, Colonel Carter W. Clarke, USA,and Captain Joseph N. Wenger, USN.1 As early as1943, these officers took the essential first steps inpressing for the preservation and fusion of themilitary COMINT resources. Over the next fewyears, they consistently took the lead in facilitat-ing a dialogue between the services to foster thepreservation of military COMINT resources. Forthe most part, they sought to promote service dis-cussions covering a broad range of organizationalrelationships, such as division of responsibility oncryptanalytic tasks, the feasibility of joint opera-tions, and possible ways to avoid unnecessaryduplication. Each of these officers encounteredvarying degrees of opposition, sometimes fromwithin their own service, and sometimes from theother service. Despite the continuing lack ofenthusiasm encountered at various echelons ofthe military structures for consolidation, they had

the foresight to view COMINT as a national assetthat would be vital in meeting future U.S. intelligence needs. Corderman, Clarke, andWenger never wavered in their single-mindeddetermination to save the existing militaryCOMINT structure from a dismantling processthrough budget cuts.2

Of the postwar intelligence machinery,the establishment of the Army-NavyCommunications Intelligence Board was proba-bly the most important component for the Army and Navy. With the creation of ANCIB inMarch 1945, Corderman, Clarke, and Wengersucceeded in establishing the nucleus for a structured, communal approach to the basic han-dling of COMINT matters – and in moving theservices toward toward greater cooperation intheir intelligence relationships. Operating with a very limited charter, ANCIB quickly emerged asa policy mechanism for the COMINT services andbrought a new semblance of unity and order tothe COMINT structure.

Reinforcing their goal of creating a self-gov-erning mechanism for the COMINT agencies, theleaders brought about the establishment of anexpanded policy board – the State-Army-NavyCommunications Intelligence Board – inDecember 1945. The members established STAN-CIB as the primary governmental mechanism tocoordinate and guide the activities of theCOMINT structure and to assist in its reorganiza-tion during the postwar period.3 In retrospect, thedevelopment of a strong role for the policy boardstands as a tribute to the military leaders, partic-ularly when recognizing that STANCIB was oper-ating without an official charter.

Despite the fresh dialogue and new perspec-tive on a broad range of COMINT matters, onecritical element was still lacking within theCOMINT structure that could prevent STANCIBfrom acting as the COMINT broker, at either theinternational or domestic level. While the servic-es had achieved considerable progress in expand-

ing their dialogue at the policy level, they had notmade similar progress in designing an opera-tional plan that would enforce closer cooperationat the working level. Unless some additionalleverage was brought to bear upon the services,the authorities recognized that the Army andNavy had gone about as far as they could – orwould – go in achieving closer cooperation at theworking level. Since voluntary merger was notlikely to occur, direct intervention by higherauthority was inevitable.

The proposal to merge the Army-Navy com-munication intelligence activities had been underperiodic discussion by the services as early as1942. The Army authorities generally supportedthe proposals for merger, while naval officerswere unanimously opposed. For the Army, MajorGeneral George V. Strong, Assistant Chief of Staff,G-2, repeatedly expressed his strong support ofthe concept.4 From the outset, however, the navalauthorities opposed the concept of merger.Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of NavalOperations, supported the position of the Navy’sintelligence and COMINT officials that itsCOMINT operations should remain under exclu-sive naval control.5

The Navy’s persistent opposition to the cen-tralization of cryptologic resources stemmed, inlarge part, from its perception of its fundamentalintelligence needs, as contrasted with those of theArmy. The Navy considered that its intelligencerequirements expressed statements of need forintelligence information of a strategic nature andof national-level interest, that could be properlyhandled only by a full-scale technical centerunder the operational control of the Navy. In con-trast, the Navy perceived the Army’s intelligencerequirements as reflecting needs of a more limit-ed nature, which were exploitable in the field at atactical level. Leaving little room for negotiationon the issue, the Navy generally discouragedexploration of the concept of merger during the1940s.

But the developments associated with the endof World War II brought about a general reopening of the feasibility of the merger concept.By V-J Day (14 August 1945), a number of newproblems confronted the services that involvedboth operational and political considerations andthat forced them to take a new look at their cryptologic organization.

At the same time, there existed a number ofparallel developments at the national level thatalso seemed to threaten the COMINT services.Confronted with the reality of budget cuts, theservices recognized that they would have toacquire new priority tasks in order to justify thecontinuance of their separate organizations.Moreover, the concept of centralization hadacquired new credibility and momentum withinthe upper levels of the government. There existedgrowing pressures, emanating from both thepresidential and congressional levels, to establisha new centralized intelligence agency and toaccomplish, in some form, an integration of themilitary services. Once again, the issue for themilitary organizations related directly to thequestion of their continued existence.

Because of these factors, the Army and Navycommand authorities moved to a position thatclearly supported a merger of the COMINT serv-ices. A few days after the surrender of theJapanese, because of budgetary retrenchmentactions and the loss of the major wartime targets,the Army and Navy command authorities clearlysupported a merger of the COMINT services. Anexchange of Army-Navy correspondenceappeared to set the stage for accomplishing amerger action. General George C. Marshall, Chiefof Staff, U.S. Army, in a letter of 18 August 1945to Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of NavalOperations, recommended a complete physicalmerger of the COMINT processing activities ofthe Army and Navy.6 He proposed that the JointPolicy Board (ANCIB) study the proposals anddevelop specific recommendations on “how toinsure complete integration.” In his response of

21 August 1945, King expressed complete agreement with Marshall. King also noted that hehad directed the Navy members of ANCIB towork with the Army representatives in the development of recommendations.7

With the Marshall and King exchange, thebasic decision to merge the COMINT activitieswas made. All that remained was simply the mat-ter of developing the ways and means for execut-ing the decision for merger. On the surface itlooked simple. Implementing the merger becamethe responsibility of ANCIB and its working com-mittee, ANCICC.

On 28 August 1945 ANCICC responded byestablishing a Subcommittee on Merger Planning(SMP). In its instructions to the SMP, ANCICCnoted that the subcommittee had the task “ofmaking recommendations in implementing thedecision of General Marshall and Admiral Kingthat the Army, Navy intercept, cryptographic, andcryptanalytical activities be merged under jointdirection.” The ultimate objective of the commit-tee was to accomplish a prompt and completemerger of Army and Navy organizations in onelocation under ANCIB.8

One of the main tasks assigned to the committee was the selection of a site for the consolidated COMINT operations. Because of the need for direct exchange between producersand consumers, the committee concluded thatthe activity should remain in the Washingtonarea. ANCICC presented an analysis and comparison of the Army site at Arlington Hallwith the Naval Communications Annex (which it called the Mount Vernon Seminary). Because of its greater potential for expansion, the committee selected Arlington Hall as its firstchoice for the relocation of all COMINT activities.The Arlington Hall site of ninety-six acres wasconsiderably larger than the Navy site of thirty-five acres. In its final report of 7 September 1945, however, the committee concluded that both sites should be retained, with

COMINT activities to be located at one, and com-munications security activities at the other.9

During the policy deliberations withinANCIB, Colonel Corderman, Chief, ArmySecurity Agency, reiterated the traditional Armyposition for an immediate and complete physicalmerger of the two organizations. While CaptainWenger, head of OP-20-G, fully supported theconcept of eventual consolidation, he personallyespoused the view that merger should be accomplished as a gradual process in order toaccommodate differences in organization andmethods. These differences in approach, however, did not affect the final report that recommended a complete merger.10

But the situation soon changed within theNavy. The command authorities of the Navy, supporting the traditional naval view concerningcentral authority, overrruled Wenger at theeleventh hour. When ANCICC considered thefinal report on 12 September 1945, a new Navysubmission completely nullified Wenger’s earlierconcurrence and indicated that even the conceptof gradual consolidation went further than theNavy was willing to go. The Navy memorandumstated that

a full physical merger of Army and

Navy communications intelligence

activities does not seem desirable to the

Navy. . .

The memorandum also pointed out that

the Navy must retain complete control

over all elements of naval command, so

that the Navy will be free to meet its

interests, solve its special problems . . .

[and] must, therefore, have complete

control over its operational intelli-

gence.11

The Navy’s abrupt reversal of its earlier posi-tion brought to a complete standstill the entire

move toward consolidation. On 26 September1945 ANCICC closed out the activities of itsSpecial Committee on Merger Planning andreferred the matter to ANCIB for guidance.12

ANCIB, however, had no authority to resolve theconflict between the services and looked insteadto the departmental authorities for resolution. Intrying to pick up the pieces, Marshall and Kingexchanged four additional letters duringSeptember and October 1945. But the lettersreflected no change of positions, as each simplyreiterated the previous position of its intelligenceservice, with no specific suggestions offered forcompromise. 13

On 14 October 1945 King reported to James V.Forrestal, secretary of the navy, that he andGeneral Marshall continued to agree that thecoordination of signal intelligence activities couldbe improved, but they had not achieved a solutionsatisfactory to both services. King noted that bothservices agreed that the processing of some types of traffic should be jointly undertaken, but the exact manner in which this might beaccomplished remained unresolved.

The Army favors a complete merger of

our cryptanalytic Units under one

director, whereas the Navy, desirous of

insuring its control of operational intel-

ligence essential to naval commands,

does not favor a complete merger but

would rather effectuate the desired

results by joint effort under joint direc-

tion.14

By December 1945, however, new partici-pants appeared on the scene. General of the ArmyDwight D. Eisenhower replaced General Marshallas Chief of Staff of the Army, and Fleet AdmiralChester W. Nimitz relieved Admiral King as Chiefof Naval Operations. In a positive move towardsolution of the problem, Eisenhower reopenedthe issue in a letter of 2 January 1946, suggestingthat “we should make a fresh start on this entiresubject.” Remarking about their earlier experi-

ences as commanders of combined forces,Eisenhower commented that “we both know howvital it is to resolve any differences of opinion andto achieve complete integration as soon as possi-ble.” His proposal was very simple. He proposedthat the Army and Navy members of ANCIBshould either solve the problem by themselves ordevelop alternative proposals for decision byEisenhower and Nimitz.15

Nimitz readily accepted Eisenhower’s sugges-tion for making a fresh start on the issue of howto integrate and coordinate the COMINT activi-ties of the Army and Navy. As evidence of a soft-ening of the Navy’s position, Nimitz instructedthe Navy members of ANCIB to consider theproblem with open minds, free of any restrictionsstemming from earlier policy guidance.16

With the new push from Eisenhower andNimitz, the COMINT officials of the Army andNavy began to reassess their earlier positions. Inlieu of having a solution directed by higherauthority, both services obviously preferred tosolve the problem at the COMINT level. Even themonolithic Navy, after having derailed the earlierefforts toward merger, indicated a surprising newwillingness to go along with the move towardconsolidation. As the spokesman for the NavyCOMINT organization, Wenger pressed again forthe concept of gradual consolidation as repre-senting an attainable solution.17 Similarly, theArmy advocates of consolidation ultimately mod-ified their earlier position on merger and came toacknowledge that the objective of a completemerger would have to be deferred for a later date.Corderman, one of the main proponents of merg-er, had also insisted previously that the seniorjoint official selected to head the merger shouldbe identified as the “Director” rather than“Coordinator.” Before the new negotiations wereover, however, Corderman would yield on thispoint as well.18

The Navy resubmitted Wenger’s earlier con-cept paper as its new bargaining position. In

effect, the naval authorities supported a positionthat went one step further in the move towardconsolidation but that still fell short of completemerger. The Navy officials would support a con-cept described as the establishment of an “effec-tive working partnership” between the Army andNavy. In a modification of Wenger’s earlier paper,the Navy proposed the establishment of a newposition, the Coordinator of Joint Operations(CJO). The CJO would not function as a czar withunlimited authority, but rather would have theresponsibility for facilitating interservice coordi-nation and cooperation. Under the terms of thenew Navy proposal, the services would functionas coordinating but independent organizations.Some joint operations would be established.Further, the services would ensure a continuouscooperation an exchange of information on allother COMINT problems. Policy control of thestructure would be vested in a Joint Policy Board(ANCIB-STANCIB) that in turn would reflect theinterdepartmental authority of the chief of staff,U.S. Army, and the commander in chief, U.S.Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations.19

By early 1946, the British-United States ofAmerica Agreement (BRUSA) negotiations, initi-ated in 1945 to establish postwar collaboration inCOMINT between the two nations, were nearingcompletion. Since the concept of BRUSA collabo-ration was predicated in part on the existence ofcentralized controls of COMINT activities withinboth countries, the approaching ratification andimplementation of the agreement brought a new,compelling urgency for the United States to putits own house in order. These international con-siderations, coupled with the departmental pres-sures stemming from the Eisenhower-Nimitzexchange, prompted new discussions in STAN-CIB concerning possible ways to merge the Armyand the Navy COMINT organizations.

On 13 February 1946 STANCICC consideredat length the earlier Navy proposal for closercooperation of the Army-Navy communications

intelligence activities.20 Moving very quickly onthe issue, on 15 February 1946 STANCIBapproved in principle the framework for a newconcept of Army-Navy cooperation in COMINT.The Navy’s insistence on establishing a “JointEffort under Joint Direction” prevailed in the dis-cussions of the COMlNT policy board. STANCIBaccepted the framework for a new period ofArmy-Navy cooperation in COMINT, based onthe Navy’s earlier proposal of “joint” but “separate” COMINT activities.21

The STANCIB decision ruled out the possibility of any actual merger of Army-NavyCOMINT processing activities. Instead, the services would now undertake new initiatives to achieve closer cooperation on all phases of the COMINT process. This improved cooperationwould be achieved by establishing closer working liaison day-to-day in the functional areasof intercept, analysis, and reporting. Integration of technical personnel from the opposite service would also take place – primarily on analytic problems – at ArlingtonHall and the Naval Communications Station. The new agreement, however, pertained only to the collection and production of information from foreign communications. It excluded such intelligence functions as estimates or the dissemination of COMINT information as finished intelligence.

The COMINT organizations would coordinatetheir activities but would remain totally independent organizations. In addition to theintegration of Army-Navy personnel on certain analytic problems, STANCIB divided theArmy-Navy responsibility for some targets along the traditional lines and identified others as a “joint” responsibility, to be placed under the direction 0f the new Coordinator of Joint Operations. To implement this new concept of Army and Navy cooperation, STANCIB directed the chiefs of ASA(Army Security Agency) and OP-20-G to draw upthe details of a plan and statements of

general principles governing the roles andresponsibilities of the services and theCoordinator of Joint Operations.22

By approving thisnew concept of“ p a r t n e r s h i p , ”STANCIB succeed-ed in keeping itsefforts to reorganizethe U.S. COMINTstructure in tandemwith the progress ofthe BRUSA negotia-tions. By 1946STANCIB, althoughlacking a nationalcharter, had suc-ceeded in position-ing itself as the pri-

mary U.S. authority and spokesman for policynegotiations with foreign nations on COMINTmatters. At the same time, STANCIB also greatlyenhanced its stature as the central organizationfor promoting closer cooperation between theU.S. services.

On 5 March 1946 the U.S.-U.K. representatives formally signed the British-United States of America Agreement,which authorized continued postwar collaboration in COMINT matters on a govern-mental basis. Lieutenant General Hoyt S.Vandenberg, STANCIB chairman, signed theagreement for the United States, and ColonelPatrick Marr-Johnson, representing the London Signals Intelligence Board, signed for theUnited Kingdom.23

As a follow-up to the BRUSA Agreement, a“Technical Conference” took place in London several months later. The primary task of thisconference was to develop the overall blueprintfor the development of technical appendices to

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the agreement. Over the next few years, this initial effort resulted in the development of anumber of appendices to the BRUSA Agreement,which governed such areas as security, collection, liaison, and other aspects of collaboration.24

On 22 April 1946, six weeks after ratificationof the BRUSA Agreement, STANCIB issued the“Joint Operating Plan” (JOP). The JOPalso became known as the “Corderman-Wenger Agreement,” named for the principal Army and Navy negotiators (Colonel W. Preston Corderman, USA, andCaptain Joseph N. Wenger, USN).25

As an integral part of the plan, STANCIBapproved an expansion of its own charter. Thischange provided for the establishment of a fun-damentally new position, the Coordinator of

Joint Operations. The new coordinator, it washoped, would become the driving force in unify-ing the COMINT structure. According to the char-ter, the CJO would function in a dual capacity andunder dual command lines. First, the CJO wouldfunction as an executive for STANCIB, and thuswould be responsible for directing the implemen-tation of STANCIB’s policies and directives relat-ing to intercept and processing tasks, as well asfor all joint projects with other U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies. In addition to hisSTANCIB role, the CJO would acquire a newleadership role within the Army and NavyCOMINT structures on day-to-day operationsinvolving joint tasks. Organizationally, the CJO would have dual subordination lines, reporting to STANCIB as the CJO, and to his individual service in his capacity as chief of a military COMINT organization. 26

Under the Joint Operating Plan, there weretwo key positions that governed the conduct ofCOMINT operations. These were the CJO and the chairman of the working committee (STANCICC) of the COMINT Policy Board(STANCIB). The chief of the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations rotated yearly as theincumbent of each position. This rotation of the senior service officials gave each service a continuing and powerful voice in the “coordination” and “policy” roles.27

The STANCIB-STANCICC structure served tofacilitate resolution of some disagreements, butthere were still problems. The rule of unanimitystill prevailed on the policy board as well as on its working level committee. Thus, wheneverSTANCIB-STANCICC failed to reach a unanimous decision on an issue, it remainedunresolved.

Vandenberg, as chairman of STANCIB, rec-ommended that the first coordinator be selectedfrom the Army because of its wartime COMINTactivity.28 Following this recommendation,STANCIB selected Colonel Harold G. Hayes, chief

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of the Army Security Agency, as the first CJO on 1May 1946. The operating chiefs of ASA and OP-20-G came responsible to Hayes for accomplish-ing those tasks that he allocated to them.29 Hayeswas “to coordinate,” however, and not “to direct.”It was an important distinction.

Under the plan, the Army and the Navy main-tained their independent COMINT organizations.The Joint Operating Plan directed that theresponsibility for each COMINT problem be allot-ted to the Army or Navy in such a way as to pre-vent any duplication or overlapping of effort.Thus each service continued to control a largepercentage of its own intercept and processingcapacities. Each service also performed “tasks ofcommon interest,” such as work on weather tar-gets. Although the CJO allocated these tasks tothe services, the actual intercept facilitiesremained under the tasking and control of theservices. The CJO, however, did control and coor-dinate the intercept coverage and reporting onthe “Joint Tasks.”

The term “joint” applied generally t0 all tasksnot strictly Army or Navy. These tasks represent-ed areas of special interest. The CJO exercised hisauthority over these tasks by establishing a committee’on group structure, designed along

functional lines, that reported to him. These areas included intercept, processing, and liaisonactivities.30

Administratively, three subordinate groupsassisted the CJO: a Joint Intercept Control Group(JICG), a Joint Processing Allocation Group(JPAG), and a Joint Liaison Group (JLG).31 Adeputy coordinator served as the chief of eachgroup. While the CJO was to use existing facilitieswhenever feasible, each service also assigned per-sonnel to him for his own staff support. Thisincluded clerical, administrative, and analyticalassistance. The coordinator’s senior assistant wasfrom the opposite service and normally served aschief of the JPAG. Captain Charles A. Ford, USN,served as the first chief of JPAG. The officer incharge of the Joint Liaison Group was also fromthe opposite service. Commander Rufus L. Taylorserved as the first chief of the JLG under Hayes.The officer in charge of the Joint InterceptControl Group was from the same service as thecoordinator; Lieutenant Colonel Morton A.Rubin, USA, served as first chief of the JICG.32

The mission of the Joint Intercept ControlGroup was to develop a plan for intercept cover-age that would provide intelligence of maximumvalue to the consumers. The JPAG allocated pro-cessing responsibilities to the Army and Navy. Asthe U.S. overseer of foreign liaison, the JLGarranged for and supervised U.S. workingarrangements in COMINT with the UnitedKingdom and Canada. In addition, six standingsubcommittees of the COMINT policy boardserved as advisory committees in the areas ofintercept, direction finding, cryptanalyticresearch and development, communicationsintelligence and security, traffic analysis, and col-lateral information. In this complex structure offunctional groups and STANCICC subcommit-tees, the deputy coordinators of the groups andchairmen of the STANCICC submmittees wereunder the direct supervision of the CJO.33

Page 33

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After the establishment of the JOP in April1946, additional organizational changes tookplace affecting the STANCIB structure. Afterexamining a draft of the BRUSA Agreement, J.Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, expressed aninterest in obtaining membership on STANCIB.34

Adding the FBI to its membership on 13 June1946, the board and its subordinate committeebecame the United States CommunicationIntelligence Board (USCIB) and the United StatesCommunication Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee (USCICC).35 When LieutenantGeneral Hoyt S. Vandenberg, assistant chief ofstaff, G-2, became the second Director of CentralIntelligence in June 1946, USCIB agreed toexpand its membership once again by includingthe DCI as the representative of the newly estab-lished Central Intelligence Group (CIG).36 (TheCIG came into existence on 22 January 1946.)

As the membership of the policy boardincreased, the civil agencies such as theDepartment of State, FBI, and the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA) began to participate inthe activities of USCIB and the JOP of the Armyand Navy. (The National Security Act of 1947established the CIA on 18 September 1947, super-seding the CIG.) As members of USCIB, however,they participated only as observers in the activi-ties of the Joint Intercept Control Groups and theGroup. From 1946 to 1949, these committees ofUSCIB and the CJO were the primary mecha-nisms available to the intelligence consumers forexpression of their intelligence priorities and spe-cific requirements for COMINT information.37

A major problem area for the JOP proved tobe intelligence requirements. The military services continued to handle their requirementsbasically on a service-to-service basis. For example, the Army G-2 tasked the Signal Security Agency for its COMINT requirements,with the same parallel applying to the Navy.However, the area of “joint” interests remainedpoorly defined, both for military targets and for other broad targets of interest to civilian

agencies. Despite the organizational change in the COMINT structure, the civilian agencies quickly recognized that they still had no real voice or representation in the adjudicationor establishment of intelligence priorities.38

Changes were taking place, however, that wouldgive a new prominence to the consumer role, aswell as a greater participatory role for the civilianagencies in the operations of the COMINT structure.

After operating for three years under a purelyinterdepartmental charter, USCIB acquired anew national charter in 1948. The new NationalSecurity Council Intelligence Directive Number 9,“Communications Intelligence,” establishedUSCIB as a national COMINT board reportingdirectly to the National Security Council ratherthan to the military departments. The charter,however, was not appreciably strengthened, andstill reflected a preponderance of military mem-bership. But the change of subordination, cou-pled with the establishment of CIA in 1947, meantthat the military COMINT community could nolonger act in a totally independent manner.39

Under the JOP, the primary vehicle for thedissemination of COMINT to consumers was thepublished translation or bulletin, issued in a stan-dard format prescribed by the JPAG.40 The Armyand the Navy generally issued separate bulletinson their respective targets. Bulletins on joint-interest targets were published as joint Army-Navy products. Within this overall frameworkalso existed a number of separate reporting seriesfor major categories of information such as SovietCOMINT. As provided in the BRUSA Agreement,bulletins were exchanged with GCHQ.41

The creation of the JOP marked the introduc-tion of major changes involving producer andconsumer relationships. These changes providedthe consumers with greatly expanded technicalinformation in COMINT reporting and grantedthem greater access to COMINT activities. At itsthirtieth meeting, 27 April 1948, USCIB approved

a CIA request for greater access to COMINT activ-ities. 42 This decision authorized all of the con-sumer agencies to receive unfinished productsconsidered necessary for the fulfillment of theirmission of producing finished intelligence. Inaddition, consumers now had the option of plac-ing indoctrinated representatives within theCOMINT production organizations of the Armyand the Navy. The ground rules governing theserelationships required that specific arrangementsbe worked out in each case, primarily throughworking-level contacts or through the serviceCOMINT authorities. Lacking resolution viathese channels, the consumer still had the optionof referring the matter to USCIB for further consideration.

During this period, any evaluative process orfurther dissemination of COMINT became theresponsibility of each consumer. Generally, theagencies accomplished this by collating theCOMINT with other intelligence information andby preparing special fusion reports containingboth COMINT and other intelligence sources,Since most of the USCIB members prepared theirown community-wide reports, this resulted in awide variety of publications. These included adaily summary published by the Department ofState; the Army’s summary; and the Navy’s“Soviet Intelligence Summary,” both issuedweekly; and various other special reports issuedby the Army, Navy, and CIA.43

To assist the agencies in their evaluation ofCOMINT, the Army-Navy COMINT bulletinsincluded specific data related to the origins ofintercept. In addition, the consumers, on request,could receive unfinished COMINT products con-sidered necessary for their own evaluation.44

Each consumer also prepared its own estimates.This often resulted in a number of different intel-ligence estimates on any one subject – with noorganization producing a consolidated estimate.Thus, the difficulties associated with centraliza-tion of the COMINT organizations extended tothe entire intelligence process, and to the con-

sumer membership of USCIB such as CIA, State,Army, Navy, and Air Force.

In summary, in response to growing nationalpressures, and as a principal means of achievingcloser interservice cooperation, the COMINTservices established a joint operating agreementrather than undertake a merger of their separateCOMINT organizations. The mechanics of thisnew alliance called for a collocation of the Armyand Navy COMINT processing activities in theUnited States, as well as for major organizationalchanges in their collection and reporting tasks.The move to establish joint service operationsreflected a realization of their increasing interde-pendence as well as of the inevitability of still fur-ther changes in the management of COMINTresources. While the services remained organiza-tionally independent, the joint operating agree-ment called for the introduction of a totally newmanagerial concept for the services, namely,operating on the basis of “shared” control overCOMINT resources.

Because of the magnitude of the governmen-tal changes from 1946 to 1949, the JOP repre-sented a period of great adjustment for theCOMINT services, as well as for the entire intelli-gence community. At a time when the servicesand Congress were still debating the unificationissue, the creation of the JOP occurred harmo-niously and by mutual agreement of the Armyand Navy. By collocating and integrating theirCOMINT processing centers at Arlington Halland the Naval Security Station, the JOP achieveda level of interservice cooperation never previous-ly accomplished by any military organization.

The concept of the JOP was very simple. Itcalled for the services to act as coordinated butindependent agencies. In developing the blue-print for the JOP, the primary objective was todevise a structure that by its very nature wouldpromote greater cooperation and dialoguebetween the military COMINT organizations. Atthe same time, Army and Navy authorities insist-

ed on maintaining their separate identities andorganizations. In the implementation, some ele-ments of the reform process proved to be highlyeffective as the services actually began to cooper-ate on COMINT matters. The plan was seriouslyflawed, however, as it stemmed from a prolifera-tion of military command lines and created a rashof new bureaucratic channels requiring coordina-tion. For example, the CJO functioned under dualsubordination, reporting to USCIB as the CJO,and to his individual service as the chief of a mil-itary COMINT organization. This dichotomy ofauthority proved to be not only conceptuallyunsound but detrimental to the timeliness ofCOMINT operations.

Another organizational drawback of the JOPstructure was that it called for a large committeestructure to work on functional matters of anoperational nature and to operate under the aegisof the CJO. While these committees soon becamepivotal coordination points, they also becamerepresentative of a “management by committee”syndrome with all the traditional weaknesses of acommittee process, such as procedural delays andthe inability to make timely decisions.

In a more positive vein, however, the JOPmerits high marks for some very significantaccomplishments. Considering the innate serviceopposition to the concept of merger of theirCOMINT processing activities, it was a majorachievement that the services agreed to adopt aconcept of collocation and integration of anykind. By establishing a form of quasi-consolida-tion, and operating on the principle of gradualchange, the JOP constituted a compromise. Itprovided a logical transitional structure for theservices as they entered the postwar period. Inaddition, the JOP accomplished sweeping organi-zational changes for the services, such as realign-ments of operational elements, personnel, andmission without causing a catastrophic upheavalof their operational missions and functions.

By achieving a nominal degree of centraliza-tion of U.S. COMINT efforts, the JOP facilitatedthe ratification of the BRUSA Agreement.Without this tightening of controls over the Armyand Navy COMINT activities, the BRUSAAgreement would not have been attainable, as itimplicitly called for greater centralized control ofCOMINT activities within both nations.

Operationally, the JOP facilitated the realign-ment of U.S. COMINT targets for peacetime,including the assumption of a new national target, coverage of the Soviet Union.

Finally, by virtue of the cosmetic fusion of thetwo services via the JOP, the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations were largely able to survive the chaotic period of demobilization andbudget reductions following the war. Despiteheavy attrition, these two organizations maintained a solid operational base, along with acadre of professional talent, for the next cycle ofreorganization.

The period 1946-1949 marked the beginningof efforts at both the presidential and congres-sional levels to view intelligence matters as anational responsibility. As a first step toward thecentralization of U.S. intelligence activities, in1946 President Truman established a NationalIntelligence Authority (NIA) and a CentralIntelligence Group (CIG). One year later, in thesummer of 1947, Congress passed the NationalSecurity Act, which resulted in a further realign-ment of the national intelligence structure. Thislandmark legislation disestablished the NIA andCIG and created a National Security Council anda Central Intelligence Agency. The act also pro-vided for a secretary of defense and a realignmentof the U.S. defense organization. These changeswere only the beginning.1

The COMINT structure felt the impact of these changes almost immediately. By 1948 theUnited States Communications Intelligence Boardhad a new official charter that made it subordinateto the National Security Council. This was the result of a series of controversies over the jurisdiction of COMINT issues. The participants inmaking these changes were James V. Forrestal, secretary of defense; Admiral Roscoe H.Hillenkoetter, DCI; Admiral Sidney W. Souers,executive secretary, NSC; and the members ofUSCIB, Army, Navy, State Department, and theFBI. The main battle was fought over what organization should “control” USCIB, as well as thevarious components of the COMINT structure. Thiswas essentially decided when the National SecurityCouncil issued USCIB’s new charter in 1948.

As an agency of the NSC, USCIB now acquireda greatly enhanced policy role in the intelligencecommunity. In addition, the new charter recog-nized that the civilian agencies had a vital part to

play in the development of national intelligence pol-icy and in the establishment of national intelligence priorities. A review of the debates dur-ing the reform process strikingly illustrates themajor changes in the U.S. intelligence structure and USCIB. It also shows the sharp divisions that existed among the members of theintelligence agencies.

At the end of the Second World War, thereexisted no semblance of unified control over theconduct of U.S. COMINT activities – nor wasthere any external body that had sufficientauthority to provide guidance and direction to theextremely powerful military COMINT structure.The primary management controls over theCOMINT functions came from three sources,namely, USCIB, and the headquarters of theArmy and Navy COMINT organizations. A cre-ation of the military departments, USCIB servedas the nominal policy authority for COMINT matters, while the military departmental authorities provided a number of internal controls relating primarily to administrative and budgetary matters.

By 1946 USCIB’s membership included representation from the Army, the Navy, the FBI,the Department of State, and the CIG. Because ofthe dual representation accorded each service, theArmy and Navy played dominant roles in the activ-ities of USCIB and its many subcommittees. Forexample, the assistant chief of staff, G-2, and thecommanding officer, Army Security Agency, represented the Army. The assistant chief of staff for Intelligence, U.S. Fleet, and the director of Naval Communications provided representationfor the Navy. Each had a vote; the other members of USCIB – FBI, State, and the CIG - had only one representative and one vote each.2

Chapter III

The Emerging National Intelligence Structure and the United StatesCommunications Intelligence Board, 1946-1949

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During this early period, the Army providedcoverage of the intelligence interests of theArmy Air Force. In May 1947, however, theArmy Air Force obtained its own separate repre-sentation. On 7 May 1947 USCIB invited thecommanding general, Army Air Force, to appointrepresentatives to USCIB and to its subor-dinate committee, the U.S. CommunicationsIntelligence Coordinating Committee (USCICC).On 29 May 1947 the Army Air Force designatedMajor General George C. McDonald, assistantchief of staff, Army Air Force, as its representativeto USCIB. Brigadier General Francis L.Ankenbrandt, communications officer, Army AirForce, became the representative to USCICC.3

USCIB’s early charter of 31 July 1946 statedthat USCIB would meet only to decide questionsof major policy or to consider matters that itsworking committee, USCICC, could not resolve.4

Procedurally, USCIB elected its own chairman,usually the senior member, who served for oneyear. It met at the will of the chairman, or subjectto the concurrence of a majority, and the requestof any member. The rule of unanimity governedboth USCIB and USCICC discussions. Whenagreement could not be reached, the only optionwas to refer the matter to higher authority withinthe members’ departmental organizations. Inshort, USCIB functioned solely in the capacity ofproviding guidance and coordination for the serv-ices, which they were free to accept or reject.5

Despite the limited nature of its founding doc-ument, the Marshall and King Agreement of1945, USCIB achieved considerable progress asthe self-appointed authority for COMINT mat-ters. By expanding its membership to include theFBI, State Department, and the CIG, USCIB hadbecome a joint military and civilian board, withincreasing involvement in the activities of theentire U.S. COMINT structure. Unfortunately,the governing documentation of USCIB had notkept pace with the scope of its activities.

The documentation relating to membershipchanges was reflected only in the interdepart-mental correspondence and in the subsequentupdates of the USCIB Organizational Bulletin.The actual enabling document remainedunchanged with no attempts made to amend or toreissue the document at a higher level to reflectthe broader role and responsibilities of USCIB.6

Within the government, the nature of theintelligence process itself tended to foster thecontinuing independence, if not isolation, of themilitary COMINT activities. Long before Japan’sattack on Pearl Harbor, the services traditionallyhandled communications intelligence, as well asall matters related to the COMINT process, asextremely sensitive information, releasable onlyby a strict interpretation of the “need-to-know”principle. The advent of World War II reinforcedthis well-established practice as the dual require-ment for secrecy and anonymity of organizationsintensified. Even within the COMINT structureitself, ULTRA and MAGIC materials, for example,were always strictly guarded and controlled, withonly a very limited number of people being awareof these sources and their origins.7 Distributionwas made only to an authorized list of recipients,which included key military commanders and afew top officials of the armed forces, the FBI, andthe Department of State.

These dual factors – the rigorous compart-mentation practices and the absence of any dom-inant central authority – tended to foster anatmosphere of independence and isolationamong the services. Except for administrativeand budgetary guidance provided by their owndepartmental authorities, the Army and NavyCOMINT organizations generally remained shel-tered from critical review by external authority.They continued to be free agents and made theirown decisions concerning their intelligence prior-ities and intercept coverage. When the USCIBbecame more active in these areas, it soon founditself powerless to direct the COMINT activities,primarily because of the inherent weaknesses of

the USCIB charter and the military domination ofthe structure. As a result, the services generallyencouraged and facilitated continuation of thestatus quo, thereby assuring themselves of almostcomplete freedom of action in the running of theCOMINT business.

The same amorphous situation applied togeneral intelligence collection as well. No singleorganization had the overall authority andresponsibility for the oversight of matters relatingto the collection, analysis, and dissemination ofall-source intelligence information; nor did anycentral organization exist with authority over the many and diverse producers of intelligence information. Each military department had its own intelligence branch and producing elements, as did the Departments of Justice,Treasury, and State.8

Long before V-E and V-J Days, considerablediscussion and debate took place within the JointChiefs of Staff and the military departments, aswell as in State and the FBI, concerning theorganization and nature of the U.S. intelligencegathering apparatus for the postwar period.9

By the fall of 1945, President Truman, known to favor a concept of centralized control, hadalready received several proposals for the estab-lishment of a peacetime intelligence structure. He had drafts from the War Department, theJoint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of StrategicServices, the two military services, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Department of State. Anumber of these plans, primarily from the military organizations, recommended the establishment of a single centralized agency, but differed considerably on the designation of the controlling authorities. Proposals from the Department of State and the Bureau of the Budget generally recommended a status quo approach that would permit the intelligence offices of all departments to remainindependent agencies, with no centralized agencyto be established. Under this concept, however, there would exist a number of

advisory committees to assist a NationalIntelligence Authority in providing guidance to the intelligence activities of the various departments. 10

Within a few months, Truman acted to centralize the intelligence structures. In a letterdated 22 January 1946 to the secretaries of state(James F. Byrnes), war (Robert P. Patterson),and navy (James V. Forrestal), Trumanestablished a National Intelligence Authority(NIA) and ordered the secretaries to establish aCentral Intelligence Group.11 One day later,Truman appointed Rear Admiral Sidney W.Souers, the deputy chief of Naval Intelligence, asthe director of the CIG, and the first Director ofCentral Intelligence (DCI).

The membership of the NIA consisted of thesecretaries of state, war, and navy, and the presi-dent’s personal representative, Rear AdmiralWilliam D. Leahy, his chief of staff.12 Based on thepresidential directive, its mission was to ensure“that all Federal foreign intelligence activities areplanned, developed and coordinated so as toassure the most effective accomplishment of theintelligence mission related to the national security.” Truman further directed the secretaries“to assign persons and facilities from your respective organizations, which persons shall collectively form a Central Intelligence Group andshall, under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence, assist the NationalIntelligence Authority.”13

The initial CIG was a unique structure. It hadno assets or resources of its own. As a “collectiveinterdepartmental group,” it operated within thelimits of the resources provided by the State, War,and Navy Departments. As an interdepartmentalcoordinating group, the CIG was responsible forplanning and coordinating the government’sintelligence activities and for evaluating and dis-seminating intelligence. Because of its limitedcharter and its limited resources, the CIG provedto be an interim, ineffective structure, However,

by the mere establishment of the CIG, Trumanhad succeeded in setting in place the initialframework for the development of a centralizedintelligence structure.

In addition, Truman’s letter directed theestablishment of the first postwar IntelligenceAdvisory Board (IAB), which served in an advisory capacity to the DCI. The IAB’s membership consisted of representatives fromthe principal military and civilian agencies of thegovernment that had functions related to national security, as determined by the NationalIntelligence Authority. The initial membershipfrom the four departmental intelligence services consisted of Colonel Alfred McCormack,USA, State; Lieutenant General HoytVandenberg, Army; Rear Admiral Thomas B.Inglis, Navy; and Brigadier General George C.McDonald, Air Force. 14

Eighteen months later, still further changestook place at the national level, all of which great-ly strengthened the initial presidential effortstoward centralization. Following months ofintense debate by congressional and departmen-tal authorities over the nature of America’s secu-rity and defense force, Congress passed andPresident Truman signed into law the NationalSecurity Act of 1947 on 26 July 1947.15

With the passage of the National Security Act,also known as the Unification Bill, Congress abol-ished the National Intelligence Authority and itsoperating component, the Central IntelligenceGroup. In their place, the National Security Actestablished the National Security Council and theCentral Intelligence Agency. Among other things,the Act created a National Military Establishment(NME) and three coequal departments of theArmy, Navy, and Air Force within the DefenseDepartment. It also established the United StatesAir Force, a War Council, and a Research andDevelopment Board. 16

The mission of the newly established NationalSecurity Council was to serve in an advisorycapacity to the president in matters concerningthe integration of domestic, foreign, and militarypolicy. Its permanent membership consisted ofthe president, vice president, the secretary ofstate (Dean G. Acheson), secretary of defense(James V. Forrestal), and the chairman, NationalResources Board. Optional attendees, dependingupon the subject matter, were the secretaries andunder secretaries of other executive departmentsand the military departments, the chairman ofthe Munitions Board, and the chairman,Research and Development Board.17 The initialmembership of the NSC did not include the DCI.

The effect of the National Security Act of 1947on the direction and organization of COMINTactivities was not at first discernible. Under theact, the National Security Council (NSC) receivedthe broad mission of advising the president onmatters of policy concerning national security.The new CIA, headed by the DCI, acquired astatutory base and became an independentagency under the NSC. This new intelligenceagency had the stated responsibility for correlat-ing, evaluating, and disseminating national intel-ligence; for rendering intelligence services toother agencies; and for advising the NSC in intel-ligence matters.18 Under this vague charge, how-ever, the relationship of the CIA to the COMINT-producing agencies remained obscure. It wouldbe many years before CIA would assume its fullresponsibilities as initially conceived in theNational Security Act.

From a military perspective, however, theNational Security Act of 1947 had an immediateimpact on the COMINT community. After theestablishment of a separate Department of the AirForce, the Army Security Agency (ASA) contin-ued to provide COMINT support and other sup-port services to the Air Force on a transitional andinterim basis. On 3 June 1948 ASA established anAir Force Security Group (AFSG) as a unit withinits own Plans and Operations Staff. The AFSG,

composed exclusively of Air Force personnel,operated as an Army element on an interim basis, with the mission of assisting theAir Force in its gradual assumption of COMINT responsibilities. By January 1949, following the approval by the secretary of defense of an Army and Air Force Agreement, the Army transferred personnel, facilities, andmissions to the new Air Force Security Service(AFSS). On 1 February 1949 Colonel (later Major General) Roy H. Lynn, USAF, became the first commander of the USAFSS.19

USCIB also changed and became much more active in COMINT matters. Two months after the passage of the NationalSecurity Act, USCIB began to hold regularmonthly meetings. This action came about mainly at the urging of Admiral Earl Stone, one of the Navy members of USCIB, at the twenty-first meeting of USCIB on 4 November 1947. At the same meeting, Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, who became the third DCI on 1 May 1947, raised the issue of USCIB’s outdated charter. He commented that the existing interdepartmentalcharter in the form of an agreement by Marshall and King did not include the morerecent members of USCIB – the CIA and theDepartment of State. Hillenkoetter, obviouslyeager to use his new departmental authority,pressed for the issuance of a higher-level charter to be issued in the form of an executive order by the president. FollowingHillenkoetter’s urging, USCIB directed its subordinate committee, USCICC, to examine thequestion of the proposed charter and to prepareseveral alternate versions.20

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No disagreement existed among the militaryservices on the need for a new charter. They rec-ognized that USCIB had been performing as anational-level structure, but without the benefitof a charter commensurate with the scope of itsactivities and responsibilities. In the area of for-eign collaboration in particular, they consideredthat USCIB needed a more authoritative charterbecause of the growing U.S. involvement in for-eign COMINT relationships. When GeneralVandenberg signed the agreement for USCIB in1946, he did so only after receiving prior approvalof the agreement from Admiral Leahy, chief ofstaff to President Truman.21 Consequently, theArmy, Navy, and Air Force representatives enthu-siastically supported the view that USCIB’sauthority should stem from a national-levelissuance rather than from the existing militarydocumentation. Despite the apparent agreement,the task would not be accomplished easily. Manyjurisdictional and political problems now sur-faced, the foremost of which related to the basicquestion of control.”22

During this period, a membership change alsotook place in USCIB. In November 1947 the FBIvoluntarily withdrew from the USCIB. In his let-ter of withdrawal, J. Edgar Hoover noted that“USCIB’s discussions have been primarily con-cerned with methods of policy formulation with-in the Armed Services.” At the twenty-first meet-ing of USCIB, however, the remaining membersexpressed the view that as a practical matter, theFBI was withdrawing from the cryptanalytic fieldprimarily because of a lack of funds.23

Since the FBI had never been a very activeparticipant in the activities of USCIB, its with-drawal had no immediate impact on the intensityof the charter discussions. The representatives ofthe State Department and the CIA continued toplay the major role in representing the “civilian”interests in the USCIB deliberations. The repre-sentatives of State, in particular, were consistently articulate and persuasive in the pres-entation of their positions. Their position,

however, was not always predictable, as they frequently joined the military members in opposition to CIA efforts to acquire greater control of all intelligence operations.24

The competing interests of the board’s mili-tary and civilian membership occupied centerstage in the USCIB deliberations. Each grouppressed for the supremacy of its own interests inthe realignment of the COMINT policy board andin the competition for scarce COMINT resources.The battle lines reflected the JCS interests asopposed to the interests of the State Departmentand the new CIA.25 The controversy over the pro-posed new USCIB charter continued for the nextseven months. The basic issues were (1) whatorganization should be the parent body of USCIBand (2) what should be the role of USCIB –should it control or coordinate the national com-munications intelligence effort?

On the first issue, the parent body of USCIB,the Navy, the State Department, and the DCI,preferred that the NSC or the secretary of defense have overall supervision. The Army andthe Air Force favored the JCS as the ultimateauthority. A compromise, originally suggested by the Navy, and later proposed formally by the State Department, was the creation of a“Committee of Four” as an appellate body forUSCIB. Such a committee would be composed ofthe three service chiefs of staff and the under secretary of state. USCIB accepted this proposalon 3 February 1948.26

On the second issue, whether USCIB shouldcontrol or coordinate intelligence activities, therewas a wide divergence of views among the mem-bers of USCIB. At the USCIB meeting of 6January 1948, the members analyzed at lengththe nature of USCIB’s political power overCOMINT. Navy officials supported the view of theDCI and State that USCIB should exercise controlauthority over COMINT because of the nationalaspects of the COMINT effort. They uniformlyidentified the COMINT function as representing

an intelligence resource of national potentialrather than one of purely military interest. Theyfurther believed that the services had failed intheir efforts to improve interservice coordination,and they strongly favored granting USCIB controlof facilities assigned to common interest targets.Hillenkoetter even insisted that “COMINT agen-cies are military units in a limited sense becausethe civilian departments and agencies have anequal interest in the COMINT product.”27 Hence,it was a national resource and should be controlled by USCIB.

While the Navy strongly opposed the central-ization of COMINT resources, it moved in theother direction in terms of how the COMINT pol-icy board should be subordinated. For example,during the preliminary U.S. actions associatedwith the BRUSA Agreement of 1945, the Navyexpressed concern in STANCIB meetings aboutthe limited scope and questionable legality of theSTANCIB charter, particularly in the area of for-eign relations. Similarly, in recognition of theunique intelligence requirements of the CIA andthe Department of State, the Navy had cited theneed for a neutral, national forum to allocateintelligence priorities. In effect, the Navy hadconsistently argued for a stronger USCIB toreflect national interests. Considering the central-ization of intelligence resources and the subordi-nation of USCIB to be two separate issues, theNavy never considered its position on these issuesto be contradictory.

The Army and Air Force members of USCIB,however, were equally adamant in their opposi-tion to any arrangement that would give USCIBprimary control over COMINT functions. Theyobjected to placing USCIB, with its civilian mem-bers, in a chain of command between the militaryauthorities and their operating COMINT agen-cies. Nevertheless, the Army and Air Force sup-ported a lesser coordinating role for USCIB, withthe primary control over the COMINT activitiesremaining in each department and agency. Infact, the Army officials preferred to dilute the

authority of USCIB even further. They suggestedthat the role of the board should be confined toestablishing intelligence priorities, with a coordi-nator functioning under the jurisdiction of theJoint Chiefs of Staff. The JCS would handle theallocation of cryptanalytic tasks and interceptcoverage.28

On 3 February 1948 the board tentativelydefined its role as being one of providing “author-itative coordination” rather than “unified direc-tion.”29 In essence, the board adopted a modifiedArmy and Navy position. As established underthe earlier Army-Navy operating agreement,there would be a Coordinator of Joint Operations,but he would continue to operate under the direc-tion of USCIB rather than JCS.30

At the same meeting, USCIB accepted a draftexecutive order and a draft revision of its charter.The board then established a rigorous method forapproval. It stipulated that the draft documentsbe forwarded to the chief of intelligence of eachmember organization for discussion. The DCIhad the responsibility for clearing the documentswith the secretary of defense. When everyone hadapproved the drafts, a master memorandumwould be signed by the secretary of state, secre-tary of defense, secretary of the army, secretary ofthe navy, and secretary of the air force. Thismemorandum, in turn, would then be transmit-ted to the DCI for presentation to Admiral Leahy,who in turn was to present it to the president.31

In his 13 February 1948 response to the threeservice secretaries, Secretary of Defense Forrestaldramatically rejected the proposed documents.He felt strongly that the use of an executive orderwas not necessary and that in accordance with theNational Security Act of 1947, USCIB should besubordinate to the National Security Council andthat the NSC was the proper office to providedirection to the board.32 His memorandumcaused considerable anguish within the militarystructure as the JCS, Army, and Air Forceexpressed a strong disagreement with the direc-

tion of the guidance. They believed that a militarystructure and not a joint board such as NSCshould be the primary voice in the control ofUSCIB activities. The Navy, however, did nothave any problem with the proposal. From theoutset of the discussions, the Navy viewedCOMINT as a national resource and endorsed theplacement of USCIB under the NSC.33

Before the dispute was finally settled,Forrestal and Hillenkoetter played major roles inshaping USCIB’s new charter. Hillenkoetterpressed for a more important role for CIA, for CIAcontrol of the COMINT function, and for theplacement of USCIB under the National SecurityCouncil. Forrestal, despite his role as the secre-tary of defense, also clearly preferred that theUSCIB not be placed in a subordinate position tothe military structure. He consistently advocatedthat there should be some sort of a direct rela-tionship between USCIB and the NSC. Hebelieved that these were national functions andtherefore demanded a correlation with a nationalauthority representing all elements of the govern-ment. Forrestal’s concepts on this point paral-leled the Navy’s views as well as those of AdmiralSouers, the first DCI, now serving as the executivesecretary of the National Security Council.

Forrestal’s opposition to the use of an execu-tive order for promulgation of the USCIB charterapparently stemmed in part from earlier instruc-tions he had received from President Truman.Truman wanted to minimize the number ofrequests for presidential orders on the premisethat the establishment of the National SecurityCouncil had as one of its main purposes theremoval of this onus from the chief executive.34

Irritated over the lack of progress in issuingUSCIB’s charter, the secretary of defenseaddressed a second and final memorandum toHillenkoetter on 17 March 1948. Forrestalstressed that he had not changed his mind sincehis original memorandum and that the DCIshould get on with the business of providing uscm

with its new charter. Forrestal’s main objectivewas to achieve the placement of USCIB under theNSC. The wording of Forrestal’s memorandumleft no doubt that the charter would ultimatelyappear in one of the regular National SecurityCouncil Intelligence Directives (NSCID).35

With Forrestal’s memorandum, the level andintensity of the debate changed. Assured of thebacking of Forrestal, CIA redrafted the charter togive the DCI greatly expanded authority and control. This second draft would have establishedUSCIB under the NSC to effect “authoritativecoordination and unified direction” of COMINTactivities and to advise the DCI in matters relating to the protection of COMINT sources and “those matters in the field of communicationintelligence for which he is now responsible ormay hereafter be responsible.”36 When the Navymember objected to the DCI exercising “unifieddirection” over COMINT activities and to the broad extension of the DCI role to “matters for which he may hereafter be maderesponsible,” Hillenkoetter acquiesced and modified his draft.37

His new proposal established USCIB underthe NSC and authorized it to act for the NSC,under the principle of unanimity (except in elect-ing a chairman by majority vote), in carrying outits responsibility for “authoritative coordination”(but not “unified direction”) of COMINT activi-ties. It also stated that the board would advise theDCI in “those matters in the field of COMINT forwhich he is responsible.”38 At the thirty-firstmeeting of USCIB on 13 May 1948, USCIBapproved the redraft with only minor editorialamendments.39 On 18 May 1948, the DCI for-warded the proposed directive to the executivesecretary of the NSC.

But the struggle was far from being over.Admiral Sidney W. Souers, executive secretary,NSC, returned the draft to Hillenkoetter forreconsideration and further discussion. Souers,who had served as the first DCI, suggested the

strengthening of the role and authority of the DCI.In particular, he sought to establish the DCI as thepredominant authority in USCIB.4o

After receiving the comments from the NSC,Hillenkoetter withdrew his concurrence of the ear-lier USCIB version. Hillenkoetter now had twopowerful supporters – Forrestal, who insisted thatUSCIB be subordinated to the NSC, and Souers, theformer DCI, who urged that the role of the DCIshould be greatly strengthened in terms of its rela-tionship with USCIB. Combining these elements,Hillenkoetter developed a third and final draft thatwould dramatically change the nature of USCIB.41

A central element of this revision was the down-grading of USCIB to serve in the role of advisor andassistant to the DCI. As the designated agent of theNSC, the DCI would now become not only the coor-dinator of COMINT activities, but the overseer aswell. In the process, the DCI would also acquire theresponsibility for executing all NSC directives. Inshort, the revision reflected a substantive change ofpolicy as it would change the nature of the USCIBstructure, and it would give to a non-militaryagency a position of coordination and control in thefield of military departmental intelligence.42

Because of Hillenkoetter’s reliance on Forrestal,the service intelligence chiefs felt powerless aboutthe new developments. The Army and Air Forcewere particularly upset with the concept of CIA’scontrolling the shaping of the charter and theattachment of USCIB to the National SecurityCouncil. Although the service intelligence chiefsstrongly opposed the new charter draft, they failedto make any headway against it. The civilian servicesecretaries (Army, Kenneth C. Royall; Navy, JohnL. Sullivan; Air Force, W. Stuart Symington) werereluctant to confront Forrestal after he had statedhis views of the USCIB charter so forcefully andunequivocally. 43

Hillenkoetter’s third draft, which greatlystrengthened the DCI role over the board, went toofar. It evoked strong opposition from almost every-

one. The Department of State, in the person of W.Park Armstrong, Jr., became the spokesman forthis new opposition. In a memorandum to all themembers of USCIB of 7 June 1948, Armstrongprotested that the draft reverted to a viewpointpreviously considered objectionable by theDepartment of State and that “it contravened, mis-construed, and overlooked many fundamentalprinciples requisite to a secure and efficient utiliza-tion of communications intelligence by the UnitedStates Government.” Armstrong objected to theDCI becoming the national authority and coordina-tor for COMINT activities. He also argued againstthe parallel downgrading of USCIB to the status ofa mere advisory mechanism, existing solely for thebenefit or the DCI. He maintained further that noconsideration ever justified giving the DCI a posi-tion of primary control over departmental intelli-gence. Armstrong stressed that it was unnecessaryunder the law and militarily unsound to place thehead of a non-military agency in control of strictlymilitary functions that were vitally important to themilitary departments and that were integratedwithin the military commands. Armstrong’s mem-orandum insisted on the reinstatement of the earli-er version in the second draft of 13 May 1948 asunanimously accepted by USCIB and theIntelligence Advisory Council (IAC).44

In retrospect, the role played by Armstrong onthe USCIB was highly unusual. Armstrong’s posi-tion was contrary to the normal pattern in which

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the State Department usually joined forces with theCIA in opposition to the military control ofCOMINT activities. Although the State Departmentwas indeed generally unhappy with the militarydirection of COMINT activities, it now becamealarmed about the obvious CIA ambitions toacquire direct control of all intelligence. This result-ed in Armstrong’s forming a most unusual alliancewith the military members in opposition to the DCI.State’s position was quite clear. If USCIB needed anew national charter, State preferred the status quoto DCI domination. Major changes in the militarystructure would have to come later.

Following the vigorous protest by Armstrong,Hillenkoetter, as directed by USCIB, submitted asummary report of all viewpoints on 7 June 1948 to the executive secretary of the NSC.45 Withthe secretary of state now a member of the NSC,and with the other members of USCIBunanimously opposed to the third revision, itbecame clear that the DCI (who was not a member of the NSC) had lost the battle. In its deliberations, the NSC approved the earlier versionendorsed by USCIB.

The National Security Council on 1 July1948 issued NSCID No.9, “CommunicationsIntelligence.” This directive was a major organizational turning point for USCIB and thenewly established DCI. USCIB now had an officialnational charter that linked its subordination to the National Security Council. The charter also reflected another significant change: It accorded a new status and prominence to the agencies on board, namely, the DCI and the Department of State.46

Since the FBI had voluntarily dropped out ofUSCIB earlier, the new board was reorganized withtwo representatives from each armed service, tworepresentatives from the , and two from the CIA.Except for the election of a chairman based onmajority vote, decisions of USCIB continued torequire the unanimous vote of all members. Otherthan establishing a basic change in its

subordination, the new charter did not strengthenthe authorities and responsibilities of USCIB.USCIB had “authoritative coordination” not “direc-tion or control” over all COMINT activities.

In summary, the period 1946-1949 marked thebeginning of efforts to establish a new centralmechanism for the handling of national securitymatters, including unification of the armed forces.With President Truman serving as a focal point,these efforts resulted in the enactment of theNational Security Act of 1947, which created a newhierarchy for the handling of national security andintelligence matters. The act established a NationalSecurity Council to serve in an advisory capacity tothe president, and a Central Intelligence Agency tobe headed by a director of Central Intelligence, whoreported to the president. The act also directed amajor realignment of the military structure.

The first impact of these new authorities on theCOMINT world took place in USCIB. DCIHillenkoetter, with strong support from SecretaryForrestal, succeeded in obtaining a revision of thecharter for USCIB. On 1 July 1948 the NationalSecurity Council issued National Security CouncilIntelligence Directive Number 9, a new charter forUSCIB that subordinated USCIB to the NSC ratherthan to the military authorities. This provided pos-itive recognition to the growing concept that intelli-gence matters had broader ramifications than thoseof purely military connotations or interests. Thecivil agencies, such as State Department and theCIA, now had a new status and voice in a forum pre-viously dominated by the military organizations.

Forrestal supported Hillenkoetter on the subor-dination issue, but his support ended there. In hiseagerness to revise and expand the charter,Hillenkoetter alienated the military and StateDepartment representatives in his efforts to acquiresubstantive CIA control over COMINT, as well asover other intelligence matters. As a result, a verysuperficial and limited revision of the charteremerged, which meant that many of the vestiges ofmilitary control remained. Among other limita-

tions, the revision perpetuated the requirement forunanimity among the membership on issuespassed to the Board for decision.

On the military side, the National Security Acthad an additional impact on the COMINT commu-nity with the establishment of the Air Force as aseparate department. This resulted in the establish-ment of the new COMINT organization, the U.S. AirForce Security Service. A third military COMINTorganization now existed competing for COMINTresources and for the assignment of cryptanalytictargets and tasks.

On 20 May 1949 Louis A. Johnson, secretary ofdefense, established a new defense agency, theArmed Forces Security Agency (AFSA). Johnson

directed a merger of theCOMINT processing activ-ities of the Army and Navyand placed the new AFSAstructure under the controland direction of the JointChiefs of Staff. AFSA’s mis-sion was to conduct allcommunications intelli-gence and communica-tions security activitieswithin the Department ofDefense, except those per-formed by the military

services. With AFSA, Johnson hoped to achieve adegree of unification of the services as well as “efficiency and economy” in the management of the cryptologic structure. He also sought to minimize the resource and duplication problemsassociated with the new Air Force Security Serviceand its rapidly expanding cryptologic organization.

The predominantly negative reactions to AFSAincluded the usual controversy over unification, aswell as jurisdictional concerns over basic intelli-gence authorities and relationships. The Navy andAir Force had opposed consolidation, while theArmy supported the general concept. Even greaterprotests came from the USCIB structure, mainlyfrom the representatives of the Department of Stateand the CIA. They maintained that the AFSA char-ter was in direct conflict with the new national char-ter of USCIB. Johnson’s refusal to consult or evento coordinate with USICB added to the ill will.Elements in the JCS moved to modify AFSA’s char-ter within a few months after its establishment. JCS2010/6 accomplished a number of substantive

changes in the AFSA charter, all of which sought toweaken the role and authorities of AFSA. Thechanges stressed the autonomous role of each military COMINT organization. The net result ofthese actions was not unification, but an acceleration of the controversy within the intelligence community over the control of theCOMINT structure.

AFSA failed for two reasons. It did not succeedin centralizing the direction of the COMINT effort;and it largely ignored the interested civilian agencies – the Department of State, the CIA, andthe FBI. The director did not have the authority to“direct” the military services, nor did he have theauthority to suppress conflicts and duplicationamong the Army, Navy, and Air Force. As a result,AFSA spent most of its existence negotiating with the services over what it could do. The fullextent and impact of the operational weaknesses of AFSA did not become widely recognized until the beginning of the Korean War in June 1950.

As part of the original National Security Act,Congress created the United States Air Force on 18September 1947. The separation of the Air Force from the Army resulted in an additional cryptologic branch, first through the Air ForceSecurity Group (AFSG) and then through the U.S. Air Force Security Service (AFSS). In the transition to a three-service structure, the Armycontinued to provide the Air Force with support,including cryptologic activities. On 3 June 1948, Headquarters, ASA, established the AFSG(as part of its Plans and Operations staff), with an initial cadre of eleven officers under Major Idris J. Jones.1 The Air Force, however, clearly preferred to have direct control of its own COMINT production. On 20 October 1948 AirForce officials established a new major Air

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Chapter IV

Creation of the Armed Forces Security Agency, 1949-1952

Force command, the Air Force Security Service(AFSS) , with temporary headquarters at ArlingtonHall Station.

Over the next three years the Air Force, as anindependent service, had a major impact on theArmy-Navy COMINT organizations. The establish-ment of the AFSS indicated that Air Force officialsdemanded a security service or cryptologic organi-zation equal to the Army or the Navy COMINTstructures.

Competition for COMINT targets and resourcesintensified. Moreover, the three services now com-peted for recruitment of personnel to augment (orreplace) the dwindling military competence inCOMINT.

Traditionally, the Army and the Navy helddivergent views on the use of civilian personnel inmanning their COMINT organizations. Reliance oncivilian personnel represented no major change forthe Army. Throughout the 1930s the Army recruited high-level mathematicians as well as civilians with other technical skills for its cryptologic organization. During World War II, theArmy continued to rely on a large civilian workforce. In contrast, at the conclusion of the war,the Navy COMINT organization employed onlyabout seventy civilians out of almost eleven thousand persons.2 The latter, however, did includea large number of engineers, scientists, and college professors who became naval officers during the war. Many of these were recruited personally by Commander Joseph N. Wengerfrom 1938 to 1939, as part of his attempt to seekcandidates for the Naval Reserve program andcryptologic work.3 Wenger’s ultimate purpose, ofcourse, was to offer direct commissions to selectedindividuals, thereby facilitating their immediateassignment to the Navy COMINT organization.This situation reflected the traditional Navy policyof having a purely military organization. The Navyphilosophy stressed the belief that a military organ-ization permitted stricter security control, facilitated rotation of personnel, provided greater

flexibility in assignments, and reflected better over-all control of COMINT operations by the militarycommanders.

In the postwar period of budget reduction, Navyofficials found it necessary, however, to modifydrastically their deeply ingrained opposition to theuse of civilians in their COMINT organization.However desirable a completely military organiza-tion might be in war, these Navy officials recog-nized that such an approach would be difficult toachieve in peacetime. They therefore established anumber of positions in the upper levels of the civilservice grades for key cryptologic personnel. Formany policy makers, this raised the old fundamen-tal question for possible conflict between militaryand civilian authority. The issue became a matter ofreconciling how naval and civilian authority couldexist side by side and still retain naval control overthe COMINT mission.

In effecting the transition to a greater use ofcivilian personnel, the Navy rationalized the changeon the basis of a definition concerning the two typesof control, “management” and “technical.”4 Itdefined management control as the day-to-dayadministration and control of operations of a unitin the performance of its primary function. Itdefined technical control as the specialized or pro-fessional guidance needed by a unit to perform itsprimary function. Using this distinction betweenmanagement mechanisms, Navy officials in thepostwar era delegated responsibility for technicaldirection over COMINT matters to top-level civilianemployees, while reserving management and policyauthorities exclusively for military officers. Underthis concept, the Navy authorities determined“what is to be done while the civilian techniciansdetermined how it is to be done.”5

The Navy’s change of heart about the use ofcivilians in COMINT activities and its rationaliza-tion about the nature of their role generallyresolved the Navy dilemma. But manpower prob-lems still remained for the three services. As thenew Air Force Security Service sought to recruit

personnel from the Army and Navy COMINTorganizations, competition between the services forthe dwindling manpower intensified. This situationcaused Department of Defense authorities to focusanew on the basic question of whether a consolidat-ed and centralized agency should be established. Inaddition to manpower questions, there existed anumber of other operational considerations as well.For example, on the technical side, since the cryp-tography of the Soviet Union was known to be cen-trally controlled, a growing recognition developedamong U.S. policy makers that a centralized crypt-analytic attack by the United States on Soviet sys-tems would be beneficial.6

In late July 1948 Kenneth C. Royall, secretary ofthe army, formally brought the problem to theattention of Forrestal. Royall reasoned that the onlyway to avoid the increased costs associated with thenew AFSS would be to establish some form of uni-fied or joint security agency capable of serving thearmed forces as a whole at the Washington level.He noted that field COMINT and security functionsshould probably continue to be the responsibility ofthe separate service departments and recommend-ed that the secretary establish a study group toreview the entire question of unification of theCOMINT effort.7

By this time, “economy and efficiency” hadbecome the watchwords of the Truman administra-tion as it sought to balance the national budget. Amajor corollary to this recurring budgetary themewas the continuing campaign to reorganize or unifythe armed forces, especially their intelligence appa-ratus. This issue represented a carry over, in largepart, from the earlier congressional investigationsinto interservice cooperation – or the lack thereof –preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor. The majorityreport of the congressional investigation of thePearl Harbor attack recommended on 20 July 1946

that there be a complete integration of

Army and Navy intelligence agencies in

order to avoid the pitfalls of divided

responsibility which experience has been

made so abundantly apparent; . . .

efficient intelligence services are just as

essential in time of peace as in war.8

Drawing on this report, Forrestal and his advis-ers took a critical look at the military COMINT serv-ices. They questioned the wisdom of having a dualtrack Army-Navy COMINT structure, especiallygiven the complexity and centralization of theSoviet communications security effort; the need fordeveloping a coordinated United States analyticattack against the Soviet COMINT target; and theneed for recruitment and training of personnel inunique cryptologic technical skills. Prompted by thespecific proposal from Royall, and by the skyrocket-ing costs for cryptologic activities, Forrestal waslooking for a way to avoid an increase in the budg-et. He associated the projected higher costs forcryptologic activities primarily with the plans of theAir Force for a new COMINT agency of its own.Hoping to reduce COMINT costs by preventingduplication from becoming triplication, Forrestaldecided to postpone the Air Force plans for expan-sion until he had explored the feasibility of combin-ing all military COMINT activities at theWashington level.9

Forrestal referred Royall’s memorandum to hisWar Council, the new advisory mechanism estab-lished under the National Security Act of 1947,whose mission was “to advise the Secretary ofDefense on matters of broad policy pertaining tothe Armed Forces.”11 Chaired by Forrestal, the WarCouncil was composed of the three service secre-taries and the service chiefs. On 3 August 1948 thecouncil recommended that a study group be estab-lished to consider the cryptologic needs of theentire government, including both military andcivilian interests.

Accepting the council’s recommendation, on 19August 1948 Forrestal established a military com-mittee to consider the “creation of a Unified ArmedForces Security Agency. The Terms of Reference forthe committee gave the study a purpose, directed atboth foreign communications intelligence and the

security of United States communications.11

Forrestal’s general mandate to the committee con-sidered two broad questions:

Should there be created a joint or unified

Armed Forces agency for the production

of communications intelligence and, if so,

what form should it take?

Should there be joint or unified crypto-

graphic security activities of the Army,

Navy, and Air Force, and if so, what form

should they take?

The committee consisted of six officers: for theArmy, Major General Alexander R. Bolling,Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, and Colonel Harold C.Hayes, Chief, Army Security Agency; for the Navy,Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, Director, NavalCommunications, and Captain William S. Veeder;and for the Air Force, Major General Charles P.Cabell, Director of Intelligence, and BrigadierGeneral Francis L. Ankenbrandt, Director forCommunications.12

At its first meeting on 25 August 1948, the com-mittee selected Admiral Stone as its chairman. Thisresulted in the group’s common designation as theStone Board.13 Hayes, however, was the only com-mittee member actively engaged in the productionof COMINT at the time, as well as the only memberhaving any experience in COMINT.

While the committee focused essentially oncommunications intelligence and communicationssecurity activities from a military point of view, italso recognized the cryptologic interests of otherparts of the government. Its Terms of Referenceinstructed it to consult with the State Departmentand the CIA as part of its fact-finding effort for thepreparation of a final report.14

Despite Forrestal’s interest in consolidation, theestablishment of the new agency did not comeabout easily. Lasting several months, the StoneBoard deliberations revealed that the Navy and the

Air Force were not ready to accept the kind of uni-fication proposed by the Army. After considerabledebate, the Stone Board submitted its final reportto Forrestal in December 1948.15 The Stone Board’sreport, actually a majority report and an accompa-nying minority report, did not reconcile the con-flicting views of the services.

The majority report, written by the Navy andAir Force, essentially recommended a continuationof the basic arrangements existing under the oldJoint Operating Plan. It added several organiza-tional changes related primarily to the new AirForce Security Service and proposed exemptingtactical support areas from central control. Themajority report also proposed the allocation of jointtasks to a new Air Force agency “on an equal basiswith the Army and Navy.” In addition, the Navy andAir Force sought to exempt from unified controlthose parts of the effort that pertained directly tothe specific military responsibility of each serviceand that would remain in each service as a com-mand function. Navy and Air Force officials justi-fied their recommendation in terms of the need forflexibility of operation and speed of decision inmatters pertaining to responsibilities of the servic-es during wartime. In short, they basically desiredto maintain the status quo and their own separateand independent cryptologic efforts. Consolidationwas not in their plans.

In the minority report, the Army officials took afar different approach. They emphasized economyand the avoidance of duplication of effort.16 TheArmy officials argued that foreign communicationswere becoming increasingly sophisticated and con-sequently were much more difficult to exploit.Accordingly, the Army plan placed primary impor-tance on maintaining and exploiting technical rela-tionships among all analytic problems. To achievethis capability, the Army recommended consolida-tion of the COMINT services into a single unifiedagency. The unified agency would have responsibil-ity for central control of processing and dissemina-tion activities for the entire U.S. COMINT effort. Ineffect, the minority Army plan proposed that all

COMINT production other than intercept and fieldprocessing be conducted by one organization,staffed by personnel from the three services. Thisnew unified agency “would determine COMINTimplementation priorities based on intelligencerequirements. . . and would determine the specificemployment of the intercept facilities.”17

Under the Army concept, no single servicewould perform central processing activities in theUnited States. The services could, however, per-form a limited field processing effort, primarily ontasks of a direct support nature as necessary formilitary operations of each service. The individualservices would each maintain COMINT organiza-tions to conduct intercept, direction finding, andnecessary field processing; to train service person-nel; and to engage in research and developmentactions for COMINT operations. As part of theirbasic responsibility to the new joint agency, theservices would provide “intercept facilities and per-sonnel.” Their fixed field sites would conduct inter-cept activities in response to the tasking of the newjoint structure.

In support of its proposal, the Army drew a par-allel between the Navy-Air Force proposal and thesituation that prevailed in the German COMINTservices during World War II. According to theArmy, at the end of the war all of the GermanCOMINT services and agencies were independent-ly duplicating the work of one another in an atmos-phere of great hostility. The Army believed that theestablishment of three independent COMINT activ-ities would be divisive to United States interestsand would, in time, degenerate into a situation sim-ilar to that encountered by the German SIGINTservices during the war.18

In contrast to the German structure, the Armycited the coordination and accomplishmentsachieved by the British in their intelligence struc-ture. In the Army’s view, the COMINT organizationof the British, with approximately thirty-five yearsof continuous experience in this field, had been uni-fied in a manner similar to that described in the

Army proposal.19 Citing the German and Britishexamples, the Army plan stressed the need for con-solidating into a single armed forces activity all butthe most narrowly defined problems of primaryinterest to each service.

While the majority and minority reports dis-agreed on the issue of consolidation, they did agree,in principle, on the need for better integration ofoverall COMINT support. Both plans agreed that allthree services should participate in this integrationunder the coordination of an Armed ForcesCommunications Intelligence Board (AFCIB) and aDirector of Joint Operations (DJO).20 Both reportsproposed that the new Armed ForcesCommunication Intelligence Board be subordinateto the Joint Chiefs of Staff and that it consist of themilitary members of USCIB. This new AFCIBwould be the policy board for providing guidance toCOMINT activities, and would provide liaison withUSCIB on all matters within the cognizance ofUSCIB. The role of the DJO would vary, however,under each report. Under the majority report, theDJO would represent an expanded role for theexisting Coordinator of Joint Operations. Underthe Army report, the DJO would, in effect, have twohats, serving as director of the new unified agency,and as the Director of Joint Operations.

The military services were not the only onesinterested in the Stone Board Report. From the out-set, the civilian agencies – the Department of Stateand the CIA – followed the activities of the StoneBoard closely, and soon expressed strong objec-tions to various parts of the final report. The mainissue raised by the CIA and the State Departmentconcerned the establishment of an Armed ForcesCommunications Intelligence Board whose rela-tionship to USCIB was unclear. CIA and Stateauthorities viewed the new board as a threat toUSCIB.21

While the relationships of AFCIB may havebeen unclear, the strategy of the military serviceswas obvious. Their intent was to establish AFCIB asa purely military structure running parallel to

USCIB, but as one that would contravene the policyrole of USCIB. It would, in effect, leave USCIB withno significant role. With this proposal, the militaryhad resurrected the acrimonious issue of one yearearlier when the NSC had established USCIB assubordinate to the NSC rather than the JCS.

Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, , strong-ly argued that the creation of an Armed ForcesIntelligence Board would clearly be in conflict withthe new authority granted to USCIB by the issuanceof NSCID No.9 in 1948.22 In his view, the creationof an AFCIB would serve to give the militaryauthorities total control over activities that should,in the national interest, be directed more to therequirements of the civil agencies. Hillenkoetteralso took the position that in the Cold War theCentral Intelligence Agency and State Departmentwere the primary players on the covert and diplo-matic front. According to his estimate, three-fourths of the current production of COMINT camefrom sources of primary interest to the CIA and theState Department.

W. Park Armstrong, special assistant to the sec-retary of state, also attacked the concept of anAFCIB as a “military controlled structure parallel toUSCIB and independent of it.” His strong objectionalso reflected the view that the non-military con-sumer would lose the ability to influence the mili-tary COMINT structure in terms of stating itsrequirements for COMINT information.23

The civilian objections, along with the basicservice disagreement over consolidation, preventedany immediate action. A serious illness suffered byForrestal also contributed to the postponement ofany final decision. The two reports submitted by theStone Board awaited disposition in the office of theSecretary of Defense for more than four months.

When Louis A. Johnson became the secretary ofdefense on 28 March 1949 following Forrestal’sdeath, he acted quickly to resolve the issue. Hecalled in General Joseph T. McNarney, USA, knownto be a supporter of the consolidation concept, to

assist in resolving the dilemma.24 McNarney, whoserved as director of Management Services forJohnson, recommended a plan that required amerger, but left the three services the right to main-tain their separate organizations. It was a compro-mise solution. Johnson later reissued it as a draftdirective calling for the establishment of an ArmedForces Security Agency that would be along thelines of the recommendations in the Army minorityreport. The new Johnson directive was then sched-uled for discussion and decision by the JCS and theSecretary’s War Council.

At a JCS meeting in the morning of 18 May1949, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Air Force chiefof staff, suddenly announced the reversal of the ear-lier Air Force position and indicated that the “AirForce supported the Army’s consolidated conceptand not the Navy’s non-consolidated concept forCOMINT processing.”25 Vandenberg appears tohave voted for merger only after having obtainedprior assurance that each service would be allowedto have its own agency for the conduct of thosecryptologic operations peculiar to its needs.26 Withthis official reversal of the Air Force vote, the Navyremained the sole dissenter to the establishment ofan Armed Forces Security Agency. But its positionsoon collapsed. At an afternoon meeting on thesame day, the Secretary’s War Council met to con-sider Johnson’s draft directive. At the council meet-ing, the newly appointed secretary of the navy,Francis P. Matthews, overruled the position of theChief of Naval Operations, Admiral Louis Denfield,and argued for consolidation of the COMINT struc-ture.27 Thus, by the evening of 18 May Johnson hadsucceeded in overturning the split report of theStone Board and gaining the support of all threeservices for consolidation.

The reasons for the change of position by theAir Force and Navy officials were probably associ-ated more with high-level political factors ratherthan any conceptual changes by the services them-selves. From 1947 to early 1950, President Truman,Congress, and the secretaries of defense activelysupported a concept of genuine unification of the

military services. As a result, this period was char-acterized by a number of bitter interservice rivalriesand disputes concerning the issue of unification aswell as questions concerning the role of each serv-ice. Many of the same officials who participated inthe Stone Board decision were also active in otherongoing political battles within the NationalMilitary Establishment. One such battle, associatedwith the Navy’s desire to hold nuclear weapons,came to a climax at the time of the deliberationsabout AFSA in 1949. The Navy and Air Force werein violent disagreement over the strategic role ofthe Navy and clashed over the construction of a newsuper carrier and the development of the lateststrategic bomber, the B-36. This resulted in a chainreaction of events achieving national prominence,and soon involved both the executive and legislativebranches of the government. These conflicts resulted in Johnson’s cancellation, on 23 April1949, of the construction of the 65,000-ton aircraftcarrier, the USS United States; the resignation ofSecretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan on 19 April1949; and the continuing public rivalry between theAir Force and Navy, usually labeled “the revolt ofthe admirals.”28

Thus, the atmosphere for cooperation and con-solidation was volatile. However, by the time thevote on the AFSA merger took place, Johnson hadappointed a new secretary of the navy, Francis P.Matthews, whom he had selected personally.29

Matthews supported Johnson’s position. As for theAir Force, Vandenberg, as Air Force chief of staff,had consistently and actively promoted the growthof the Air Force as an independent service. In addi-tion to the commitment for an independent crypto-logic arm for the Air Force, it is also likely thatVandenberg envisaged receiving greater financialsupport for aircraft programs if he went along withconsolidation in other areas such as the merger ofcryptologic activities.

There also existed other pressures on the serv-ices. As a political reality, the Navy-Air Force deci-sion to vote for merger was consistent withPresident Truman’s desire for unification of the

military COMINT organizations which, in turn,reflected the mood in Congress, as well as the tenorof the National Security Act. In later years,Brigadier General Carter W. Clarke, USA, a participant in the AFSA deliberations, commentedabout the political pressures existing at the time.Clarke, an official with many years of service in ASAand the office of the Army Chief of Staff forIntelligence, maintained that while Johnsonpressed hard for merger, the real leverage for finalservice approval of the AFSA concept came fromTruman and Congress.30

During the sessions of the Stone Board, theNavy made elaborate studies and charts of themajor elements in both the majority and minorityreports. As a result of this critical analysis, the Navydeveloped a unique grasp of the weaknesses andstrengths of each report. Recognizing that theestablishment of a consolidated agency wasinevitable, and seeking to strengthen the operationsof the new agency, the Navy sought at the eleventhhour to have some positive changes made tostrengthen the new organization.

On behalf of the Navy organization, Stone con-ferred at length with General McNarney about thedirective and proposed some substantive changesin the text. In particular, the Navy sought changesin the charter concerning the distinction existingbetween “fixed” and “mobile” collection sites. Thedraft directive stated that the fixed intercept instal-lations would be “manned and administered by theservice providing them, but will be operationallydirected by AFSA.” On the other hand, the mobilesites were to be excluded from any AFSA controland would be operationally controlled by the parentservice. With unusual foresight, the Navy sought toeliminate this distinction, which it correctly pre-dicted would be an issue of great difficulty for thenew agency. McNarney, however, refused to makeany substantive changes, insisting that his authori-ty, as executive secretary of the War Council,extended only to editorial changes.31

With a unanimous vote now supporting theconcept of merger, Johnson was ready to act. On 20May 1949, Johnson ordered the issuance of JCSDirective 2010, establishing an Armed ForcesSecurity Agency for the conduct of communicationsintelligence and communication security activitieswithin the National Military Establishment. Thenew agency would be headed for a two-year term bya flag or general officer, to be chosen in turn fromeach service. The agency would function under themanagement control of the JCS, and would conductits common activities “in not more than two majorestablishments.” Johnson’s directive established adate of 1 January 1950 for completion of the merg-er of the COMINT services.32

In taking this decisive action only two monthsafter coming into office, Johnson ended theimpasse that had existed for over a year. With theformation of AFSA, the military COMINT structureacquired a new identity and structure. WhileJohnson sought to recognize the unity of theCOMINT mission and resources, he believed that aconsolidation of the service COMINT efforts wouldbe responsive at the same time to the public pres-sure for effecting greater economies in government.

Because of the concerns expressed earlier by thecivilian agencies, Johnson also sent parallel lettersto Dean Acheson, secretary of state; Rear AdmiralRoscoe H. Hillenkoetter, director of CentralIntelligence; and Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers,executive secretary of the National SecurityCouncil.33 He informed them of the formation, withthe approval of the president, of a unified crypto-logic establishment – the Armed Forces SecurityAgency (AFSA) – and of the subordination and mis-sions of the new structure. The tone of the letterswas conciliatory as Johnson sought to assure eachthat the implementation of his new directive wouldnot interfere with the functions of the USCIB. Thefinal AFSA charter included no vestiges of a high-level Armed Forces Communications IntelligenceBoard, which had drawn such violent protests ear-lier from the CIA and the Department of State.

The JCS then reissued Johnson’s directive asJCS 2010 on 20 May 1949. The JCS established asteering committee to assist in the planning of themany administrative, logistic, and operationalactions necessary for physical merger of serviceresources. Its members were those representativesof the military departments then serving on USCIB.

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They were, for the Army, Major General S. LeroyIrwin and Colonel Carter W. Clarke; for the Navy,Rear Admiral Thomas B. Inglis and Rear AdmiralEarl E. Stone; and for the Air Force, Major GeneralCharles P. Cabell and Colonel Roy H. Lynn.34

In the selection process for the position of thedirector, AFSA, each service proposed one candi-date. The nominees were Major General J. V.Matejka, USA, Chief Signal Officer, USEUCOM;Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, USN, Director of NavalCommunications; and Major General Walter E.Todd, USAF, Joint Staff. On 15 June 1949, the JCSselected Stone.

The appointmentof Stone, who hadno experience inCOMINT, was a signto some that consoli-dation might beaborted. Stone, whorepresented the serv-ice most consistent inits desire for crypto-logic autonomy, hadsigned the majorityreport opposing thecreation of theagency he was now tohead. Consolidationseemed in jeopardy.

As a result of AFSA’s creation, the existing CJO(Admiral Wenger) and the director, AFSA, now hadoverlapping responsibilities. The CJO had beenestablished earlier as USCIB’s executive for the dis-charge of certain responsibilities, which the servic-es, along with the civil agencies, had agreed shouldbe vested in USCIB. Subsequently, with the estab-lishment of AFSA and without prior concurrence ofUSCIB, these responsibilities were arbitrarilyassigned to the director, AFSA. This situation pre-sented a major dilemma for USCIB, particularly inthe policy area of foreign liaison, a responsibilitythat NSCID No.9 assigned to USCIB.

At the forty-first meeting of USCIB on 17 June1949, the representatives of the Central IntelligenceAgency (Admiral Hillenkoetter) and theDepartment of State (W. Park Armstrong) cited theconflicts existing between the new AFSA directiveand the responsibilities of USCIB and the role of theCJO under NSCID No.9. The military members ofUSCIB were unresponsive to the complaints of theCIA and State Department members, refusingessentially to go counter to a directive from the sec-retary of defense. The meeting ended with theagreement that the CIA and State Departmentshould address a letter to Secretary Johnsonexpressing their views about the conflicts betweenthe USCIB and AFSA charters.35

On 27 June 1949 Hillenkoetter sent such a let-ter to Johnson. Johnson, however, took no action.General McNarney, head of Johnson’s manage-ment committee, met with USCIB to discuss the let-ter, but adamantly refused to pursue any changes tothe AFSA directive.36 Hillenkoetter and Armstrongconcluded that McNarney’s views were inflexibleand that further effort to change them was futile.They would have to wait for a new opportunity.

Although USCIB’s non-military members wereunanimous in their opposition to the establishmentof AFSA, they were unable to convince USCIB totake any stronger action protesting the establishment of AFSA. Because of charter limitations and the preponderance of militarymembership, USCIB would not challengeJohnson’s plan. Recognizing that they could donothing about the establishment or the structure ofAFSA, the USCIB had no choice but to cooperatewith the new agency during the interim period of itsestablishment. Further, lacking any response toHillenkoetter’s letter, the only solution for USCIB out of its jurisdictional dilemma was toappoint the director, AFSA, as the CJO.37 In hiscapacity as CJO, the director of AFSA had a parallel responsibility to USCIB, which made the situation salvageable for USCIB. Consequently, USCIB agreed that the existing CJO(Admiral Wenger) should serve as the deputy

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CJO during the transition period, to assist primarily in the area of Second Party collaboration.

When Johnson established AFSA in May 1949,he simultaneously ordered the establishment of anadvisory mechanism to exist within the AFSA struc-ture. His directive defined the nature, role, andcomposition of the Armed Forces CommunicationsIntelligence Advisory Council (AFCIAC), designedto serve solely in the capacity of an advisory mech-anism for AFSA and the JCS. Johnson’s directive,however, indicated very clearly that AFSA, subjectto the JCS, had the primary responsibility for for-mulating and implementing plans, policies, anddoctrine relating to communications intelligenceand communications security activities. AFSA, ineffect, had the actual responsibility for running theCOMINT and COMSEC operations, excluding onlythose responsibilities that were delegated individu-ally to the Army, Navy, and Air Force.38

This dichotomy of organizational roles and divi-sion of labor did not last long. Within two monthsafter the establishment of AFSA, the JCS proposedsubstantive changes to Johnson’s directive. On 28July 1949 JCS issued a new charter for AFCIAC,which not only changed the nature and role of theAFCIAC mechanism, but affected areas of authori-ty of AFSA as well. After circulating the documentto Johnson for information, the JCS approved thenew AFCIAC charter on 1 September 1949.39

The changes in JCS 2010/6 tended to diminishthe connotation of AFSA as representing a “unified”organization, while at the same time placing greateremphasis on “joint” operations. JCS accomplishedthis by transferring responsibilities to AFCIACfrom the JCS, as well as from the director, AFSA. Asnoted above, AFSA initially had the authority to for-mulate and, after JCS approval, to implementplans, policies, and doctrine relating to communi-cations intelligence and communications securityactivities. Under the new AFCIAC charter, however,AFSA no longer performed these basic tasks.Instead AFCIAC became the structure to “deter-mine policies, operating plans and doctrines for the

AFSA in its production of communications intelli-gence, and in its conduct of communications secu-rity activities.” In addition to its originally assignedadvisory functions, AFCIAC acquired considerablestaff authority over AFSA. Thus, AFCIAC no longerfunctioned as an advisory mechanism within AFSA,but “became the agency of the JCS charged with theresponsibility for ensuring the most effective oper-ation of the AFSA.” As the new policy authority andoverseer of AFSA’s operations, AFCIAC emerged asthe real power in the COMINT structure.

In short, before the AFSA structure evenbecame operational, the JCS had eroded much ofAFSA’s already limited authority. As happened dur-ing the period of the Joint Operating Plan, the mil-itary authorities turned once again to the use of a“committee” structure to run the COMINT organi-zation. They also repeated the practice of excludingthe civilian agencies from any participation in thecommittee process. These charter changes tendednot only to destroy the separate identity of AFSA,but also to preserve the independent identity of theseparate military COMINT services. The net resultwas an acceleration of the antagonism within theintelligence community over the control of theCOMINT structure.

At the fourth meeting of AFCIAC, the councilproposed to the JCS that its name be changed toArmed Forces Security Agency Council (AFSAC).Admiral Stone proposed the use of the word “secu-rity” because it was a generic term that embracedboth the communications intelligence and commu-nications security fields. Because of AFCIAC’s juris-diction over COMINT as well as COMSEC, the newtitle was considered to be more accurate. It alsoavoided the use of the term “communications intel-ligence,” which at that time was considered to beclassified. Following JCS approval of the change on22 October 1949, the secretary of defense approvedthe change on 9 November 1949. After that, theCouncil was known as AFSAC.40

The Director, AFSA, chaired the AFSAC, whichnow became the mechanism through which AFSA

reported to the JCS. AFSAC had ten members,including the chairman – three each from the threeservices, one from each of their communications,intelligence, and cryptanalytic organizations.Consistent with the traditional practice in arrangements for joint operations, actions on substantive matters brought before AFSAC couldbe taken only by unanimous vote. Because of thediversity of the membership and their differentinterests, the requirement for unanimity madedecision-making difficult, if not impossible. Thisfactor ultimately caused major problems for AFSA,as the services tended to vote along party lineswhenever major issues arose. The hope that AFSAwould develop a truly consolidated intelligenceeffort seemed remote.

Stone began his tour as Director, AFSA, and theCJO on 15 July 1949.41 He was assisted by threedeputy directors. Each deputy served as the liaisonbetween AFSA and his parent service, and assumedspecific functions within AFSA. Colonel Samuel P.Collins, the Army deputy director (AFSA-00A), wasresponsible for communications security, researchand development, and communications. CaptainJoseph N. Wenger became the Navy deputy direc-tor (AFSA-00B), and assumed control of COMINT.Wenger also received an additional duty in a majorpolicy area. When USCIB appointed Stone as theCJO, Wenger, who was CJO at the time, agreed tostep down and to become the deputy CJO. As thedeputy CJO, Wenger then assumed the responsibil-ity for directing foreign liaison relationships onbehalf of the dual interests of USCIB and AFSA. Onthe Air Force side, Colonel Roy H. Lynn of the AirForce (AFSA-00C) became responsible for staff andadministrative functions.42

On the question of physical consolidation offacilities, neither the Army site (Arlington HallStation) nor the Navy site (Naval Security Station)could accommodate all of AFSA’s COMINT andCOMSEC functions. One proposal was to make thesplit along COMINT-COMSEC lines; anotherplaced all analysis on Soviet problems at ArlingtonHall and all other cryptanalytic problems (ALL) at

the Navy site; a third left physical arrangements asthey were, with a mixture of both COMINT andCOMSEC remaining at the two installations.43

Stone opted for a division along the major functional lines of COMINT and COMSEC. Heplaced almost all of the COMINT operations andrelated research and development activities atArlington Hall and all COMSEC operations, withrelated research and development aspects, at theNaval Security Station. Staff and other supportfunctions were divided between the two sitesdepending on equipment and other logistical considerations. Stone established his new headquarters and administrative offices at theNaval Security Station.44

Stone also established four monitor groups –representing major functional areas – to direct theactual integration of the service elements intoAFSA. The COMINT Monitor Group, headed byCaptain Redfield Mason, was concerned with themerger of the largest of AFSA’s operating units.This organization was to merge the Army SecurityAgency’s Operations Division (AS-90) with theProcessing Department (N-2) of the Navy’sCommunications Supplementary Activity,Washington (CSAW), as well as related units ofboth agencies. It also had the responsibility for theassimilation of two committee structures that oper-ated under the aegis of the superseded JointOperating Plan. This included the JPAG and theJICG of the JOP. The resulting structure becamethe Office of Operations, with Mason designated asits first chief.45

With the physical merger of the Army and NavyCOMINT processing organizations into the AFSAstructure, each service contributed many talentedindividuals with distinguished careers in cryptogra-phy. A number of these had achieved technicalaccomplishments of exceptional merit and pos-sessed a combination of knowledge and experiencethat would become invaluable assets to the newagency. The Army’s principal cryptologists werecivilians, most of whom had acquired wartime com

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missions; the Navy’s leading cryptologists weremostly career Navy officers.

Moving into the AFSA structure in 1949,William F. Friedman clearly stood out as the deanof Army cryptologists. During his career in the War

Department and the Signal Intelligence Service,Friedman’s contributions embraced not only cryptanalytic operations but research and develop-ment activities (both COMINT and COMSEC) andcryptologic education as well. While Friedman hasreceived recognition for his abilities in the field ofcryptanalysis, possibly his most lasting contribu-tion may be in the area of training. Singularly giftedas both a teacher and a writer, Friedman left a lega-cy of training lectures and programs that havebroad application even today. In April 1930, in hissearch for new talent for the newly establishedSignal Intelligence Service, Friedman personallyrecruited three young mathematicians – Frank B.Rowlett, Abraham Sinkov, and Solomon Kullback –as junior cryptologists. As the Army continued itsrecruitment through the 1930s, the SIS gradually

developed a small cadre of personnel who werehighly trained in cryptology. During World War II, Rowlett, Sinkov, and Kullback, in particular,attained high personal accomplishments. They became representative of a new generation ofcryptanalysts.

In contrast, the manpower of the Navy’sCOMINT organization in 1949 essentially repre-sented a military cadre. The new Navy policy of thepostwar period that moved in the direction ofincreased recruitment and use of civilian personnelhad not been in effect long enough to have a signif-icant impact on its overall structure. The Navyauthorities, by encouraging professional careers incryptology for its officers, had traditionally placedprimary reliance on naval officers for the perform-ance of COMINT duties. By the time AFSA wasestablished, many Navy officers had acquired abroad background in communications intelligencematters, some dating back to the mid-1920s,including a number of assignments as either pro-ducers or consumers of intelligence. During WorldWar II, officers certified in the cryptologic field

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filled positions of major responsibility for the Navyin Washington and in field installations. Some ofthese field installations were Fleet Radio Unit, PearlHarbor (FRUPAC) in Hawaii; Fleet Radio Unit,Melbourne (FRUMEL) in Australia; Radio AnalysisGroup Forward Area (RAGFOR) on Guam; and anumber of communications and intercept sites.Based on this broad depth of training and experi-ence, AFSA acquired a talented and highly profes-sional organization from the Navy. The list of offi-cers assigned to AFSA with their initial assignmentsincluded Captain Joseph N. Wenger, deputy direc-tor, AFSA (for COMINT); Captain Laurance F.Safford, special assistant to the director; CaptainThomas A. Dyer, chief, Plans and Policy; CaptainRedfield Mason, chief, Office of Operations; andCaptain Wesley A. Wright, chief of the SpecialProcessing Division.

The other monitor groups were Research andDevelopment, headed by Dr. Solomon Kullback;Communications Security, headed by Dr. AbrahamSinkov; and Administration, headed by CaptainJohn S. Harper, USN. William F. Friedman becameresearch consultant for the new AFSA. Frank B.Rowlett, a member of the Army team that broke theJapanese diplomatic system (Purple) during WorldWar II, became AFSA’s technical director.

Initially, Stone had two roles: one as director,AFSA, and the other as the coordinator and execu-tive agent for USCIB. As the director, Stone report-ed to Secretary of Defense Johnson through theJCS. He had the responsibility for all cryptologicactivities in the Department of Defense. He wasresponsible for the furnishing of COMINT, not onlyto the military services, but also to other govern-ment departments. As director, he was also subjectto the policies and rules of USCIB governing theproduction and dissemination of COMINT.However, once the COMINT was distributed toauthorized intelligence recipients, Stone had nojurisdiction over its use or physical security. Thesebecame the responsibility of the user.46 When act-ing as the coordinator and executive agent forUSCIB, Stone worked under a different authority

and in wider fields than he did as the director,AFSA. As coordinator, Stone was responsible to theNSC through the USCIB. In this capacity, hisauthority extended to the use of COMINT by anyU.S. agency. As director, AFSA, or as coordinator ofUSCIB, Stone was an ex officio member of USCIB,without a vote, and was ineligible to become chair-man of USCIB (which was then held on a rotatingbasis among the membership).47 Later, this lack ofvoting status in USCIB became a major obstacle forStone and his successor as they were excluded fromparticipation in the actual decision-making processof the Board.

During his first year, Stone constantly sought toclarify the nature and role of the AFSA structureand to accomplish all necessary consolidationactions. For the first seven months, his major objec-tive was to develop administrative policies and pro-cedures for the continuation of communicationsintelligence and communications security activi-ties. He placed major emphasis on actions dealingwith physical and administrative consolidation,and budget and financial factors. In his firstprogress report to AFSAC, Stone cited 15 July 1949as the date of the formal activation of AFSA.48 Thereport also noted the following as AFSA’s mile-stones: On 1 October 1949, AFSA assumed opera-tional control of its cryptologic activities; and on 25December 1949, AFSA assumed administrativecontrol of all its allocated civilian personnel. Thetransfer and consolidation of facilities and person-nel in a six-month period was a significant accom-plishment. Merger seemed a reality.

The contrast between the earlier JOP, and thenew AFSA was readily apparent. The effort againstthe several targets was performed jointly by theCJO assisted by his small staff (committees) forintercept control, allocation of processing tasks,and foreign liaison. Under the JOP, the servicesworked together on a voluntary basis, operatingessentially under a “management by committee”approach, with each service retaining its own inde-pendence – particularly when joint agreementcould not be reached. AFSA differed from the JOP

principally in that the COMINT processing activi-ties of the Army and Navy in the United States werenow physically merged at two locations. It per-formed both military and non-military tasks. It wasa major step toward consolidation.

With the merger of the Army and NavyCOMINT processing organizations under AFSA,there no longer existed any need for the JICG or theJPAG, both of which were creations of the earlierJoint Operating Plan. The functions of the JointIntercept Group and the Joint Processing Groupwere merged into a new AFSA Office of Operations.The duties of the JLG, however, required norealignment within the AFSA structure. The JLG,which dealt essentially with foreign liaison matters,continued to be a responsibility of the CJO underhis USCIB hat. The responsibility for foreignCOMINT liaison, administered by the JLG and itssupporting staff, remained the responsibility ofUSCIB. This function remained under Stone as theCoordinator of Joint Operations.

Although the processing activities of the Armyand Navy were now merged and the three servicesnow functioned under AFSA as a joint agency of theJCS, the new agency faced some fundamental prob-lems. The services generally took full advantage ofthe many loopholes existing in the AFSA charter inorder to preserve their independence. For example,the AFSA charter withheld from AFSA any authori-ty for the tasking of mobile collection sites.49 This“exclusion” clause caused serious operational prob-lems for AFSA from the outset. Initially, the Armyand Navy reserved “mobile” or close-support facili-ties in the field for their exclusive control.According to the military services, this ensured thateach satisfied the requirements of its own com-manders for the production of COMINT for tacticalpurposes. This blanket delegation of authority tothe services proved to be a major problem forAFSA, particularly in its relationships with thenewly established Air Force Security Service.

By the simple act of declaring an intercept facil-ity as mobile, a service could withhold any collec-

tion activity from Stone’s control. The Air Forceused this exclusion to the maximum by convenient-ly identifying all of its intercept facilities as mobilesites. Because of this situation, AFSA and the U.S.Air Force concluded an agreement on 18 September1950 that essentially reflected a shared arrange-ment for AFSA/AFSS tasking of Air Force mobilecollection sites.50 The agreement concluded withthe candid admission “that the agreement wasmade unilaterally between AFSA and the Air Force,in view of the fact that the latter is not providingany fixed intercept installation for operationaldirection of the Director, AFSA.” This sharing oftasking reflected the best arrangement that AFSAwas able to achieve with the AFSS. During theremainder of Stone’s tour, as well as his successor’s,the Air Force continued to withhold the assignmentof fixed stations from AFSA’s control by continuingto identify all of its sites as mobile.51

Later these same difficulties over the questionof fixed and mobile collection sites extended to rela-tionships with the Army, but to a lesser degree.While the Army did not exclude AFSA from taskingits mobile sites, it did establish elaborate procedur-al channels for the relay of AFSA tasking instruc-tions. Except in an emergency, AFSA could not taskthe sites directly, but had to go through intermedi-ary channels, such as headquarters installations inthe United States and in the field. The process wascumbersome and inefficient and worked againstthe timeliness of COMINT reporting.52 The Navywas the only service that did not create problems inthis area.

Another broad question that plagued AFSA offi-cials was the division of responsibility betweenAFSA and the services. In its relationships with theservices on processing and reporting matters, forexample, AFSA once again found itself at odds withthe AFSS. Neither the Army nor the Navy under-took to establish processing units within the UnitedStates. The Air Force, however, insisted on havingits own processing unit within the United States.53

AFSA considered this a major violation of itsresponsibilities. It asked the JCS to settle the dis-

pute. Since the JCS failed to rule publicly in favor ofeither organization, the Air Force finally abandonedits plans for establishing a domestic processingunit.54 The issue, however, did not go away. Duringthe entire period of AFSA’s existence, its relation-ships with the Air Force remained highly con-tentious over this issue, as well as over the questionof mobile collection facilities.

Although in principle the military cryptologiccommunity was officially committed to making themerger work, this commitment was not reflecteduniformly throughout the services. There stillremained much open hostility and skepticismabout the workability of the concept of consolida-tion. In addition, the non-military members ofUSCIB continued to raise questions about AFSA’srole and its relationships to USCIB. They com-plained about the lack of a civilian voice in this mil-itary hierarchy.55

By June 1950 AFSA had been operational for sixmonths. It was still preoccupied with efforts to sortout its managerial role and its authority in theCOMINT structure, as well as its relationships withthe consumer community. The outbreak of theKorean War on 25 June 1950, however, completelychanged the focus of AFSA’s activities. The war putnew pressures on all U.S. intelligence sources. Bothmilitary and civilian intelligence authorities immediately pressed for an improvement in thequality and timeliness of COMINT reporting.56 Thewar, however, quickly revealed the limitations ofAFSA. Duplicate collection efforts, processingproblems, service rivalries, and communicationdelays were prevalent. AFSA’s limited ability todirect COMINT activities in support of national targets soon became evident to the entire intelligence community.

As the Korean War continued, the U.S.COMINT community achieved a mixed record ofsuccesses and failures. Because of the practice ofcounterpart coverage, each service concentrated onintercepting and processing the communications ofits foreign counterpart. For example, the Army and

Air Force intercepted the communications of theKorean military ground and air forces, respectively.The Navy handled the communications of Koreannaval forces. Because of this reliance on counter-part coverage, the major COMINT successes tookplace in the area of tactical support. The Army andAir Force, working independently on the low-gradecommunications of their counterpart targets, hadthe most success. The field exploitation of NorthKorean and Chinese Communist traffic both voiceand plain text proved to be of significant value tothe U.S. field commanders.

By late 1951, because of the continued absenceof COMINT from some enemy communications,the U.S. intelligence community, both military andcivilian, became increasingly impatient with thequality and timeliness of AFSA’s COMINT report-ing. The military desired increased expenditures ofeffort and personnel on the analytic problem. Thecivilian officials complained about the lack of chan-nels for expressing their intelligence requirementsand priorities to AFSA.57 Pressure mounted onStone and AFSA to improve the responsiveness ofthe COMINT structure.

As Stone’s two-year tour was coming to a close,AFSA convened in January 1951 to nominate a suc-cessor. According to the agreed procedures, thecouncil would consider nominations made by theArmy and the Air Force, but not the Navy, since theNavy had provided the first director. The Air Force,however, declined, and supported the Army’s can-didate, Major General Ralph J. Canine, USA.58 On15 February 1951, the secretary of defense approvedthe appointment of Canine as director, AFSA.59

During World War II, Canine, an artillery offi-cer, had served under General George Patton aschief of staff, XII Corps, Third Army. Other thanhaving been a user of intelligence, Canine came tothe AFSA job with no prior intelligence experience.However, prior to assumption of his AFSA duties,Canine had a unique opportunity to participatedirectly in a great number of matters involving

AFSA’s responsibilities and relationships.60 As theArmy’s alternate member of AFSAC and USCIB, heparticipated in their meetings for a six-month peri-od and learned firsthand about many of the issuesconfronting AFSA. This extended period of orienta-tion gave him a valuable preview of the AFSA struc-ture before his formal assumption of the position.

On 15 July 1951 Canine succeeded Stone as thesecond director, AFSA. Canine’s arrival heralded noimmediate major changes in the AFSA structure,however. AFSA continued to operate under a mul-tiple control arrangement, functioning under theguidance of USCIB and the JCS. USCIB providedlimited guidance on policy matters, while the JCSprovided the management and operational author-ity over AFSA. The Armed Forces Security AdvisoryCommittee continued to oversee the operations ofAFSA for the JCS, and at the same time exercised aheavy hand in the direction of AFSA activities. Asnoted earlier, AFSA did not have complete freedomof action in the policy and planning areas. very earlyrevision of the AFSA charter required that all majorpolicy and planning actions by AFSA had to haveprior approval of AFSAC. Concerning the very critical policy question of the division of responsi-bility between AFSA and the services, AFSACconsistently supported the service views ratherthan AFSA’s. AFSAC also required unanimousapproval by the members prior to taking action onan issue. This meant that it was very difficult, if notimpossible, for AFSA to win a favorable decision oncontroversial issues.

Canine’s arrival also brought no real changes interms of AFSA’s working relationships with theservice COMINT organizations. If anything, asteady deterioration in these working relationshipscontinued. After the establishment of AFSA, eventhe Army’s initial support and enthusiasm for thecentralized concept began to diminish and soonmatched that of the other services in opposition tounification. In the Army’s case, the change was dueprimarily to the reassignment of Brigadier GeneralCarter W. Clarke, USA, chief, Army SecurityAgency, who was considered to be the primary

architect of the consolidation concept.61 Clarkebecame commanding general, SouthwesternCommand, Japan, and remained temporarily out ofthe intelligence field until returning to Washingtonin late 1953.62 With Clarke’s departure, no one inauthority in the Army wholeheartedly supportedconsolidation.

The services did agree on one major issue. Theywere united in their belief that the director shouldhave no authority over them. They viewed him sole-ly in the role of “coordinator,” not “director.” Eachof the first two directors of AFSA, Stone andCanine, bitterly fought this concept. They believedthis approach to be contrary to the spirit and intentof the AFSA charter. It inhibited them from doingtheir job properly. As a result of continuing pressure from Stone and Canine for changes, hos-tility continued to build between AFSA and theCOMINT services.

Despite Stone and Canine’s efforts, byDecember 1951 management and control issuesremained unresolved. Critical to the successfulfunctioning of AFSA were centralized processing;better communications, including courier forward-ing of raw traffic as well as improvement of AFSA’sown communications capability; and AFSA’s con-trol and direction of the services.

In summary, while logic seemed to argue forphysical merger of the service COMINT activities,the actual establishment of the Armed ForcesSecurity Agency did not occur without major oppo-sition. Most authorities, both military and civilian,opposed its establishment.

With the exception of Defense SecretaryJohnson and the initial support of the Army, themajority of the military authorities stronglyopposed AFSA as conceptually unsound. The Navyand the Air Force felt that they would lose control oftheir resources as well as the ability to provide time-ly tactical support to their field commanders. Of thecivilian authorities, the representatives of theDepartment of State and the CIA proved to be even

more strident in their opposition to the establish-ment of AFSA. They viewed the AFSA concept asdetrimental to national intelligence interests, andrepresentative of still another effort by the militaryto control COMINT resources and intelligence pri-orities. From their perspective, the AFSA chartercompletely ignored the roles and authorities ofUSCIB as established by the NSC in July 1948.

Despite this opposition, Secretary Johnsonalmost singlehandedly accomplished the establish-ment of AFSA. Because of the new national interestin unification, as well as presidential support,Johnson pushed through the establishment of theArmed Forces Security Agency on 20 May 1949. Inthe process of establishing AFSA, Johnson over-rode the objections of USCIB, the Navy, and the AirForce. General Canine described the situation bestwhen he characterized the establishment of AFSA“as representing Johnson’s shotgun wedding of theArmy, Navy, and Air Force organizations.”63

The original charter, as issued by Johnson,would have permitted a more autonomous role forthe new agency. But an almost immediate modifi-cation of the AFSA charter by the JCS greatlydiminished the authority of AFSA and effectivelyruled out any real change of direction for theCOMINT structures. Because of the charter change,the Armed Forces Security Council, originallyenvisaged as an internal advisory mechanism forAFSA, became instead a military tribunal thatdirected the activities of AFSA – and left AFSA lit-tle authority of its own. The military authoritiessought to dominate and control all COMINT assetsand to prevent them from coming under the direc-tion of the CIA and the Department of State. Thisproved to be a tactic that they would later regret.

During its three years of existence, AFSA wascontinually confronted with unresolved operationaland jurisdictional problems, many of a criticalnature. But AFSA did succeed in accomplishing thephysical merger of the COMINT processing activi-ties of the Army and Navy organizations.Organizationally at least, AFSA must be viewed

as an important step, no matter how incomplete, in the movement toward the establishment of a national cryptologic effort. The AFSA concept and structure became another building block – and training ground – in the progression towardthe centralization of a United States COMINTauthority.

From its inception, AFSA faced pressures torestructure it, to weaken its authority, or to abolishit altogether. Almost immediately after AFSA wascreated, the Army proposed the creation of a newmilitary intelligence agency to be known as theConsolidated Special Information DisseminationOffice (CONSIDO). It would control U.S. COMINTrequirements and the dissemination of allCOMINT. The draft proposal provided for exclusivemilitary control over the U.S. COMINT effort. Itquickly drew bitter opposition from the civilianagencies: CIA, the State Department, and the FBI.No sooner had the CONSIDO proposal been reject-ed than the Korean War broke out and AFSA againfound itself in the middle of a major controversy.The war spotlighted AFSA activities and highlight-ed major weaknesses in the U.S. COMINT struc-ture. Even before the war ended. AFSA became thecenter of a high-level investigation to reevaluate therole and placement of the U.S. COMINT organiza-tion in the overall U.S. intelligence structure.

When AFSA was established in 1949, SecretaryJohnson considered a parallel Army proposal tocreate a Consolidated Special InformationDissemination Office. The Army’s plan, with sup-port from the Navy and Air Force, sought to bringall consumers together in a central evaluation unit.The new office would be under military control, andwould serve as an “intelligence” counterpart of theCOMINT structure. CONSIDO would be chargedwith the responsibility for performing the require-ments and dissemination functions related to theCOMINT process for the entire intelligence com-munity. Even more controversial than the originalplans for the establishment of AFSA itself, the pro-posal had far-reaching implications and led to anew struggle between the military and civilianmembers of USCIB over the control of basic intelli-gence functions and relationships.1

The proposal itself was not new. Near the end ofWorld War II, there had been extensive discussionsby the Army and the Navy concerning the conceptof a joint evaluation and dissemination center forCOMINT product. However, when the servicescould not reach agreement on a proposal to mergetheir cryptologic activities, the concept was aban-doned. The idea, however, remained alive withineach service. Many military officials continued tobelieve that there should be an integrated COMINTstructure charged with responsibility for perform-ing intelligence functions such as the evaluationand dissemination of COMINT product. Threemonths before the establishment of AFSA, WilliamF. Friedman, chief, Technical Division, played amajor role in regenerating the plan. Working inconjunction with the Intelligence Division,Department of the Army, Friedman reworked theproposal, which the Army forwarded to SecretaryJohnson a few days before the establishment ofAFSA.2

The plan recommended the establishment of anew consolidated intelligence agency that would becomposed of analysts from the various intelligenceagencies, and would operate under the aegis of amilitary organization – either the director, AFSA,or some other military organization. The chief,CONSIDO, would exercise total control over thedevelopment of COMINT requirements, as well asthe evaluation, publication, and dissemination ofall intelligence based upon COMINT raw material.The proposal envisioned the establishment of aCONSIDO office in Washington and the establish-ment of overseas branches.3

The stated fundamental objective of theCONSlDO consolidation plan was to improveDepartment of Defense intelligence and contributeto “efficiency and economy.” With the establish-ment of CONSIDO, the COMINT exploitation units

Chapter V

AFSA, the CONSIDO Plan, and the Korean War, 1949-1952

of all other departments were to be abolished.CONSIDO was to provide integrated intelligenceestimates on all available COMINT and was toreflect the joint view of all intelligence agencies.4

General Joseph T. McNarney, special assistant tothe secretary of defense, became an enthusiasticsupporter of the plan, believing it would result ingreat savings. He directed that the proposal be

coordinated with State, CIA, and the FBI in order tomake it as acceptable as possible to them.McNarney, however, showed little real considera-tion for the civilian views. He remarked that he was“sure that it had been made clear to these agenciespreviously that the consolidation was a Departmentof Defense matter and would take place regardlessof their opinions.”5

Secretary Johnson did not immediately endorsethe proposal, but instead referred it to the JCS forreview.6 During the next several months, variousredrafts emerged throughout the intelligence com-munity for establishing some form of “CONSIDO.”The main issues always focused on what organiza-tion would control the CONSIDO structure, and the

role of CIA, State, and the FBI in a CONSIDO-typeintelligence operation. Pentagon officials recom-mended that AFSAC, the same committee thatdirected the activities of AFSA, control CONSIDO.This, of course, would keep control of the organiza-tion in the hands of the military authorities. Thethree civilian elements adamantly opposed exclu-sive military control over CONSIDO or any organi-

zation that sought to administer the intelligencerequirements process for the total U.S. COMINTeffort and that sought to establish strictly militarycontrol over policies governing evaluation and dis-semination of COMINT information.

The debate finally reached the USCIB, whenColonel James R. Lovell of the Joint IntelligenceCommittee of the JCS presented the CONSIDOproposal on 2 December 1949.7 In the ensuing dis-cussions, the USCIB representatives generally reaf-firmed their organizational positions. State and CIAindicated they would not support the conceptunless they were made jointly responsible with theDepartment of Defense for running CONSIDO.Both the State Department and the CIA supported

WWiilllliiaamm FF.. FFrriieeddmmaann

the concept of a CONSIDO-type operation, but theyopposed the specific proposal because of its military orientation.8

W. Park Armstrong, speaking for State, insistedthat “the civilian agencies retain their position ofequality with regard to their authority and respon-sibilities in the COMINT field.”9 In a memorandumto the members of USCIB, Admiral Hillenkoetter,DCI, also stated his vehement objections to theCONSIDO proposal. He considered the plan to bein complete derogation of the COMINT roles of theDCI as assigned by the National Security Act of1947 and USCIB as established by NSCID No. 9. Heobjected to placing intelligence functions, such asevaluation, correlation, and dissemination of AFSAproduct, under exclusive military control. Statingthat intelligence requirements and priorities were aclear-cut legal responsibility of the CIA,Hillenkoetter further objected to the placement ofthese functions under the JCS. In short,Hillenkoetter stressed that many of the CONSIDOfunctions were national in nature and could notarbitrarily be assigned to a structure totally undermilitary control.10

Within the new AFSA structure itself existed awide divergence of opinion concerning CONSIDO.Many of the senior military officials felt that theCONSIDO proposal was conceptually sound.However, Admiral Stone, the director of AFSA,firmly opposed the CONSIDO concept. Because ofpossible infringements on AFSA’s mission andfunction, Stone argued against the establishment ofan additional agency outside the AFSA frameworkfor the production of communications intelligence.Stone took the position that approval of CONSIDOwould require a simultaneous revision of AFSA’scharter. He stressed that AFSA must be responsiveto the needs of the State Department and CIA aswell as those of the military.11

Because of the objections raised by State andCIA (AFSA was not a voting member of USCIB),USCIB referred the issue to an ad hoc committeeunder the chairmanship of T. Achilles Polyzoides of

the Department of State.12 The committee contin-ued to struggle for several more months to developa compromise solution. Although all members ofUSCIB agreed that the six agencies represented onUSCIB might integrate COMINT exploitation activ-ities, they could not agree upon the best form oforganization for that purpose. Two quite differentproposals finally emerged from the ad hoc commit-tee. One would establish a CONSIDO under thecontrol of USCIB; the other would establish a CON-SIDO under the control of the military.13

The end of the CONSIDO discussions took placeat the fifty-third meeting of USCIB on 14 July 1960.Under USCIB rules, a unanimous vote was requiredon all USCIB decisions. Since the members weresharply divided on the subordination of CONSIDO,“all the members agreed that CONSIDO should beremoved from the agenda, subject to a possiblerestoration at a later date.”14 This action markedthe conclusion of formal discussions over CONSI-DO. It never reappeared on the USCIB agenda.

Although CONSIDO was dead, it left permanentscars within the intelligence community. It clearlyillustrated the difference of opinion between thecivilian agencies and the military establishmentabout the control of United States intelligenceresources.15 The distinction between “military” and“national” interests began to receive greater atten-tion. The CONSIDO concept soon became the sym-bol of a new battle to acquire control over the entireintelligence process.

As AFSA struggled to establish itself, the NorthKoreans launched an attack against South Korea on25 June 1960. AFSA and the rest of the U.S. intelli-gence community were caught unprepared. TheCOMINT requirement in force in June 1950 (issuedby the Intelligence Committee of USCIB) stressedprimarily the need for information concerning thecapabilities and intentions of the Soviet Union andCommunist China. South Korea was considered tobe outside the defensive perimeter of the UnitedStates. The list of countries and subjects “consid-ered to be of greatest concern to U.S. policy or secu-

rity” included no reference to Korea. Korea wasincluded in the list of secondary requirements. Thiscategory was identified as being of “high importance” and as one that required “expeditious”handling to the extent possible. Korea was includedas Item 15 in a list of 16 items. Item 15 read: “North Korean-Chinese Communist Relations,”and “North Korean-South Korean Relations,including activities of armed units in borderarea.”16 This low priority statement of interestclearly did not reflect any great consumer interest –nor was it sufficient to justify broad COMINT coverage of North Korean communications prior tothe invasion of South Korea.

Because of the absence of consumer intelligencerequirements on Korea, AFSA had established noCOMINT effort of any kind on North Korean com-munications.17 There was no effort on the NorthKorean problem even on a “caretaker” basis. At thetime of the invasion, the only intercept available toAFSA was a limited amount of unidentified traffic.The communications of North Korea first becameknown to AFSA in 1950 during the course of rou-tine intercept searches for Soviet links. The UnitedStates initially intercepted North Korean communi-cations in May 1949 when a search position at anArmy installation intercepted an unidentified radionet using Soviet communications procedures. On21 April 1950, at the request of Army G-2, AFSAassigned an intercept position to the specific mis-sion of searching for and developing informationon North Korean communications.18 As a result ofthese searches, 220 cipher messages wereobtained.19 For the purpose of identification, thistraffic had passed back and forth between the groupof AFSA analysts working the Soviet and otherproblems. By the end of April, the Soviet analystshad concluded that the messages were “probablyNorth Korean,” but the two analytic groups couldreach no agreement. It was not until after the warhad started that the traffic was firmly identified asNorth Korean.20

The outbreak of the war severely strained thelimited COMINT resources available to the United

States and required considerable diversion ofresources and tasking. Not only was the collectionand reporting posture on Korean targets very weakin June 1950 but this situation extended to all sup-porting backup areas as well. There were no trafficanalysts working on North Korean communica-tions, no Korean linguists, no dictionaries of theKorean language, no books on the Korean language, no Korean typewriters – and an almost total absence of knowledge of NorthKorean terminology .21

After the initial attack, AFSA made immediateand drastic adjustments in its COMINT posture,focusing on the now urgent North Korean tasks.Two weeks after the invasion, the intercept cover-age of North Korean communications had beenincreased.22 Drastic changes in other intercept cov-erage also took place. For example, COMINT pro-cessing activities both in the United States andoverseas established twenty-four-hour operations.At the same time, however, there was no compen-sating reduction in the priorities of other USCIBrequirements.23 As a result, AFSA continued itsintercept and reporting of other targets. This cover-age included priority reporting on the Soviet Union.The increasing number of priority targets and thelimited intercept capabilities presented AFSA withserious problems in allocating its resources forintercept and processing activities. Lacking anyunified direction from the consumers, AFSA gener-ally became the tiebreaker in making decisions onconflicting priorities. In other cases it simplydeferred to the decision of the military servicesbased upon their intercept capability.24

Ironically, the outbreak of the Korean Warproved to be beneficial to AFSA in one respect. Bybringing national-level attention to the AFSAplight, the war helped to break the budgetary strait-jacket that had hampered AFSA. In addition, thepossibility that the war might expand to a globalconflict led the levying of a multitude of newrequirements on AFSA, mainly for intelligenceinformation about the USSR, China, and NorthKorea. It quickly became evident that the struggling

AFSA needed additional resources. This led toincreases in AFSA’s authorizations for manpowerand facilities, as well as an expansion of theresources for entire U.S. COMINT effort.25

The Korean War brought into focus anotherproblem for AFSA that would require more than asimple expenditure of resources to fix. It was orga-nizational and related to AFSA’s position in theCOMINT structure and its authority to direct theactivities of the military services. With the KoreanWar, AFSA sought to establish itself as the centralU.S. authority for COMINT matters. Unfortunately,the conflict between AFSA and the services couldnot be resolved and greatly impeded AFSA’s effortsto fulfill its overall intelligence role. The difficultiesstemmed from the inherent weakness of AFSA’scharter with its ambivalence about the roles andauthorities or the principal participants in theCOMINT process.

When Secretary Johnson established AFSA, hedesignated the new agency as the central defenseauthority for the communications intelligenceactivities of the United States, but with one signifi-cant exception. The charter excluded from AFSA’scontrol those COMINT facilities and activities thatserved in direct support of the field commandersfor the purpose of providing tactical intelligence.26

The control and direction of these latter activitiesremained the responsibility of the military depart-ments. This exclusion clause proved to be highlydivisive. It resulted in a continuing and frequentlybitter feud between AFSA and the services over whowas actually in charge of COMINT. The Army andAir Force, in particular, took advantage of theclause and came into frequent conflict with AFSAover jurisdictional issues. The conflict usuallyinvolved tasking matters – questions primarilyrelated to the exercise of operational and technicalcontrol over the military field installations. As apractical matter, during the Korean War the Armyand Air Force directed their major emphasistoward the development of their own field collec-tion and processing activities, primarily to meet theintelligence needs of their field commanders. In the

judgment of the military COMINT services, theywere tasked primarily by military authorities for theintercept of military counterpart traffic at the tacti-cal level. Secondarily, they were tasked by AFSA tointercept other targets of interest to the rest of theintelligence community. This latter categoryincluded the intercept of targets identified as beingof joint interest, such as civil links. This division ofeffort resulted in the issuance of separate and inde-pendent tasking from both the military intelligenceofficials and AFSA.27 The unfortunate split in theexercise of control over the COMINT effort consti-tuted a direct challenge to AFSA’s dominant role inU.S. COMINT.

Admiral Stone, alarmed by the continuing feud,sought to clarify and resolve the conflict. IssuingAFSAC 60/26 on 13 September 1950, Stone pro-posed a more precise definition of the division ofresponsibility between AFSA and the services, aswell as a greater role for AFSA in the tasking of fieldsites. Stone did not question the need for the serv-ices to conduct field processing activities in supportof the field commanders, but he maintained thatAFSA should be the primary organization to pro-vide the centralized operational direction of fieldprocessing efforts. He proposed specific proceduresfor accomplishing a division of responsibilitybetween AFSA and the services.28

In AFSAC 60/26, Stone stated plainly what heconsidered to be AFSA’s role as the centralizedCOMINT authority in guiding the overall directionof the entire U.S. COMINT effort including thosefield operations that were delegated to the militarydepartments for direct support purposes.29 Stone’sproposal, at least in the view of the Army and AirForce, was totally unacceptable. It reopened all theearlier arguments over the validity and fundamen-tal purpose of the AFSA concept. The Army’s offi-cial response, to Stone’s amazement, totally reject-ed the idea of AFSA’s exercising any operationaldirection and control over the Army’s field process-ing effort. Stone noted on his copy of the Army’sresponse that it was the most extraordinary exam-ple of a complete reversal of position that he had

ever seen. In essence, the Army now claimed thatAFSA did not have the responsibility for providingthe Army’s field commanders with combatCOMINT. The Army maintained that it wouldreserve to itself the right of conducting all of itsintelligence operations as it deemed necessary ordesirable.31 Similarly, the Air Force, stressing theneed for having its own independent processingcapability, rejected AFSAC 60/26, and insisted oncontrolling Air Force operations for the productionof combat air intelligence.31

In a reversal of its earlier position, the Navybecame the only service to support Stone’s paper.32

This switch was due in large part to Captain JosephN. Wenger, USN, and his perception of the AFSArole. Wenger’s participation in joint Army and Navydiscussions extended from the late 1930s to theearly 1950s. During the Stone Board deliberations,he provided staff support to the Navy member andwas an articulate spokesman against the AFSA con-cept. Despite his personal feelings about the wis-dom of the merger, Wenger, as a deputy director ofthe new AFSA, played a key role in implementingthe merger actions. Motivated mainly by the reali-ties of the situation, however, Wenger came to rec-ognize that even greater centralization actionswould be necessary in the future. He became a sup-porter of the AFSA concept and personally draftedthe paper (AFSAC 60/26) that laid out a strong rolefor AFSA in directing the COMINT effort.33 Thisnow became the Navy position.

In assessing the Army’s strong disagreementwith AFSAC 60/26, Wenger remarked about theironies of the situation. He recalled that the Armyhad been the main proponent for the establishmentof AFSA, whereas the Navy had opposed it, prima-rily for operational reasons. According to Wenger,the new Army position was completely counter towhat was understood to have been the aim of AFSAand to what experience had shown to be the techni-cal realities of COMINT operations. He also saw areal threat to the continued existence of AFSA if theNavy came to support the Army and Air Force posi-tion over control of field resources. If this hap-

pened, Wenger speculated that the services wouldacquire complete independence in large sections ofthe COMINT problem, thereby depriving AFSA ofits primary reason for existence as a military agency– the centralization and coordination of U.S.COMINT.34 He recognized that the Army and AirForce dissents simply represented a reopening ofthe earlier controversy over the issues of centraliza-tion, but with one radical difference. The Army andthe Navy, who had been the principal players dur-ing the Stone Board deliberations, were no longerspeaking from positions of great operationalstrength. Each had lost its primary COMINT pro-cessing center to AFSA.

According to Wenger, when AFSA absorbed theCOMINT processing activities of the Army andNavy, both services lost highly skilled organizationsthat had taken years to develop and would requiremany years to replace. Each organization hadturned over a major portion of its COMINT-trainedmanpower, its COMINT machinery, and itsCOMINT facilities to AFSA in an effort to make thatorganization work. The Air Force, however, had lostnothing, as it possessed no major resources of itsown at the time. In the Navy view, the magnitude ofloss for the Army and Navy revolved around theparticular needs of each for the production of com-bat intelligence – which the Navy believed differedgreatly for each service. During the Stone Boarddiscussions, the Navy repeatedly stressed thisaspect. It asserted that much of the Army’s combatintelligence program was targeted against low-level systems, which were exploitable in the field atthe tactical level. In contrast, Wenger and othernaval officials always maintained that the entirenaval problem could be handled properly only in afull-scale technical center, as its complexityrequired exploitation at the highest analyticallevel.35 Based on this rationale, the Navy consis-tently maintained that it had suffered a greater lossthan the Army when AFSA absorbed the two pro-cessing centers in 1949.

Navy authorities now perceived AFSA to be apermanent organization and that the Army and

Navy must rely on it for COMINT support. Whilethe Navy authorities had earlier opposed the cre-ation of AFSA, they now felt that it was too late tothink in terms of restructuring or abolishing it, par-ticularly during an ongoing war. Consequently,Navy officials, led by Stone and Wenger, supportedAFSA and helped it to expand its technicalresources and capabilities, including its profession-al talent and complex machine equipment. Theybelieved that such an expansion of AFSA’s technicalcapabilities would help AFSA meet the future intel-ligence needs of the three services as well as thoseof the other members of the intelligence communi-ty.36 In taking this position, Navy authorities madeit clear that they would oppose any effort by theArmy and Air Force to undo the AFSA merger.

With only the support of his own service, how-ever, Stone made little progress in his efforts tostrengthen the concept of a centralized COMINTauthority. Discouraged, Stone finally agreed todefer any further consideration of AFSAC 60/26 bythe members of the Armed Forces Security AgencyCouncil. Recognizing that he would not win supportin the JCS for AFSA control of field relationships,Stone also chose not to submit AFSAC 60/26 to theJCS for decision. Instead he modified his initialbroad approach and narrowed his argument to asingle issue – Air Force processing of COMINT inthe United States.37

In a memorandum to the JCS (AFSAC 60/42)of 24 November 1950, Stone took on a head-onchallenge from the AFSS concerning the role andauthorities of AFSA. AFSS insisted on establishingits own centralized processing activity at Brooks AirForce Base, Texas. Stone asserted that this plan wasin direct conflict with the AFSA charter.38Althoughthe JCS never took official action, the AFSScanceled its plan to develop Brooks as a centralized processing center. The Air Force, how-ever, soon announced new plans (AFSAC 60/49) toestablish additional major processing centers.39

This action strongly reinforced the concept that theservices were in charge of conducting tactical fieldoperations.

With this sequence of actions involving AFSAC60/26 and AFSAC 60/49, the Army and the AirForce prevailed over AFSA in their insistence thatthe services, not AFSA, should maintain the domi-nant role in controlling the activities of their fieldresources. The distance from Washington, as wellas the need for timeliness in reporting the intelli-gence information, contributed to this victory.Moreover, this was an era when service collectorswere tasked primarily with the intercept of thecommunications of their foreign counterpart serv-ice, and secondarily with the intercept of joint tar-gets (e.g., civil). Thus, for a combination of reasons,the military commanders in Korea would rely pri-marily on their respective military services for tac-tical intelligence rather than on AFSA. While AFSAofficials continued to believe that AFSA shouldexercise operational and technical control over allCOMINT activities, they did not have sufficientpower and authority to impose their will on militaryCOMINT services.

As the Korean War continued, both the Armyand the Air Force organizations expanded theirfield intercept capability and established their ownfield processing activities. Despite the continuingcontroversy, the operational elements of AFSA andthe military services worked together in great har-mony. In their day-to-day coordination on opera-tional matters, they demonstrated a strong spirit ofmutual cooperation and assistance. They freelyexchanged information and technical details relat-ed to the collection and analytic processes, includ-ing such items as translations, cryptanalytic recov-eries, and intercept data. There were also personnelexchanges between AFSA and the services over abroad range of operational functions. For example,AFSA sponsored continuing programs for AFSApersonnel to perform temporary duty assignmentsin the field in order to assist the services – and formilitary personnel to participate in orientation andtraining programs at AFSA prior to their assign-ment to the field. By the time the war ended, thesefield programs became major focal points forCOMINT reporting and provided unique intelli-gence contributions to the field commanders.

From the beginning of the war, it was evidentthat U.S. combat forces in Korea would rely on theindividual service processing units in the Far Eastfor tactical COMINT support. Starting with onlyone intercept station, the Army COMINT organiza-tion ultimately acquired the largest contingent offield units in support of U.S. operations in Korea.The Army set up its field headquarters, the ArmySecurity Agency, Pacific (ASAPAC). ASAPAC alsoserved as a major processing center in the theater,directing Army fixed intercept sites located inHawaii and Korea. In addition, ASAPAC estab-lished a number of advance detachments in Korea.By 1951 the 501st Communications ReconnaissanceGroup headed all Army COMINT units inKorea. Subordinate units were designatedCommunications Reconnaissance Battalions orCompanies (CRB, CRC). ASAPAC exercised overallcontrol of Army COMINT operations in Korea,including South Korean detachment.

At the outbreak of war, there was only one AirForce unit in the Far East, with scattered detach-ments. After the North Korean attack, the Air Forceestablished a detachment in Korea for intercept andreporting and for direction of a South Korean unit.In 1951 the Air Force began to deploy smaller teamsto Korea for the production of tactical COMINT forthe 5th Air Force. Eventually, the Air Force estab-lished an area headquarters which graduallyassumed responsibility from ASAPAC for the inter-cept and processing of the ground communicationsof the North Korean Air Force.

The reliance on counterpart coverage, coupledwith the small number of North Korean or Chinesenaval forces involved in the war, precluded anymajor role for U.S. naval COMINT units. In thecourse of the war, however, a Navy radio facility didprovide important assistance to the overall Far EastCOMINT effort. Detachments afloat also con-tributed unique intercept of Soviet nets andChinese activities.

At the Washington level, AFSA also attemptedto improve its relations with consumers. Stone, in

his role as AFSA director and executive agent ofUSCIB in COMINT matters, attempted to keep theconsumer community current on all AFSA actions.He not only encouraged the establishment of con-sumer liaison offices at Arlington Hall but also pro-moted an expansion of the direct dialogue betweenintelligence analysts and COMINT producers.Traditionally, the two performed their tasks withlittle interaction. This new dialogue took place in anera when the COMINT community was particularlysensitive to the release of “technical” information or“tech data” to consumers. The term “tech data” gen-erally referred to the operational details of theintercept, analysis, and translation process. Itincluded specifics related to collection sources, call-signs, identification of communications links, iden-tification of cryptographic systems, and otherdetails of the analytic process.39 The issue over pro-viding technical data to the consumers was neverresolved. It continued to be a source of conflictbetween COMINT producers and consumers. Manyconsumers, especially CIA, demanded the data. Theproducers opposed providing it.

Initially, Stone’s push for a freer interchangebetween producers and consumers caused consid-erable opposition within the COMINT family itself.Many AFSA personnel viewed the move towardcloser dialogue as blurring the distinction that tra-ditionally existed between the roles of the COMINTanalyst and the intelligence analyst. The COMINTanalyst was to provide only raw data. The intelli-gence analyst produced finished intelligence.Because of the war and its pressing priorities, how-ever, such distinctions soon dissipated.40

Despite such problems, there existed majorareas of cooperation among the intelligence pro-ducing agencies in Washington. Long before theestablishment of AFSA, the Army G-2 and theOffice of Naval Intelligence established collocatedoffices with their service counterparts at ArlingtonHall Station and the CommunicationsSupplementary Activity, Washington. Within eachservice, the consumer and producer elementsdeveloped harmonious working relationships and

operated with a minimum of correspondence orformality. These consumer contacts extended notonly to the COMINT processing elements but to thepolicy-making officers or the COMINT organiza-tions as well.41

When AFSA was established, many of the Armyand the Navy COMINT officials simply moved overto new positions of authority corresponding to theirprevious roles in their old agencies. In this manner,the liaison arrangements between the military pro-ducers and consumers operated smoothly duringthe transition period.

This liaison arrangement worked particularlywell for the Army’s Special Research Branch (SRB)during the Korean War. One of the most active con-sumers was G-2. Early in the war, SRB collocatedpersonnel in AFSA’s North Korean section, wherethey worked closely with the AFSA COMINT ana-lysts in almost all phases of the exploitationprocess. Since the SRB representatives scanned alltranslations and traffic analysis reports prior topublication, they were able to develop a unique per-spective of COMINT operations. In addition to thisdirect participation in COMINT activities, SRBserved as a general channel for the dissemination ofCOMINT from AFSA to the Far East commands.42

In contrast to the long-standing workingarrangements of the Army and Navy consumerswith their military COMINT counterparts, the AirForce started from scratch. When the Air Forcebecame a separate service in 1947, the Army continued to provide intelligence support to thenew service on an interim basis. Within a year, theAir Force activated the AFSS, its own COMINT processing organization that began operations at Arlington Hall Station on 1 February 1949 and relocated to Brooks Air Force Base in Texas in May 1949.43

Responding to the demand for more timelyCOMINT product, the Air Force relocated a part ofits Office of Intelligence (AFOIN-C/R), underColonel Horace D. Neely, to Arlington Hall in 1950.

The purpose of the move was to enable Air Forceintelligence analysts to work more closely withAFSA, as well as with the Army (Special ResearchBranch) and Navy (OP-922YI) intelligence organi-zations. The operations of the new AFOIN-C/Rsoon paralleled that of other consumers, with itsintelligence analysts consulting freely with process-ing personnel in AFSA’s working areas.44

In time, however, the AFSS assumed adminis-trative control of all Air Force COMINT activities inthe Washington area. By February 1952 all of theAir Force units were combined into theWashington, D.C., Control-Collection Office(WDC/CCO) of AFSS headed by Colonel James L.Weeks. This organization represented the Air Forcein a dual capacity, both as a producer and user ofCOMINT. As a COMINT producer, it worked withAFSA’s Office of Operations in the development ofintercept assignments and served in a general liai-son capacity as AFSA’s point of contact with theAFOIN-C/R and the AFSS. As a consumer, it pro-duced finished intelligence and represented the AirForce on USCIB and AFSA boards and committees.By 1952 the Air Force was the largest consumer del-egation resident at AFSA, with well over 100 peopleassigned to its control-collection office.45

Although the Department of State’s activeinvolvement in postwar COMINT dated back atleast to 1945, when it joined with the Army andNavy organizations to form STANCIB, the estab-lishment of a full-time State liaison officer atArlington Hall did not come about until the KoreanWar.46 It grew out of discussions of the USCIB on14 July 1950 concerning mobilization and later dis-cussions on the subject between Rear AdmiralStone and W. Park Armstrong, the StateDepartment’s representative on USCIB. WhenArmstrong suggested State’s willingness to providedirect financial support to AFSA for increasingCOMINT output, Admiral Stone countered by sug-gesting that the establishment of a StateDepartment liaison group in AFSA might be moreuseful, Stone felt that State could assure fulfillmentof its intelligence requirements by an “on-the-spot

audit of the COMINT production program,” andcould also handle such working problems as determination of priorities and transmission of collateral.47

Armstrong accepted Stone’s offer, but the StateDepartment took no official action until a year later.On 15 July 1951, the department established a liaison unit at Arlington Hall consisting of John Crimmins and three assistants. The unit had no specific title at first, but was later designated the “Field Branch, Special Project Staff.”The new Field Branch followed the pattern of oper-ation of other liaison offices, but on a much smallerscale. It worked directly with AFSA 02, advising itof State Department COMINT requirements. It alsoworked directly with the analytic and collection elements of the AFSA Office of Operations in order to provide more detailed information aboutthe requirements transmitted through the USCIBcommittee structure.48

AFSA’s relationship with CIA underwent agreater change than with any other consumergroup. Although initially uncertain of its charterand authorities, the new CIA gradually began toseek greater participation in COMINT activities. Inresponse to a request from DCI AdmiralHillenkoetter, in 1948 USCIB authorized CIA directaccess to COMINT activities. USCIB also author-ized, under certain circumstances, the direct partic-ipation by consumers in actual COMINT produc-tion activities. It represented a major change in theconsumer-producer relationship.49

Shortly after the physical merger of Army andNavy COMINT processing activities in 1949, CIA,with the concurrence of Admiral Stone, moved intoits first official liaison office at Arlington Hall.Starting in late 1949, John S. Ward served part-time as the first CIA liaison officer. During this peri-od, the main CIA interest was Soviet plain text.Based upon the earlier USCIB decision, CIAarranged with AFSA for the assignment of someCIA personnel to the Russian Language Branch(AFSA 246) where they were integrated within the

AFSA structure. With the support and guidance ofAFSA personnel, CIA carried on its own research inthe plain text unit. In addition, CIA assigned a limited number of personnel to work in the collateral and COMINT files of the Central RecordsOffice (AFSA 25).50 With the onset of the KoreanWar, CIA merely expanded its cooperative effortwith AFSA.

By 1951 the entire consumer community hadliaison offices at Arlington Hall. Because of theirwell-established relationships with their militarycounterparts in COMINT, however, and because ofAFSA’s military orientation, the Army and the Navyrepresentatives enjoyed a greater access to AFSA’soperational offices than those from the Departmentof State and the CIA. AFSA, as a predominantly military organization, tended to be more responsiveto the military when determining intercept priorities. Nevertheless, the representatives of thecivilian agencies welcomed the establishment of abeachhead at Arlington Hall and the opportunityfor direct and continuing dialogue between the producers and consumers on intelligence matters.While these measures contributed to a less confrontational attitude within the intelligencecommunity, representatives of the civilian agenciesstill felt uncomfortable with the basic design of theU.S. COMINT structure and their lack of influencewith AFSA. It was a continuation of the strongobjections expressed by officials of the StateDepartment and CIA when AFSA was first estab-lished as an autonomous intelligence arm of theDepartment of Defense.51

Despite problems, AFSA did succeed in makingsignificant changes in its relationships with theconsumers. Stone designed a new “open-door” pol-icy for COMINT relationships with consumers,both military and civilian. He encouraged and facil-itated the establishment of consumer offices atArlington Hall in an effort to improve the dialoguebetween the producers and consumers. Bothseemed to benefit. The consumers, by virtue of theirphysical presence at the COMINT center and bytheir participation in AFSA’s priority mechanism,

saw at first hand the inner workings of the AFSAstructure – as well as the major problems con-fronting AFSA. In addition, the consumers began todisplay a greater appreciation of COMINT as aunique and valuable source of intelligence informa-tion. Although the concept of exercising “oversight”over the COMINT structure had not yet material-ized, the intelligence community began to move inthe direction of discussing more critically and moreopenly the quality, the utility, and the timeliness ofCOMINT reporting. Joint community actions anddiscussions of an evaluative nature now occurredmore frequently. For example, the USCIBIntelligence Committee began publishing a month-ly report listing the total number of COMINT mes-sages published. It was broken down by countryand series and indicated whether the messageswere plain text or encrypted. The report alsoshowed the statistical improvements in volumeover the previous month. Despite the improvingrelationships, AFSA made no real progress inresolving the serious management and operationalproblems affecting its relationships with the mili-tary COMINT services by the summer of 1951.

The basic question of operational control ofservice intercept facilities remained unresolved.Stone, the first director of AFSA, in fact controlledfewer intercept positions than his predecessor, theCoordinator of Joint Operations under the earlierJoint Army-Navy Operating Plan. Under the JointOperating Plan, the CJO had direct access to jointintercept positions and a restricted access to allother intercept positions. But Stone, as AFSA direc-tor, did not have this same access. As noted earlier,a large number of the intercept facilities, namelythe mobile collection sites, were removed totallyfrom the control of AFSA. These sites were underthe exclusive operational control of the services.Even in exercising AFSA’s authorized control overthe fixed intercept sites, Stone had to operate undera rigid set of arrangements and rules prescribed byeach service.52 The system was not designed toenhance timely reporting of COMINT information.

Another nagging problem for AFSA was theextent to which the services conducted their ownautonomous processing activities in the field. WhileAFSA’s protestations over the control of the fieldprocessing centers had abated somewhat with theKorean War, the problem remained. The servicescontinued to dilute AFSA’s role as a central author-ity. In particular, problems with the Air Forceintensified as the AFSS persisted in its efforts toacquire primary control over the total air problem.Even more damaging to U.S. COMINT than thefriction generated by this issue was the broaderquestion of duplication and waste of resources bothin the field and stateside processing centers.

For example, in early 1951 ASAPAC and AFSSboth covered Chinese Communist and Soviet tar-gets. Major General Charles A. Willoughby, G-2 ofthe General Headquarters, Far East Command(FECOM) requested that a high-level AFSA teamvisit the theater to assist G-2, FECOM, andASAPAC in a consultative capacity. On 12 March1961, Stone sent two of his senior officials to the FarEast Command to brief Willoughby and review thefield operational problems. Benson K. Buffham,assistant chief, General Processing Division, andHerbert L. Conley, a senior manager and collectionspecialist, went to Korea. In their final report of 2April 1951, Buffham and Conley cited the duplica-tive efforts of AFSA, ASAPAC, and the AFSS on theNorth Korean problem. Among their recommenda-tions they proposed that ASAPAC and AFSS divideand coordinate their efforts, particularly on certain

BBeennssoonn KK.. BBuuffffhhaamm HHeerrbbeerrtt LL..CCoonnlleeyy

Soviet and Chinese Communist problems. Despitethe urgency of their recommendations, duplicationcontinued until March 1952, when the AFSSassumed total responsibility for the ChineseCommunist and Soviet problems.53

During 1951 AFSA confronted a number ofoperational problems as well. U.S. COMINT contri-butions to the war effort were far below the achieve-ments of COMINT during World War II.54

Suffering from a shortage of intercept facilities,short tours of duty by military personnel, and diffi-culty obtaining linguists, AFSA could not fullyexploit COMINT possibilities during the war.55

Moreover, by the fall of 1951, the North Koreansintroduced new and more sophisticated crypto-graphic systems.

As the war dragged on, AFSA concentrated itsefforts at increasing the flow of tactical COMINTfrom the services to the field commanders. The realCOMINT success story of the Korean War proved tobe in the area of tactical support. Because of thenature of the land war, coupled with the assignmentof counterpart coverage to each service, the Armyand Air Force controlled, almost totally, the inter-cept coverage and reporting on the Korean andChinese targets. In providing direct support to theEighth Army and the UN Forces, the Army and AirForce are generally acknowledged as having madethe principal military contributions to the COMINTeffort in Korea. An unpublished NSA review ofCOMINT in the Korean War written in 1953emphasized this point:

Perhaps the most interesting develop-

ment of COMINT in a tactical support role

was the sucessful expansion and utiliza-

tion of low-level voice intercept. In August

1961, the effort was of the most rudimen-

tary nature–but the nature of the intelli-

gence provided was of such immediate

tactical value to the corps, division and

regiment commanders that those com-

manders clamored for additional sup-

port. By the end of October 1951, seven

low-level voice teams had been formed in

support of the U.S. I and IX Corps. By

June 1952, there were ten teams in action

along the Eighth Army front.

These teams were able to advise frontline

unit commanders of imminent enemy

artillery or infantry action and their

advance warnings through the balance of

the war were instrumental in the success

of UN counter actions and the saving of

many UN lives.56

The results of the COMINT successes in theexploitation of Korean and Chinese military and airforce communications, to most intelligence con-sumers, still looked extremely thin. Many officialsin the U.S. intelligence community, aware of theimpressive contributions made by COMINT inWorld War II, complained about AFSA.

While the military services were, in general, sat-isfied with AFSA’s attention to their intelligencerequirements, State Department and CIA officialswere not. They felt that their intelligence require-ments were not being met. They complained abouttheir lack of input in establishing intelligencerequirements and AFSA’s lack of authority in trans-lating these priorities to the collectors. AFSA offi-cials made vague attempts to pacify the civiliancomplaints stating that “we will take care of it,” that“of course, this is of interest to all of us,” and “youcan be sure that you will get your share.” But thisdid not satisfy the State Department nor the CIA. Intruth, the civilian agencies were correct. There wasno existing mechanism whereby the rapidly grow-ing CIA could express its needs for information tothe cryptologic community. Similarly, for the StateDepartment, there existed no regularized channelsit could use with any degree of assurance needswould even be considered by AFSA.57

By 1951 the flaws of the AFSA experiment wereclear. The division of responsibility between AFSAand the services prevented AFSA from undertakingany serious new initiatives to improve the total U.S.

COMINT product. As a direct corollary of this,Stone’s lack of authority over the services greatlydiminished the quality and timeliness of COMINTreporting and resulted in duplication of COMINTcoverage. Fractionalization prevented AFSA fromoperating as a centralized COMINT organization.

Because AFSAC invariably supported the serv-ice viewpoints rather than AFSA’s on the issue ofAFSA’s authority, AFSAC was of no assistance toAFSA in resolving the serious jurisdictional dis-putes. The last avenue of appeal was to USCIB.However, USCIB was little more than a coordinat-ing body with no real authority over the AFSAstructure itself or its organizational role. AlthoughUSCIB had a vital interest in the intelligence pro-duced by the military components, it could notresolve the jurisdictional issues between AFSA andthe services.58

In summary, AFSA received persistent criticismfrom the time of its creation. The U.S. Army’s CON-SIDO proposal was an attempt by the U.S. militaryto establish a separate COMINT intelligence agencyparallel to AFSA that would maintain strict militarycontrol over most U.S. COMINT sources. It metwith bitter opposition from the civilian intelligenceagencies such as CIA and the Department of State.Although the proposal was defeated, the delibera-tions concerning CONSlDO reinforced the general-ly hostile climate existing in intelligence matters,and the continuing concerns of CIA and State thattheir intelligence needs were not being met.

The Korean War proved to be a major turningpoint in the history of the U.S. COMINT structure.At the outbreak of the war, glaring weaknessesappeared in the AFSA structure. There were majorproblems with resources, intercept and reportingcapabilities, and the cryptanalytic attack itself.Most importantly, the war illustrated AFSA’sinability control the COMINT organizations of theservices and its inability to control and direct U.S.COMINT resources in an efficient, effective man-ner. Despite AFSA’s attempts at increased coordi-nation and some success with the exploitation of

low-level technical communications, U.S. policymakers came to see AFSA as a basic failure. It didnot or could not duplicate the COMINT successes ofWorld War II. It thus became the centerpiece in ahigh-level investigation to reform and redirect theentire U.S. COMINT structure.

On 24 October 1952, President Truman issuedan extraordinary directive that changed the organi-zation and direction of the U.S. communicationsintelligence structure and laid the policy frameworkfor the modern system. Truman stated that thecommunications intelligence function was anational responsibility rather than one of purelymilitary orientation. This triggered actions thatreorganized the U.S. military COMINT effort andstrengthened the COMINT roles of the USCIB andthe NSC and brought a wider role for the civilianagencies in U.S. COMINT operations. The presi-dent’s memorandum also contained the first refer-ence to a “National Security Agency,” to be estab-lished in place of the Armed Forces SecurityAgency. Under Truman’s directive, the Departmentof Defense became the executive agent of the gov-ernment for the production of communicationsintelligence information, thereby removing the JCSas the controlling authority for the COMINTprocess.

Truman’s directive stemmed from the recom-mendations of a presidential commission known asthe Brownell Committee. Truman established thecommittee to conduct an investigation of the effi-ciency and organization of the entire U.S. commu-nications intelligence effort. By December 1951AFSA’s disappointing wartime performance hadbeen brought to the attention of the White House,and Truman responded by calling for a completereview of the COMINT structure. Setting up a most-ly civilian committee, however, caused great alarmwithin the military, particularly in the JCS. InFebruary 1952 the JCS complained that it had nopart in the deliberations leading to the committee’sestablishment and that the U.S. military had beenexcluded from membership on the committee andits support staff.

The final Brownell Report emphasized the needfor the establishment of one organization to man-age the communications intelligence activities ofthe government. The report provided a strongindictment of service unification as it existed underAFSA as well as an indictment of the managementand policy echelons existing above AFSA. Thereport recommended a complete reorganization ofthe U.S. COMINT effort, and provided a blueprintfor the new structure. As its main theme, theBrownell Committee pressed for the elevation ofthe COMINT structure to a new status, requiringnational-level attention and interest. It also spokeout against the almost total autonomy of the mili-tary in COMINT matters. This chapter details thehistory of the creation of the Brownell Committee,its report to the president, and subsequent acts thathad a major impact on the U.S. intelligence com-munity and led to the creation of the NationalSecurity Agency.

By 1951 the CIA and the Department of Staterepresentatives of USCIB felt vindicated in theiroriginal opposition to the establishment of AFSA.The problems associated with the operations ofAFSA had grown considerably and now extended toa broad range of intelligence community relation-ships. Organizationally, the fundamental issue overthe division of responsibility between AFSA and themilitary COMINT services appeared to be no closerto a solution. The Korean War evoked new criti-cisms of the AFSA structure. A spirit of disunity andturmoil characterized the activities of the entireintelligence community.

The major players of the intelligence communi-ty were locked in a struggle over “who was incharge” and over the acquisition of expandedresponsibilities and authorities. The military andcivilian agencies continued to argue over basic

Chapter VI

The Brownell Committee and the Establishment of NSA, 4 November 1952

jurisdictional and organizational relationships.These disputes greatly complicated the entire intel-ligence picture. The new CIA, seeking to expand itsrole, pushed for greater authority in the total intel-ligence process. While the Department of State haddifferent intelligence interests than CIA, it general-ly aligned itself with CIA on most issues during theUSCIB meetings and in the protests over the lack ofcivilian/military equality in the COMINT field.1

In particular, the vigorous and heated discus-sions over the establishment of AFSA, and laterover the JCS proposal to establish a new militaryintelligence agency, CONSIDO, constituted head-on challenges, not only to the role of CIA in theintelligence field, but to the authority of theNational Security Council as well. Although theCONSIDO proposal was dropped, CIA and Stateviewed it as an attempt to acquire a dominant andproprietary role for the military in such intelligencefunctions as estimates, evaluations, and disseminaction of intelligence.2 CIA and State perceived aconstant erosion in their ability to get the COMINT structure to consider and satisfy theirintelligence needs.3

The stage was set for reform. But what shapeshould the reform take? What were the avenues forresolution of the “AFSA problems” – and theincreasing tension within the community over theownership and control of ancillary COMINT func-tions? AFSA by itself could not resolve the manymanagerial and operational conflicts. Nor did thereappear to be any likelihood of a solution emanatingfrom USCIB, which remained powerless because ofits limited charter and military-dominated mem-bership. Because of its membership majority, themilitary organizations were able to control theboard in its working-level committees.4

Given the rigidity of the existing COMINTstructure, CIA and State officials probably conclud-ed that further dialogue would be fruitless. Takingdirect action, they pressed for fundamental changesin the intelligence structure. It was an opportunetime. The Truman administration was extremely

budget conscious and was known to favor centraliz-ing and consolidating intelligence responsibilitiesand functions.5

There was also a new DCI on the scene. GeneralWalter Bedell Smith, USA, appointed by PresidentTruman on 21 August 1950, succeeded AdmiralHillenkoetter as the fourth director of CentralIntelligence. The appointment of Smith represent-ed a significant change of leadership for CIA andforetold a change in the CIA posture as well as in itsapproach to intelligence community relationships.Having served as chief of staff under GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower in the European Theaterfrom 1942 to 1945, and as U.S. ambassador to theSoviet Union from 1946 to 1949, Smith had gainedthe personal support and confidence of PresidentTruman. Known to be an exceptionally strong andforceful executive, Smith was highly respected byEisenhower and other top military and governmentofficials, particularly for his organizational talents.

During his three-year tour as DCI, Smith played apreeminent and rigorous role in the organizationalevolution of the DCI and CIA roles. This, in turn,had a major impact on the entire intelligence com-munity. Aggressive action became a keystone ofSmith’s new approach.6

With a view to reforming the COMINT struc-ture, Smith brought the AFSA problem to the atten

GGeenneerraall WWaalltteerr BBeeddeellll SSmmiitthh,, DDCCII

tion of the NSC on 10 December 1951 and recommended an overall survey of the COMINTstructure. His recommendation for such a surveywas based on a study by Kingman Douglass, whowas then the CIA COMINT officer. The NSC, inturn, forwarded Smith’s proposal to PresidentTruman. Three days later, Truman directedSecretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary ofDefense Robert Lovett, assisted by Director ofCentral Intelligence Smith, to review in depth thecommunications intelligence activities of theUnited States government.7

Acheson, Lovett, and Smith responded by creat-ing a high-level committee to accomplish the sur-vey. On 28 December 1951, they created theBrownell Committee, headed by George A.Brownell, a prominent New York City attorney.Brownell was assisted by Charles E. (“Chip”)Bohlen, counselor, State Department; William H.Jackson, special assistant to the DCI; and BrigadierGeneral John Magruder, USA (Ret.), special assis-tant to the secretary of defense. The CIA and theDepartment of State provided the staff members ofthe committee: Lloyd N. Cutler and HarmonDuncombe, CIA; Grant C. Manson and Benjamin R.Shute, State. All of the staff members had servedpreviously in the Special Intelligence Branches ofthe Army or the Navy. The Brownell Committeeand its support staff took up residence at CIA andwere administratively supported by CIA. The care-fully tailored composition of the BrownellCommittee and its supporting staff omitted oneimportant group. The military authorities, whoheretofore had dominated the U.S. COMINT struc-ture, were not included at any level in the actualreview process.8

Acheson, Lovett, and Smith directed theBrownell Committee to undertake a survey of theCOMINT structure and to submit recommenda-tions on two general subjects:

(1) the needs of each governmental

department and agency for the produc-

tion of departmental intelligence, and of

the Director of Central Intelligence for the

production of national intelligence, and

(2) the most effective allocation of respon-

sibilities for COMINT activities, and the

extent to which these activities should be

performed by a single department or

agency as a service of common concern -

and to which department or agency such

assignment should be made.9

In short, the committee was to look at central-ization and placement of the entire U.S. COMINTeffort in the U.S. intelligence community.

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MMeeeettiinngg ooff tthhee NNaattiioonnaall SSeeccuurriittyy CCoouunncciill,, JJaannuuaarryy II995511

The establishment of the Brownell Committeeprovoked immediate outcries within the U.S. mili-tary. Four weeks after the creation of the commit-tee, the Joint Chiefs summoned the director, AFSA,the three service directors of intelligence, and thedeputy director, Joint Intelligence Group, JCS, to aspecial meeting to discuss the BrownellCommittee’s investigation of COMINT activities.1O

On 4 February 1952, Major General Ralph J.Canine, USA, Rear Admiral Frank L. Johnson,USN, Major General Alexander R. Bolling, USA,Major General John A. Samford, USAF, andBrigadier General Richard C, Partridge, USA, metwith the Joint Chiefs. The message of the meetingwas clear – the Joint Chiefs were alarmed over theactivities of the Brownell Committee. The servicechiefs complained that they had not been consultedabout the investigation prior to its conception, thatthey had no representation on the board, and thatthe line of questioning indicated a possibility thatthe board would recommend transfer of AFSA fromthe control of the JCS. Despite their forebodings,however, the options open to the JCS remainedlimited, particularly in light of the fact that the com-mittee was already in operation. Without the unan-imous support of the NSC or the USCIB, the JCSwas obviously in no position to risk a head-on chal-lenge with the president or the secretary ofdefense.11

In trying to salvage something, the JCS had lit-tle choice but to settle for some rather pro formaactions. They asked General Omar Bradley, chair-man, JCS, to meet with Secretary Lovett and “againexpress the considerable concern of the JCS over

the possible transfer of AFSA from their jurisdic-tion.” They also decided that the JCS would makeits own full-scale review of the AFSA problem – butat a later date – to determine whether more author-ity should be given to the director “so he could actu-ally control in one organization the COMINT effortof the United States.”12 While this projected studywas a tacit admission that all was not well withinthe COMINT structure, it reflected a glimmer ofJCS optimism that somehow the Brownell effortwould wither and die without producing any tangi-ble results. The JCS never got around to conductingits projected study. The Brownell Committeemoved too swiftly.

The final Brownell Report, submitted toAcheson and Lovett on 13 June 1952, confirmedthat JCS apprehensions about the loss of AFSAwere well founded. The report completely demol-ished the concept of unification of the three servic-es as it existed under AFSA. The committee con-cluded that the structure of COMINT activities didnot reflect unification under single control, butrather a structure of four associated agencies – oneof which, AFSA, performed limited functions inways acceptable to those who controlled the otherthree. In short, it was a military organization con-trolled by the military.13

The report hammered out the theme that thedirector, AFSA, had insufficient authority or con-trol over the COMINT activities of the three servic-es. It noted, “. . . that for all practical purposes theAFSA charter made AFSAC (which is nothingexcept a committee made up of the three services)

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WWiilllliiaamm HH..JJaacckkssoonn BBGGeenn JJoohhnnMMaaggrruuddeerr,, UUSSAA,,

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the boss of AFSA, which in turn is completelydependent upon the Service organizations for all itscommunications and practically all of its collectionof COMINT.”14 In reviewing the managementframework in which AFSA operated, the reportnoted that the director had to spend much of histime and energy on cajolery, negotiation, and com-promise in an atmosphere of bitter interservicerivalry. According to the report, the director ofAFSA had no real degree of control over the serviceCOMINT units – but rather was under their controlby virtue of their representation on AFSAC. Hisonly appeal was to the same three services.

The committee also had harsh words for otherparts of the U.S. intelligence structure. It stronglycriticized the management and policy structuresexisting above AFSA (USCIB, JCS, and AFSAC) fortheir total lack of effectiveness in providing guid-ance, direction, and management support to AFSA.Noting that “the U.S. Communications IntelligenceBoard (on which the State Department, the CentralIntelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation, as well as the three services, are represented) has inadequate authority and hasbecome an ineffective organization,” the committeeconcluded that “the COMINT effort of today has too many of the aspects of a loose combination of the previous military organizations and too fewof a true unification of the COMINT activities and interests of all the interested departments and agencies.”15

In reaching its conclusions, the BrownellCommittee stated that its basic thinking was influ-enced by “two controlling but somewhat conflictingfactors.”16 As a first and fundamental premise, itbelieved that all of the interested services and agen-cies should have a voice in determining AFSA poli-cies and giving it guidance. Second, as a counter-balance to this, and in order to strengthen theCOMINT structure, the committee stressed thatAFSA should be placed under a single governmen-tal department for administrative purposes. Thisline of reasoning signaled, for the first time, theidentification of COMINT resources as being

national in nature. It signaled too the probable endof the era of exclusive military control of COMINTresources. Thus, in the view of the committee, theremoval of the COMINT structure from JCS controlwas a necessity. Ideally, and in order to provide aneffective COMINT response to the intelligencerequirements of all consumers, the responsibilityfor the COMINT function should be centralized in aneutral governmental agency that would have somelatitude in its operation.

The Brownell Report concluded that a point hadbeen reached in the evolution of the United Statesintelligence community that now made it essential“to carry further the 1949 reorganization of theCOMINT structure.”17 It proceeded to outline manyactions that should be taken “to strengthen AFSAitself and to increase its authority over COMINTresults.” These recommendations, directed essen-tially toward a reorganization and unification of theCOMINT structure, addressed a number of broadCOMINT relationships, both within and outside theCOMINT structure. The scope of the recommenda-tions extended into the major operational and man-agement phases of the COMINT business, includ-ing the production of COMINT, the centralizationof COMINT authority, the management ofCOMINT resources, and policy oversight ofCOMINT resources.18

From the outset, the Brownell Committee rec-ognized that complete unification would be impos-sible because of the dependence upon the militarystructures to man field stations. Consequently,Brownell concluded that the service units mustretain their own authorities and responsibilitieswithin their military departments. To amelioratethis and to assist AFSA in its mission of providingeffective, unified organization and control ofCOMINT, the Brownell Report recommended thatAFSA should have operational and technical con-trol over all the COMINT collection and productionresources of the military services. The BrownellCommittee also supported the services’ traditionalposition that they must control the close and directintelligence support of the forces in the field. The

committee fully recognized that it was creating aproblem area between the new central authorityand the services, but concluded that a solutioncould be found “with sincere and intelligent coop-eration between the commanders involved.”

Specifically, the committee proposed structuralchanges affecting the three levels of AFSA’s organizational relationships: below AFSA (i.e.,external service relationships); within AFSA; andabove AFSA (i.e., USCIB and the Department ofDefense). As to the first, the committee recommended that AFSA be established as the key-stone of the COMINT organization – with its mission clearly defined by presidential memorandum. As outlined by the committee, themission statement would give AFSA the responsi-bility and authority for providing a unified organi-zation and control of the COMINT activities of mostof the federal government.19

For those changes projected within AFSA itself,the committee concentrated principally on “people”considerations. It recommended that the directorbe a career military officer of at least three-starrank, with a tour of at least four years, rather thanthe two-year rotational tour established by theAFSA charter. The option of appointing a civiliandirector was left open if the particular circum-stances warranted. The military director wouldhave a career civilian as deputy – with the converseto apply in the event of a civilian director. Instressing the need for the development of a strong

personnel program, the final report included amajor discussion of a broad range of personnel considerations. The report concluded that the existence of a well-rounded personnel development program was essential to the futuregrowth and success of AFSA. It stressed the dimensions of the “people” problems then existingat AFSA, including the exceedingly high rate of turnover among AFSA civilians and the lack ofprofessional and managerial opportunities for thecivilian workforce. The report strongly recommended that AFSA initiate greatly expanded efforts to develop career and profession-

alization programs for civilian and military personnel – at both the managerial and professional levels.20

In discussing projected organizational changes“above the AFSA level,” the committee remarkedthat this category represented the single most diffi-cult question it confronted. As the cornerstone of itsrecommendation in this area, however, the com-mittee expressed no qualifications about the needfor severing the relationship between the JCS andAFSA. It recommended the immediate terminationof the 1949 “experiment” that had placed AFSAunder the control of the JCS. As a corollary, thecommittee proposed the abolition of AFSAC. Inplace of JCS control, the Brownell Committee sug-gested that AFSA be directly subordinated to theDepartment of Defense as the executive agent of thegovernment for COMINT activities.21

In much the same vein, the report recommend-ed a revitalization and restructuring or USCIB. Thereport proposed sweeping membership changesincluding a significant decrease or military repre-sentation as well as the simultaneous elevation ofAFSA to a position of full voting membership on thenew USCIB. The report recommended that USCIB’smembership consist or a representative of the sec-retary of defense, the secretary of state, the DCI, thechairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, theFBI, and the director of AFSA. It further recom-mended that the DCI become the permanent chair-man of USCIB. This would bring to an end the long-standing practice of selecting a new USCIB chair-man annually, based upon a vote of the member-ship. The report also included a new proceduralmethodology to govern USCIB operations – withthe objective or giving it a greater responsibility “forpolicy and coordination” in COMINT matters. Italso proposed to establish a majority-rule principlewhen voting in USCIB on matters under the juris-diction of AFSA. For those COMINT matters out-side the jurisdiction of AFSA, however, it proposedretention of the rule requiring unanimous agree-ment of the members.22

Finally, in a related matter, the committee dis-cussed the existing manpower levels and dollarexpenditures of the entire U.S. COMINT effort inorder to provide an indication of the cost to the gov-ernment for the production of COMINT. It devel-oped the data based upon figures received fromAFSA and the three services. While acknowledgingthat its figures were possibly only little better thaninformed guesses, the committee cited these as rep-resenting a reasonable approximation of theresources spent in acquiring and processing com-munications intelligence information.23

In this investigation, the committee establishedthe combined manpower levels for AFSA and thethree cryptologic services, and it estimated directcost expenditures for the combined activities.Because of security factors, the report noted thatthe cryptologic budgets were not subject to theusual checks and balances normally associated withthe budget cycle processs. Considering this as wellas the magnitude of the expenditures for COMINT,the committee concluded that the fiscal processrepresented another compelling reason for estab-lishing a strong and responsible AFSA – operatingunder the positive guidance of a policy board actingwith real authority.24

On 23 June Secretary Lovett sent the BrownellReport to General Canine for his personal com-ments and recommendations. In a lengthyresponse, Canine enthusiastically supported themajor conclusions and recommendations of thereport. Canine did, however, take issue with someaspects of the report. The committee had proposedan extension of the responsibilities of AFSA toinclude a communications security responsibilityfor the entire United States government rather thanmerely the Department of Defense, as was then thecase. Canine agreed in principle with the proposalbut pointed out that the committee had includedvery little on communications security in its report.He recommended that the proposed directive beconfined to COMINT, with communications securi-ty to be made the subject of another study and to beaddressed in a separate directive. Canine also

argued strongly against retention of the rule of una-nimity – even for COMINT matters outside thejurisdiction of AFSA. He pointed out that thiswould only serve to perpetuate one of the chief dif-ficulties that had hampered USCIB in the past. Heurged the acceptance of a majority-rule principle togovern all USCIB decisions. Lastly, Canine pointedout that the Brownell Report had omitted the gen-erally accepted identification of COMINT activitiesas being outside the framework of security rulesgoverning other intelligence activities. Canine rec-ommended that the same stringent security consid-erations then existing in NSCID No.9 be carriedover into the new directive.25

During the next four months, extended negotia-tions took place among the representatives of theDepartment of State, the CIA, the Office of theSecretary of Defense, and AFSA over the exactwording of the implementing presidential memo-randum. Some of the issues discussed included thedefinitions of communications intelligence and fin-ished intelligence; principles to govern the produc-tion of COMINT by the cryptologic structures; anda number of other policy considerations concerningrelationships between producers and consumers inthe production, evaluation, and dissemination of

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COMINT. The principals in these discussions anddrafting sessions were W. Park Armstrong, State;Loftus E. Becker, CIA; General Magruder, Office ofSecretary of Defense; Admiral Wenger, AFSA; andGeneral Canine.26

Truman’s directive, approved on 24 October1952, affirmed that communications intelligencewas a national responsibility. Truman directed thesecretaries of State and Defense as a SpecialCommittee of the NSC for COMINT, to establish,with the assistance of the Director of CentralIntelligence, policies governing COMINT activities.He designated the Department of Defense as theexecutive agent of the government for the produc-tion of COMINT information. His memorandumalso contained the first reference to the NationalSecurity Agency. In addition, Truman’s memoran-dum provided the basis for a reconstitution ofUSCIB with broadened duties and responsibilitiesto correspond to those recommended by theBrownell Committee.27

On 24 October 1952 the National SecurityCouncil issued a parallel document, NationalSecurity Council Intelligence Directive Number 9,Revised, entitled “Communications Intelligence.”This directive established the new membership ofUSCIB, defined its duties and responsibilities, and prescribed the procedural methodology governing its participation in COMINT matters.The NSC directive implemented much of Truman’sdirective.28

The composition of the new USCIB differedonly slightly from that proposed by the BrownellCommittee. Under the NSC directive, the threearmed services retained their membership, whilethe Joint Chiefs were not represented at all. Thedirector, NSA, became a full voting member. TheNSC directive also made the DCI the permanentchairman and provided that board decisions shouldbe based upon majority vote. The NSC directivealso stated that each member of the board “shallhave one vote except the representatives of theSecretary of State and the Central Intelligence

Agency who shall each have two votes.”29 Therestructuring of USCIB meant that it became thenew mechanism and forum for establishing andadjudicating problems associated with intelligenceand processing priorities. With the new votingstructure, this assured a more balanced participa-tion by military and civilian representatives ofUSCIB in the decision-making process.

Simultaneously with the release of NSCID No.9Revised, President Truman issued a second direc-tive that declared communications security to be anational responsibility to be discharged by a newUnited States Communications Security Board. Hedesignated the secretaries of State and Defense as aSpecial Committee of the National Security Councilon COMSEC matters and directed them to developpolicies and directives relating to the communica-tions security function, including responsibilities,authorities, and procedures.3o

There remained establishment of the “NationalSecurity Agency,” as called for by Truman’s direc-tive. Secretary Lovett, as the executive agent of thegovernment for communications intelligence, hadthe basic responsibility for starting the new agency.In the conversion of AFSA to NSA, Lovett had todeal with the issue of communications security.Since Truman’s memorandum of 24 October 1952had excluded communications security from thescope of the COMINT directive, Lovett had todefine the extent of the new agency’s role in com-munications security matters. Accordingly, Lovettissued two memoranda associated with the estab-lishment of NSA.31

In a remarkably sparse announcement,Secretary Lovett accomplished the actual establish-ment of the new National Security Agency in hismemorandum of 4 November 1952. In his memo-randum to the service secretaries, the Joint Chiefsof Staff, and the director, National Security Agency,he described in general terms the basic institution-al changes that now governed the cryptologic com-munity. Lovett declared:

• The designation of the Armed Forces

Security Agency was changed to the

National Security Agency.

• The administrative arrangements for

military and civilian personnel, funds,

records, and other support categories

previously authorized for AFSA were now

available and in effect for NSA.

• All COMINT collection and production

resources of the Department of Defense

were placed under the operational and

technical control of the director, NSA.

• Communications security activities pre-

viously assigned to AFSA were now

assigned to the director, NSA.

• Addressees were directed to appoint a

representative to a working group to be

chaired by the director, NSA, to develop

necessary directives for formal imple-

mentation of NSCID No. 9.32

With Lovett’sm e m o r a n d u m ,Canine acquired anew relationshipwith the militaryservices and theirCOMINT activities.Theoretically, henow had controlover all COMINTcollection and pro-duction resources.Canine started afour-year term ofoffice as the director of NSA on 4 November 1952.In accordance with its new charter, he received athird star. Each of the services assigned one or twotwo-star grade officers to the new agency. Thischange was consistent with Truman’s decision toelevate the status of the unified agency. The reorga-nization of AFSA removed the COMINT structure

from exclusive military control and theoreticallygave all intelligence agencies, military and civilian,an equal voice in the COMINT processing andrequirements process.

The new directives, however, did include a “del-egation of authority” provision that diluted to somedegree the concept of central control. The draftersof the final directives, accepting the Brownell con-clusion, supported the position that the servicesmust retain control of the close and direct intelli-gence support of the forces in the field.Consequently, the final directives made provisionfor this broad exception by requiring the director todelegate responsibility to the services for directsupport as may be required.

The shock waves of reorganization quickly hitthe JCS. With the issuance of President Truman’sdirective and Lovett’s follow-up memorandum, thedire predictions about the JCS loss of AFSA hadcome true. The director, NSA, was no longer underthe control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff except, during a transition period, for COMSEC matters.By creating a new agency, Truman had shifted control of COMINT from the JCS to theDepartment of Defense and the new USCIB. Thelikelihood of bringing about any reversal of this policy appeared remote.

Three months after the establishment of NSA,Lieutenant General Charles P. Cabell, USAF, direc-tor, J-2, presented General Omar N. Bradley, chair-man of the JCS, with a lengthy appeal. In Cabell’sview, the Brownell Committee had largely over-looked the progress achieved in the postwar evolu-tion of AFSA.33 Addressing the allegation of AFSA’sfailure to satisfy the intelligence requirements ofState and CIA, Cabell maintained that a major partof the requirements problem had stemmed directlyfrom the failure of State and CIA to seek adjust-ments in requirements through the existing mech-anisms. They had sought a “revolution” instead.Making one final gesture to retain JCS control overthe U.S. COMINT effort, Cabell proposed that thesecretary of defense delegate responsibility for

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direction and oversight of the new NSA to the director of the Joint Staff of the JCS. Bradley for-warded the proposal to Lovett, who chose not tooverride the spirit of the earlier presidential guidance. Instead, Lovett opted to place within hisown office the responsibility for exercising a super-visory role over the new NSA. Lovett delegated thisresponsibility to General Graves B. Erskine, USMC,(Ret.) as the newly established special representa-tive of the secretary’s office, who would functionwithout organizational ties to the JCS. Thissequence marked the end of JCS efforts to change the direction of the Brownell Report and itsimplementation.34

Established in the fall of 1952, NSA supersededAFSA. The Brownell Committee had succeeded inwriting the organizational obituary of AFSA in lessthan six months. Its report was one of the most sig-nificant and far-reaching reviews ever prepared onthe COMINT activities of the United States. Therecommendations of the committee were acceptedand put into effect almost in toto, resulting in amajor restructuring of the COMINT community.The report became a kind of Magna Carta for U.S.COMINT activities and the new NSA. Within fourmonths of its completion, a chain reaction of newnational-level issuances followed that affected theentire COMINT structure and produced a newCOMINT agency.

In summary, there probably never existed amore propitious time for making fundamentalchanges in the U.S. COMINT structure than in 1951when the Brownell Committee came into being.After a six-year postwar period of self-study andorganizational experimentation, the COMINT com-munity was still groping for answers to a number ofmajor questions. There was also a strong new DCI,who was determined to strengthen the role andmission of his young agency and to establish its per-manent niche in the national intelligence structure.The Korean War, in highlighting the intelligencefailures of the entire U.S. community, revealed thata great amount of discord and turmoil existed in the

intelligence structure and provided an example forthe voices that clamored for fundamental change.

The Brownell Committee, established to con-duct an unprecedented wartime probe of theCOMINT community, was well staged and welldirected by officials from State and CIA. Within sixmonths it produced an impressive report in supportof centralization and unification. It radically alteredthe existing U.S. COMINT structure and permittedU.S. military officials little time to counter its majorrecommendations.

In the long struggle between the military andcivilian agencies over the control of COMINTresources, the turning point came when DCI Smithorchestrated the founding of the BrownellCommittee. With Truman’s approval, it began itswork without the foreknowledge or participation ofthe military community. Its primary committeesand its supporting staff operated without represen-tation from the military community. From the outset, the CIA and State Department dominatedthe Brownell Committee. There were old animosities to resolve, and CIA and State, whileundoubtedly motivated by national security consid-erations, left nothing to chance in their efforts torealign the COMINT structure and ensure theirgreater participation in the intelligence process.

Operationally, the Brownell Committee went asfar as it could in its proposals for the centralizationof COMINT resources. Because of the almost totaldependence upon the military installations for theintercept of traffic, the committee concluded thatcomplete centralization of COMINT would not bepossible. It recognized that the COMINT serviceswould have to be incorporated into the new cen-tralized structure. Despite this difficulty, theBrownell Report strongly recommended the estab-lishment of a central authority to guide the activi-ties of the military COMINT organizations.

As a result of the Brownell Report, a revisedNational Security Council Directive of 1952 definedthe mission and authority of the new National

Security Agency. NSA remained within theDepartment of Defense, subject to the direction ofthe secretary of defense. The director acquired newauthorities and responsibilities to assist him in pro-viding unified operational and technical control ofCOMINT. He acquired operational and technicalcontrol over all military COMINT collection andproduction resources of the United States He wasauthorized to issue instructions directly to operat-ing units of military agencies engaged in the collec-tion and production of COMINT. The directive did,however, contain one “exception” clause that weak-ened NSA authority. The directive required that thedirector make provision for delegation of opera-tional control of COMINT activities to the militaryservices for direct support purposes, as he deemedappropriate. This supported the traditional militaryposition regarding tactical COMINT.

The committee recognized that this exception tothe director’s control authority would further weak-en the concept of centralized control. But in creat-ing a gray area between the services and the centralauthority, it somewhat optimistically concludedthat a solution could be found by the developmentof greater cooperation between the director and thefield commanders.35

The implementation of the Brownell Reportclearly represented a strong positive move towardunification of the COMINT effort. Because of factors associated with the organizational nature ofthe military structures, there remained the samenumber of agencies engaged in cryptologic activities. But NSA represented a vastly strongerstructure than AFSA. With the acknowledgment by Brownell that direct support to field forcesshould be controlled by the Service CryptologicAgencies rather than NSA, the services retained asignificant degree of independence. This still presents problems today.

World War II marked a key juncture in thegrowth and expansion of the U.S. Army and NavyCOMINT operations. The war had a monumentaland immediate impact on U.S. COMINT collectionand reporting operations. Even more significantly,World War II marked the start of ten years ofchange and evolution for the military cryptologicservices. After World War II, there was no returning to the era of total independence for themilitary COMINT organizations. Massive changesculminated with the establishment of the National Security Agency in 1952 and the strengthening of the United States CommunicationIntelligence Board. While the organizational origins of the new agency represent a fairly simpleaudit trail, the political struggles and cross-pressures that led to the establishment of NSA arefar more complex. The expanding intelligencerequirements of the federal government, the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, budgetary considerations, and bureaucratic in-fighting between the military and civilian agenciesall were prominent factors in the effort to centralizethe communications intelligence functions of the federal government into one agency.

By the summer of 1942, as a result of action byPresident Roosevelt, the Army and Navy cryptologic structures became the principal U.S.organizations devoting efforts to foreign communications intelligence activities. Their organizations had evolved along differentlines, within different departments, and no one organization directly supervised their efforts. As a result of this dichotomy of origins and structure, a well-established pattern of independence – if not isolation – characterized Army-Navy relationships on COMINT matters. In June 1942the services did reach an agreement on a division of

cryptanalytic tasks, but there occurred no immedi-ate change in their working relationships.

Until 1942 the Army and Navy resisted theintroduction of any major changes to their relation-ships and sought to maintain their traditionallyseparate cryptanalytic roles. Each worked inde-pendently and exclusively on its assigned cryptana-lytic tasks. The services not only continued todemonstrate little enthusiasm toward closer coop-eration in COMINT matters, but maintained theirtraditional hostility toward proposals for merger, oreven of opening up a new dialogue on operationalproblems. Consequently, cooperation on COMINTmatters was minimal during the first two years ofthe war.

Nevertheless, out of the disaster at Pearl Harborand the pressures of all-out war came persistentdemands for the establishment of a truly central-ized, permanent intelligence agency. As early as1943 proposals for the establishment of a singleUnited States Intelligence Agency routinely sur-faced in the various intelligence forums of the JCS.At the same time, some military COMINT authori-ties foresaw their vulnerability to congressionalcriticism and future reductions in resources sincethey conducted their COMINT operations on a frac-tionated and sometimes duplicatory basis.Recognizing these threats to a continuation of theirseparate existence, the Army-Navy COMINTorganizations took steps to establish closer techni-cal cooperation.

In 1944 some positive signs of the services moving toward an expansion of interservice cooperation occurred. That year saw the conclusionof a number of technical agreements between theservices and the first exchange of liaison officers inWashington on a number of certain problems.

Chapter VII

Summary: The Struggle for Control Continues

It also saw the establishment of ANCICC. While thedialogue was carefully prescribed and did notchange the overall independent operations, it represented movement toward some form of consolidation.

Operating as separate COMINT organizations,both the Army and Navy experienced major suc-cesses during the war. Included were cryptanalyticbreakthroughs against the communications ofGerman submarines and armed forces. Theseaccomplishments heightened the sense of valueand appreciation of intelligence among the militarycommanders and the leaders or the government.Communications intelligence generally came to beidentified as the most important form of intelli-gence. Ironically, the magnitude or these intelli-gence successes later became the measuring rod forcriticism of the postwar achievements of the mili-tary COMINT organizations.

As the war came to a conclusion, some Armyand Navy officials realized that the loss of their primary targets meant dire consequences for their organizations and budgets. Because of worsening Soviet-U.S. relations, however, the services began to explore the possibility of directinga major effort against Soviet targets. The servicesalso anticipated major organizational changes inintelligence activities as the war wound down. Thefirst of these changes occurred within a few monthsafter V-J Day when President Truman ordered theestablishment of new intelligence organizations,and authorized continuing relations with theBritish cryptologic organization. In January 1946Truman created a National Intelligence Authority,a Central Intelligence Group, and a Director ofCentral Intelligence.

Eighteen months later, Congress passed theNational Security Act of 1947, which reinforced andamplified the earlier Truman action concerningcentralization of the U.S. intelligence effort. The actgave birth to a National Security Council, a CentralIntelligence Agency, and a National MilitaryEstablishment, with three coequal departments of

the Army, Navy, and Air Force. By 1948 a third mil-itary COMINT organizatioj emerged, the Air ForceSecurity Service. It began competing for scarceCOMINT targets and resources.

Within a few months after the TrumanDirective of 1946, the service COMINT organiza-tions initiated their own reorganization effort. Thiseffort marked the beginning of six years of experi-mentation. Basically, the military authoritiessought to centralize military control over COMINTactivities and to develop an organization that wouldbe responsive to military needs, especially withregard to the Soviet Union.

The first major change occurred in May 1946when the services formed a joint working agree-ment, which became known as the Joint OperatingPlan. The plan brought about a voluntary colloca-tion of Army and Navy processing activities in theUnited States. Under the JOP, however, the servic-es retained their separate identities and organiza-tions. The plan also called for a radically new posi-tion, the Coordinator or Joint Operations. The posi-tion was literally that – a coordinator, not a directorof operations.

Under the new JOP a new layer of committeessubordinate to the CJO was also created. The CJObecame a super-chairman for all the committeesestablished under the JOP. Although he had a coor-dination role, he was powerless to direct the servic-es, even on matters of joint tasks. This managementweakness was compounded further when Army-Navy officials failed to reach agreement on whatconstituted joint tasks or the amount of their man-power contributions to joint tasks. Moreover, bythis time, the civilian agencies had come to recog-nize that they had little or no voice in setting intel-ligence priorities for COMINT. Military interestssimply dominated the process.

In late 1947 a major struggle developed betweenthe military and civilian members of USCIB.Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the third DCI,became the primary catalyst for the issuance of a

new charter for USCIB. Hillenkoetter’s generalintent was to rewrite the charter to reflect theexpanded membership of USCIB and to correlatethe authorities of the Communications IntelligenceBoard with the National Security Act of 1947.Hillenkoetter wanted to give the civilian agencies agreater voice on policy matters relating toCOMINT. He openly sought to bring U.S. COMINTunder the direct control of the DCI.

After several months of negotiations, the members of USCIB (Army, Navy, Air Force, State,and CIA) could not agree on which organizationshould have the ultimate authority over theCOMINT community. (The FBI retired from theboard in 1947.) The board was deadlocked. Thearmed services took the position that USCIB shouldreport to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. State and, however, believed that the board should reportstalemated questions to the National SecurityCouncil instead.

On 1 July 1948 the National Security Councilbroke the deadlock by issuing NationalSecurity Council Intelligence Directive No.9,“Communications Intelligence.” The new directive,with the strong personal support of the secretary ofdefense, James Forrestal, represented a major vic-tory for the civilian members of USCIB. Under theprovisions of the new NSCID No.9, USCIB reportedto the NSC as its parent body rather than to theindividual military department heads. Also, for thefirst time, USCIB had an official charter issued atthe national level. The rule of unanimity continuedto govern USCIB’s decision-making process, however, and hindered the effective functioning ofthe board.

Although Hillenkoetter achieved a major victo-ry with the issuance of NSCID No. 9, he failed in hisattempt to place the COMINT functions directlyunder the DCI. In the view of most military author-ities, however, the outcome was still a catastrophe.The JCS clearly lost out in its counterproposal to bedesignated the “parent body” of USCIB for unre-solved issues. Nevertheless, while NSCID No.9

effectively dealt the JCS a blow in its efforts to control U.S. COMINT activities, it did not result in any immediate change in the day-to-day activities of USCIB and its subordinate committees.Since the military organizations had a majority onthe board, they continued to dominate the discus-sions. The situation was clearly changing, however.As the major beneficiaries of the new directive, theState Department and CIA began to exert a much greater influence in all COMINT deliberations and decisions.

Within ten months of the issuance of the NSCdirective, another major change took place in theintelligence structure. On 20 May 1949 DefenseSecretary Louis Johnson directed a physical merg-er of the central processing activities of the threecryptologic services by establishing the ArmedForces Security Agency. He placed the cryptologicfunctions under the exclusive control of the JointChiefs of Staff. AFSA came about as a result of twointerrelated political factors. On the one hand wasthe announced objective of Secretary Johnson toachieve “efficiency and economy” in the manage-ment of the cryptologic effort. On the other was theobvious strategy of the JCS to strengthen and toreestablish its hold on COMINT resources. The mil-itary was once again in a dominant position onCOMINT matters.

From the perspective of the civilian agencies,the creation of AFSA meant the renewal of the mil-itary and civilian struggle over the control ofCOMINT resources. CIA and State Departmentrepresentatives argued strongly against AFSA,which in their view existed in direct conflict withthe new USCIB charter. They maintained furtherthat AFSA was established without their participa-tion and over their protests. Secretary Johnson,however, not only refused to discuss it directly withthem, but refused as well to make any changes inthe basic AFSA charter. Johnson did make one con-cession. He canceled the proposed Armed ForcesCommunication Intelligence Board, which wouldhave become a policy board running parallel toUSCIB.

Although the establishment of the ArmedForces Security Agency seemed to represent a con-solidation of the U.S. COMINT effort and a moreefficient approach to U.S. COMINT activities, AFSAwas fundamentally unsound from both a conceptu-al and managerial viewpoint Pentagon authorities,however, viewed AFSA as a reasonable and evolu-tionary step toward “service unification.”Unification proved to be an ephemeral and elusiveconcept, however.

Although some military officials acquiesced inthe concept of consolidation, it soon became clearthat the bureaucracy in each service never serious-ly envisioned a true merger and the resultingdiminution of its own responsibilities and authori-ties. AFSA was the creation of Louis Johnson, sec-retary of defense. He sought to achieve a degree ofunification of the services as well as “efficiency andeconomy” in the management of the cryptologicstructure. While a form of merger took place, nofundamental changes were made in the way eachservice conducted its own operations.

In the actual implementation of the AFSA char-ter, the services took full advantage of loopholes inthe charter to preserve their independent status.For example, the Air Force used the “exclusionclause” in AFSA’s charter (which withheld from itany authority for the tasking of mobile collectionsites) to exclude AFSA from any role in controllingAir Force collection sites. In fact, by 1952, AFSAhad no authority over any Air Force collection sites.All had been conveniently identified by the AirForce as mobile facilities. In addition, two monthsafter forming AFSA, the Joint Chiefs made substan-tive changes in the AFSA charter, and drasticallydiluted its basic authorities.

These problems, combined with a waning mili-tary support for the general AFSA concept, foretoldits ultimate demise. Of the three COMINT services,it was ironic that the Navy, which from the outsethad strongly opposed even the AFSA concept ofcooperation, ultimately provided the greatest sup-port for AFSA. Although the Army, in the person of

Colonel Carter W. Clarke, became identified as theoriginator of the AFSA concept, Army support forits offspring quickly diminished and could be characterized at best as lukewarm. The Air Force,with its newly established AFSS, aggressivelyopposed AFSA, seeking primarily to build its ownstructure and achieve total independence inCOMINT matters.

From AFSA’s first days, there was no way inwhich its first director, Admiral Earl Stone, couldmake it operate as a centralized unified structure.However, the full extent and impact of the weaknesses of the AFSA charter would not become widely known – or recognized – until the onset ofthe Korean War. By 1951 General Ralph Canine, thesecond director, AFSA, was encountering the sameopen opposition from the services to his efforts at centralization and consolidation as Stone hadexperienced.

The Korean War revealed the inherent weak-nesses not only of the AFSA structure, but of theUSCIB as well. During the Korean War, U.S.COMINT produced a mixed record. Its major suc-cesses took place in the area of tactical support,achieved primarily by the Army and Air Force.AFSA came under heavy criticism because 0f itsproblems in attempting to control and direct themilitary COMINT services. The civilian members ofUSCIB now pointed to the lack of direction andunity in the COMINT effort. AFSA was not providing results.

The Army proposal to establish a new militaryagency to be known as the Consolidated SpecialInformation Dissemination Office (CONSIDO)shocked the civilian members of USCIB. The pro-posal drastically limited civilian input on COMINTmatters. CONSIDO soon became the symbol of anew battle between the military and civilian mem-bers of USCIB for control of COMINT.

CIA and State officials completely understoodthe military rationale for the establishment of AFSA– although they thoroughly disagreed with it. The

CONSIDO proposal, however, represented an evenmore encompassing threat to civilian input to theCOMINT process. Not only was the control ofCOMINT and its dissemination at stake, but thecontrol of all-source intelligence estimates andevaluation actions appeared to be at risk as well.The concept of a military CONSIDO controlling dis-semination, estimates, and evaluative actionsseemed to crystallize the major fears of the civilianagencies about their diminishing policy role in allintelligence matters. Because of this major opposi-tion, the proposal died in USCIB in December 1950.

The long debate over CONSIDO left a lastingimpression on CIA, State, and the FBI (reinstalledas a member of USCIB in 1950). They now believedthat the military authorities would not relent intheir pursuit of the CONSIDO-type concept, andwould probably submit an amended version ofCONSIDO at a later date.

By 1951 it was clear to the civilian agencies thatthe military organizations were incapable of jointlydeveloping a structure that would meet, withoutbias, the needs of the growing United States intelli-gence community. After six years of experimenta-tion and reorganization and two attempts to con-solidate and centralize the communications intelli-gence activities of the United States, instability, dis-unity, and decentralization still existed. and Statewere not totally altruistic in their opposition to mil-itary plans. They often appeared more concernedabout the long-range overtones of military controlof the intelligence role than about the actual level ofCOMINT support received during the Korean War,for example. They realistically concluded, however,that any fundamental reworking of the communi-cations intelligence structure would come aboutonly as a result of outside intervention. Any furtherjoint military-civilian dialogue seemed useless.Working together, CIA and State officials proceed-ed to develop their own strategy for a “new look” atthe organization of the COMINT structure. Thistime the civilians would have a major input.

The military authorities previously had set upAFSA without prior coordination with USCIB or thecivilian members of the COMINT community. Nowa complete reversal took place. The military author-ities were completely left out of the deliberative anddecision-making process leading to the terminationof AFSA and the creation of a new centralizedCOMINT agency.

General Walter Bedell Smith, as the fourth DCI,became the catalyst for bringing about a newnational-level review of the COMINT structure. In amemorandum to the National Security Council,dated 10 December 1951, Smith recommended anoverall review of United States COMINT activities,based upon an earlier study by Kingman Douglass.The NSC, in turn, forwarded the proposal toPresident Truman. Three days later, on 13December 1951, Truman directed Secretary of StateDean G. Acheson and Secretary of Defense RobertA. Lovett, assisted by Director of CentralIntelligence Smith, to review in depth the communications intelligence activities of theUnited States. The resulting review process wascarefully orchestrated.

On 28 December 1951, in response to Truman’srequest, Acheson and Lovett established theBrownell Committee to study the existing structureand make recommendations. George A. Brownell,an eminent attorney in New York City, headed thecommittee. Brownell served as chairman, assistedby Charles E. (Chip) Bohlen, counselor, StateDepartment; William H. Jackson, special assistantto the DCI; and Brigadier General John Magruder,USA (Ret), special assistant to the secretary ofdefense. The CIA and the Department of State pro-vided the four staff members for the committee, allof whom had served previously in the special intel-ligence branches of the Army or Navy. During theperiod of the survey, the Brownell Committee andits support staff resided at CIA and received administrative support from the CIA. The militaryorganizations had no representation on theBrownell Committee or on its support staff.

Within six months, the Brownell Committeecompleted its report. It stressed the need for theunification of U.S. COMINT responsibilities andrecommended a major overhaul of the existingCOMINT organization as well as the USCIB struc-ture. The final Brownell Report completely demol-ished the concept of “unification” as it existedunder AFSA. During the next four months, extend-ed negotiations took place among the representa-tives of CIA, Departments of State and Defense, andthe director, Armed Forces Security Agency, overthe exact wording of the implementing directives tobe issued by the president. The Joint Chiefs of Staffwere also excluded from these discussions. Tenmonths after the establishment of the BrownellCommittee, Truman, accepting the report, issuedtwo directives that led to the establishment of theNational Security Agency with its dual responsibili-ty for the communications intelligence and com-munications security activities of the government.There would be a centralized authority for U.S.COMINT activities, and the civilian authorities, byvirtue or a major restructuring of USCIB, wouldplay a major role in directing the scope of NSA’soperations.

In conclusion, the directive establishing NSAclearly identified the national rather than the solelymilitary character of U.S. COMINT activities.Within well-defined limits it strengthened the roleand authorities of the director, NSA, over COMINT.It greatly expanded administrative and operationalcontrols over all U.S. cryptologic activities. For thefirst time, the director acquired the authority toissue instructions directly to military units withoutgoing through military command channels.However. there remained some significant built-inlimitations in the NSA charter. Although a nominalunification took place, efforts to unify and central-ize COMINT authorities and responsibilities in oneorganization achieved only a partial and limitedsuccess.

From the outset, the designers of the NSA char-ter clearly recognized that complete unificationwould be impossible because of the dependence

upon the military structures to man field stations.Consequently, although the service units wereincorporated organizationally into the centralorganization. they retained their own authoritiesand responsibilities within their military depart-ments. To ameliorate this, and to assist NSA in itsmission of providing effective unified organizationand control of COMINT, the enabling directivesprovided that NSA would have operational andtechnical control over all the COMINT collectionand production resources of the United States.Even this did not solve the problem.

There also existed a “delegation of authority”clause in the new charter that further diluted theconcept of centralized control. The BrownellCommittee, as well as the drafters of the imple-menting presidential directive, supported the serv-ices’ traditional position that they must control theclose and direct intelligence support of the forces inthe field. Consequently, the final directive madeprovision for this broad exception by requiring thedirector to delegate responsibility to the services fordirect support as may be necessary. The committeefully recognized that it was creating a problem areabetween the central authority and the services, butconcluded that a solution could be found “with sin-cere and intelligent cooperation between the com-manders involved.”

Finally, despite the reorganization the samenumber of agencies remained engaged in crypto-logic activities as before – namely, NSA, CIA, Army,Navy, and Air Force. NSA had in many respectssimply replaced the defunct AFSA. The servicesretained a significant degree of independence. Theyretained their own separate organizations and identities, as well as administrative and logisticcontrol of their field operations. The struggle overwho would control U.S. COMINT resources wouldcontinue.

Abbreviations

AFCIAC–Armed Forces Communications Intelli-gence Advisory Council (later redesignated asArmed Forces Security Agency Council)

AFCIB–Armed Forces Communications Intelli-gence Board

AFOIN–Air Force Office of Intelligence

AFSA–Armed Forces Security Agency

AFSAC–Armed Forces Security Agency Council

AFSG- Air Force Security Group

AFSS - Air Force Security Service

ANCIB–Army-Navy Communications IntelligenceBoard (joint policy board that later became State-Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board)

ANCICC–Army-Navy Communications Intelli-gence Coordinating Committee (working level com-mittee of Army-Navy Communications IntelligenceBoard)

ASA–Army Security Agency

ASAPAC–Army Security Agency Pacific

CAHA–Cryptologic Archival Holding Area

CIA–Central Intelligence Agency

CIG–Central Intelligence Group

CJCS–Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

CJO–Coordinator of Joint Operations

CNO–Chief of Naval Operations

COI–Coordinator of Information

COMINCH–Commander in Chief, U.S. FleetCOMINT-Communications Intelligence

C O M M S U P D E T S – C o m m u n i c a t i o n sSupplementary Detachments

COMSEC–Communications Security

CONSIDO–Consolidated InformationDissemination Office

CRB–Communications Reconnaissance Battalion

CRC–Communications Reconnaissance Company

CRG–Communications Reconnaissance Group

CSAW–Communications Supplementary Annex,Washington (Navy facilities at Ward Circle,Washington, D.C.)

DCI–Director of Central Intelligence

DIA–Defense Intelligence Agency

DJO–Director of Joint Operations

DJS–Director, Joint Staff

DoD–Department of Defense

DOE–Department of Energy

ELINT–Electronic Intelligence

E.O.–Executive Order

FBI–Federal Bureau of Investigation

FCC–Federal Communications Commission

FECOM–Far East Command

G.C. & C.S.–British Government Code and CipherSchool

GCHQ–Government Communications Head-quaters (U.K. SIGINT Organization)

G-2–Intelligence Division, War DepartmentGeneral Staff

IAB–Intelligence Advisory Board

IAC–Intelligence Advisory Council

JIC–Joint Intelligence Committee (within the JointChiefs of Staff structure)

JICG–Joint Intercept Control Group

JCS–Joint Chiefs of Staff

JLG–Joint Liaison Group

JN-25–U.S. Navy designator for Japanese 5-digitcode used by Japanese fleet

JOP–Joint Operating Plan of Army and Navy,1946-1949

JPAG–Joint Processing Allocation Group

LSIB–London Signals Intelligence Board

NIA–National Intelligence Authority

NME–National Military Establishment

NSA–National Security Agency

NSC–National Security Council

NSCID–National Security Council IntelligenceDirective

NSS–Naval Security Station

ONI–Office of Naval Intelligence

OPNAV–Office of Naval Operations

OSD–Office of the Secretary of Defense

OSS–Office of Strategic Services

RAF–Royal Air Force

SCA–Service Cryptologic Agency

SECNAV–Secretary of Navy

SIGINT–Signals Intelligence

SIS–Signal Intelligence Service (Army)

SMP–Special Committee on Merger Planning

SRB–Special Research Branch (Army Intelligence)

SSA–Signal Security Agency (Army)

STANCIB–State-Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Board (joint policy board that laterbecame the United States CommunicationsIntelligence Board)

STANCICC–State-Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Coordinating Committee (workinglevel committee of State-Army-NavyCommunications Intelligence Board)

SUKLO–Senior U.K. Liaison Officer

SUSLO–Senior U.S. Liaison Officer

SWI–Special Weather Intelligence

SWNCC–State-War-Navy Coordinating CommitteeUSA-U.S. Army

USAF–U.S. Air Force

USCIB–United States Communications Intelli-gence Board

USCICC–United States Communications Intelli-gence Coordinating Committee (working level

committee of United States CommunicationsIntelligence Board)

USEUCOM–U.S. European Command

USN–U.S. Navy

WC–War Council

WDC/CCO–Washington, D.C., Control-CollectionOffice (Air Force Security Service)

Notes

Chapter 1

1. Admiral Joseph R. Redman,OP-2o, memorandum forthe Secretary of the Navy. “The Navy’s Interest in theProcessing of Intercepted Foreign, non-militaryCommunications,” 24 September 1945 CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 4614, CDIB 38,NSA (TS). (Hereafter cited as Redman memorandum, 24September 1945.) 2. History of the Signal Security Agency in World WarII, “Organization, 1939-1945,” (ASA, 1945), Vol. I, Part I,90-103, History Collection, NSA, Series IV (TS).(Hereafter cited as History of the Signal SecurityAgency, Vol. I, Part 1.) 3. John W. McClaran, OP-20-G, memorandum for theDirector, 12 April 1933, (Documents on Pre-1952Cryptologic Organization and Policy, Vol. 1, (Pre-1942)),History Collection, NSA, Series VII (s). 4. The Navy had the primary responsibility for navalradio activities relating to all foreign powers, and for thediplomatic radio intelligence activities of the four majornaval powers (England, France, Italy, and Japan). TheArmy had the primary responsibility for military radiotraffic relating to all foreign powers, and for the diplo-matic traffic of all foreign powers other than England,France, Italy, and Japan. 5. Laurance F. Safford, OP-20-G, memorandum for OP-20, “Coordination of Intercept and Decrypting Activitiesof the Army and Navy,” 25 July 1940, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 4614, CBID 38,N5A (5). (Hereafter cited as Safford memorandum, 25July 1940) 6. Ibid. 7. Commander Laurance F. Safford and Colonel SpencerB. Akin, Directive to Joint Army-Navy Committee, 31July 1940, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, AccessionNo. 4614, CBIB 38, NSA (S). 8. Commander Laurance F. Safford, OP-20-G, memo-randum for Admiral Leigh Noyes, 27 July 1940,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 4614,CBIB 38, NSA (S). 9. Safford memorandum, 25 July 1940. 10. Ibid.

11. John R. Redman, OP-20-G, memorandum to the ViceChief of Naval Operations, “Cryptanalytical andDecryption Operations on Diplomatic Traffic,” 25 June1942, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No.4614, CBIB 38, NSA(S); and Laurance F. Safford, mem-orandum for OP-20-G, “Responsibility for Decoding andTranslating Japanese Intercepts,” 14 February 1946.History Collection, NSA, Special Series VII, Box 4.(Hereafter cited as Redman memorandum, 25 June1942 and Safford memorandum, 14 February 1946.) 12. Ibid. 13. Colonel Spencer B. Akin and Commander LauranceF. Safford, memorandum for Chief Signal Officer and theDirector of Naval Communication, Traffic Division, 3October 1940, History Collection, NSA. 14. Ibid.15. Safford memorandum, 14 February 1946. 16. Redman memorandum, 24 September 1945. 17. Joseph N. Wenger, Vice Director, NSA, memoran-dum for Grant Manson, Staff Member, BrownellCommittee, “Draft of Part I of the Brownell CommitteeReport,” 27 March 1952, History Collection, NSA, SeriesVI.C (TSC); History of the Signal Security Agency, PartI, 90. 18. Frederick D. Parker, A New View to Pearl Harbor:United States Navy Communication Intelligence, 1924-1941, United States Cryptologic History Series, (NSA,1988), Series IV, World War 11. Vol. II, 53-55,1988 (s). 19. Captain John R. Redman, memorandum for CaptainJoseph N. Wenger, (OP-20-G), “Army-Navy AgreementConcerning Allocation of Diplomatic Traffic,” 9 February1945, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No.4614, CBIB 38, NSA(TS). 20. Ibid. 21. Redman memorandum, 25 June 1942. 22. Safford memorandum, 25 July 1940. 23. Ibid. 24. Redman memorandum, 25 June 1942; and JosephN. Wenger, memorandum for OP-2o-G, “FutureCooperation between Army and Navy,” 1 June 1943,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 4614,CBIB 38, NSA(S). 25. Redman memorandum, 25 June 1942. 26. Joseph N. Wenger, memorandum for OP-20-G,“Future Cooperation between Army and Navy,” 1 June1943, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No.

4614, CBIB 38, NSA (S); and History of Signal SecurityAgency, World War 11, 93. 27. Report of the Army-Navy-FBI Allocation Committee,“Report of Conference Appointed to Study Allocation ofCryptanalysis,” 30 June 1942, Cryptologic: ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 4614, CBIB 38, NSA (s).(Hereafter cited as Report of Allocation Committee, 30June 1942.) 28. Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet andGeorge C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, memorandum for thePresident, 6 July 1942, Cryptologic Archival HoldingArea, Accession No. 4609, CBlB 38, NSA(S). 29. Franklin D. Roosevelt, memorandum for theDirector of the Budget. 8 July 1942, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 4609, CBIB 38, NSA(S)30. Redman memorandum, 25 September 1945.31. Report of Allocation Committee, 30 June 1942. Asummary of the committee’s allocation for cryptanalyisfollows: Diplomatic: Army Enemy Naval Operations: NavyEnemy Military Operations: Army Western Hemisphere Clandestine: FBI-Navy International,Clandestine(other than Western Hemisphere): Navy Trade Codes: (To be assigned by

Committee) Army Weather: Army Navy Weather: Navy Domestic Criminal: FBIVoice Broadcast: FBICover Text Communications: FBIMiscellaneous: (To be assigned by

Committee)

32. Report of Allocation Committee, 30 June 1942. 33. History of Signal Security Agency, Vol. I,Part 1, 121. 34. Ibid. 35. The NAVSECGRU Bulletin, Vol III, Number 2,March-April 1969 History Collection, NSA. Series XII.H(U).36. OP-20-G “Outline of the Collaboration inCryptanalysis Between the Army and the Navy,” 18August 1944, 7, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 4609, CBIB 38. (Hereafter cited as

Outline of Collaboration by Army and Navy, August1944.) 37. Outline of Collaboration by Army and Navy, August1944, 8 (TS). 38. George C. Marshall and Ernest J. King, “Joint Army-Navy Agreement for the Exchange of CommunicationsIntelligence” 4 February 1944, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 2465, CBIB 14, NSA (S).(Hereafter cited as Joint Army-Navy Agreement, 4February 1944.) 39. SRH-200, OP-20-G File on Army-NavyCollaboration, 1831-1945, Part 2, 7, Special ResearchHistory (SRH) 200; Record Group 457, NationalArchives. (Hereafter cited as RG-457, NSA.) 40. Briefing by Brigadier General Woodbury M. Burgess,USA, Assistant Director for Production, February 1957,File: Robertson Committee Background, HistoryCollection NSA, Series VI.C (8). 41. History of the Signal Security Agency, “TheJapanese Army Problem - Cryptanalysis,” 13 May 1947,Vol. 3, 24.42. Henry F. Schorreck. The Role of COMINT in theBattle of Midway, SRH 230, 00-457.43. Brownell Committee, Report to the Secretary of Stateand the SecDef, 13 June 1952, 22-29. History Collection.NSA, Series V.F (TSC). 44. Admiral Joseph R. Redman, OP-20, memorandumfor Admiral Edwards, “Formalization of Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee(ANCICC)–Need for,” 18 January 1940, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 2463, CBIB 14,NSA (TS). (Hereafter cited as Formalization of ANOCC,18 January 1945.) 45. Joseph N. Wenger, OP-20-G, memorandum for OP-20 via F20, Liaison,” 16 July 1945, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 7779, CBQM 36, NSA (U). 46. Dennis DeBrandt, “Structuring Intelligence ForWar,” CIA Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 32, No.1, Spring1988, 43-56 (U). 47. James S. Lay, CIA, draft manuscript, undated, enti-tled “History of USCIB,” Vol I, 3, History Collection,NSA, Series XII.H. Box 47 (8). (Hereafter cited as LayReport.) 48. Ibid. 49. During this period, intelligence requirements weregenerally handled on a service-to-service basis. For

example, the military consumers would originate theirintelligence requirements and forward them to therespective COMINT organizations for satisfaction.Following the establishment of USCIB, and the passageof the National Security Act of 1947, minor proceduralchanges in the process started to take place in the post-war years. The first major effort to change the require-ments process occurred in the mid-1960s with the estab-lishment of the Intelligence Guidance for COMINTProgramming (IGCP). Further changes took place in themid-1970s when the intelligence community establisheda National SIGINT Requirements System (NSRS) thatsuperseded the IGCP. 50. Lay Report, Vol. 1, 5.51. In 1941 New York lawyer William J. Donovan wasappointed Coordinator of Information (COI) byPresident Roosevelt. In 1942 this organization wasredesignated the Office of Strategic Services and trans-ferred to the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Itsmission was to collect and analyze strategic informationas required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conductspecial operations not assigned to other agencies. UnitedStates Government Organization Manual, Summer1944, 162. See also John Ranelagh, Thc Agency: TheRise and Decline of thc CIA (New York: Simon andSchuster, 1986). 52. Formalization of ANCICC, 18 January 1945. 53. Ibid. 54. J0seph N. Wenger, memorandum for the Chairman,USCIB, Report on the Status and Authority of USCIB,USCICC, its members and the Coordinator of JointOperations,” 7 February 1947, Appendix A, 1,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 5061,CBIB 23, NSA (TS). (Hereafter cited as Wenger Reportto USCIB, 7 February 1947.)55. Minutes of third meeting of Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee,19 June 1944, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 2154, CBPC 26, NSA (TSC). 56; General George C. Marshall, memorandum forAdmiral Ernest King, “Army-Navy Communication Intelligence Board–Establishment of,” 9 March 1945,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 2463,CBIB 14, NSA (TS). 57. Wenger Report to USCIB, 7 February 1947, Annex C-1.

58. Wenger Report to USCIB, 7 February 1947, Annex C-2.59. Formalization of ANCICC, 18 January 1945. 60. Ibid.61. ANCIB was primarily structured to serve as a coordi-nating mechanism for handling the joint plans and oper-ations of the Army and Navy COMINT organizations,and such other issues as could be resolved amicably.From the outset, however, ANCIB was intended to func-tion only as a brokering or coordinating organization,and not as an authoritarian voice. While the COMINTservices accepted ANCIB as a coordinating and negotiat-ing mechanism, they never viewed ANCIB’s charter asgiving it sufficient authority to cut across the commandchannels of the Army and Navy whenever disagreementsarose. The heads of the Army Security Agency and theNavy Supplementary Activity continued to be directlyresponsible to their respective military commanders. 62. Dean Acheson, Henry L. Stimson, and James V.Forrestal, joint memorandum for President Truman,“Collaboration with the British in the CommunicationIntelligence Field, Continuation and Extension of,”undated, History Collection, NSA., Series V.A (TSC).(Hereafter cited as Acheson, Stimson, and Forrestalmemorandum.) 63. Richard Hough, The Greatest Crusade - Roosevelt,Churchill, and the Naval Wars (New York: WilliamMorrow and Company, Inc. 1986), 25-27. 64. History of the Signal Security Agency, Vol. 1, Part I,144. 65. Lieutenant Commander Alwin D. Kramer, memo-randum for OP-20-G, “Cryptanalysis: FBI Activities andLiaison with the British,” 8 June 1942, HistoryCollection, NSA Series XII.H. Box No. 47 (S). 66. Franklin D. Roosevelt., memorandum for GeneralMarshall, dated 9 July 1942. Text of memorandum isquoted in History of the Signal Security Agency inWorld War II, Vol. 1. Part I, 118. 67. Ibid. 68. Major General George V. Strong, Assistant Chief ofStaff, G-2, memorandum for Chief of Staff, 9 July 1942.Text of memorandum is quoted in History of the SignalSecurity Agency, Vol. 1, Part I, 110. 69. Lieutenant General Joseph T. McNarney, USA,Deputy Chief of Staff’, memorandum for the Chief ofStaff, “ Agreement between British Government Code

and Cipher School. and U.S. War Department in regardto certain Special Intelligence,” 10 June 1943,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 2401,CBTJ 66, NSA(S). 70. Outline of Collaboration by Army and Navy, August1944, 44-48. 71. Formalization of ANCICC, 18 January 1940. 72. Ibid. 73. Minutes of 27th meeting of the State-Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee,13 February 1946, History Collection, NSA. Series XII.H,Box 37 (TS). 74. Rear Admiral Hewlett Thebaud, Chairman,ANCIB,memorandum for General Clayton Bissell, Admiral JohnR. Redman, and General W. Preston Corderman,“British Reply to U.S. Proposal” 15 August 1945,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 7779,CBQM 36, NSA (TSC). (Hereafter cited as British Reply.)75. John F. Callahan and Wason G. Campbell,Secretariat of STANCIB/STANCICC, memorandum formembers of STANCICC, “Establishment of a U.S.Combined Intelligence Liaison Center in Great Britain,”3 May 1946, Cryptologic Archival Holding, Area,Accession No. 2156, CBPC 27, NSA(S). 76. Ibid.77. Acheson, Stimson, and Forrestal memorandum. 78. Harry S. Truman, memorandum for Secretaries ofState, War, and Navy, 12 September 1946, HistoryCollection, NSA. Series V.A (TS). 79. Minutes of the 22nd meeting of Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee,16 October 1945, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 2154, CBPG 26, NSA(TSC). 80. Rear Admiral Joseph R. Redman, Senior Member,ANCIB, memorandum for General Eisenhower andAdmiral King, 13 December 1945. “State DepartmentRepresentation on ANCIB-ANCICC,” CryptologicArchival Holding Area. Accession No. 5061, CBIB 23,Annex 0-2, 1, NSA (TSC). 81. Rear Admiral Joseph R. Redman, Senior Member.ANCIB, memorandum for Alfred McCormack, “StateDepartment Representation on ANCIB-ANCICC,” 11December 1945, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 5061, CBIB 23, Annex 0.2, 2, NSA (TS).Alfred McCormack entered the War Department as spe-cial assistant to Henry Stimson, secretary of war in 1942.

He was appointed deputy chief special branch. MilitaryIntelligence Division, War Department General Staff on17 June 1942. In 1944 he became director of Intelligence,Military Service, in charge of providing intelligence forthe Operations and Planning Division and for the com-mand in all theaters of war. On 1 October 1945McCormack became special assistant to James F.Byrnes, secretary of state, with the task of organizing anintelligence unit in that department. He resigned fromState in April 1946.

Chapter II

1. The Navy provided posthumous recognition ofAdmiral Wenger on 7 July 1976, with the dedication ofthe Rear Admiral Joseph N. Wenger Naval CryptologicMuseum. In the dedication ceremony, special note wasmade of his “helping to establish the Armed ForcesSecurity Agency and later serving as Vice Director of itssuccessor, the National Security Agency.” 2. Minutes of the 14th meeting of Army-NavyCommunications Intelligence Coordinating Committee,9 May 1945, Section III (Army Proposal RegardingArmy-Navy Collaboration), 7-8, Accession No. 2154,CBPC, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS).Captain J.N. Wenger, OP-20-G, memorandum forCaptain W.R. Smedberg, III (F-20). “Policy regardingcollaboration between the Army and the Navy in theCommunication Intelligence Field,” 30 May 1945,Accession No. 5061 N. CBIB 23, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (S). 3. Minutes of 8th meeting of Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Coordinating Committee, 8November 1944, Section (Joint American-BritishPostwar Agreement), 6-8, Accession No. 2154, CBPC 26,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 4. OP-20-G staff study, “Outline of the Collaboration inCryptanalysis between the Army and Navy,” 18 August1944, Part VII (Discussions prior to 1944), 55-69,Accession No, 2468, CBIB 15, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 5. Ibid., 58. 6. George C. Marshall, memorandum to Admiral King,“Signal Intelligence,” 18 August 1945, Accession No.5061 N, CBSB 23, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TSC).

7. Fleet Admiral ErnestJ. King, memorandum forGeneral George C. Marshall, “Signal lntelligence,” 20August 1945, Enclosure B to ANCIB minutes, 21 August1945, Accession No. 2155, CBPC 27 , CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 8. John V. Connorton and Robert F. Packard,Secretariat, ANCICC, memorandum for theSubcommittee on Merger Planning (SMP), 30 August1945, Accession No. 2468, CBIB 15, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 9. John V. Connorton and Robert F. Packard,Secretariat. ANCICC, memorandum to members ofANCICC. “Recommendations of SMP concerning a loca-tion for the merged Army-Navy C.I. Organization,” 7September 1945, Accession No. 2468, CBIB 15,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area NSA(TS). 10. Ibid. 11. Brigadier General W. Preston Corderman, USA,Acting Chairman, ANCICC, memorandum for ANCIB,“Merging of Army-Navy Communication IntelligenceActivities,” 26 September 1945, Accession No. 2468,CBIB 15, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 12. Ibid. 13. See Documentary Appendix to Part I, History ofAFSA/NSA (Hereafter referred to as DocumentaryAppendix for AFSA/NSA) (Enclosure A), HistoryCollection, NSA, Series V.A.(TS). Copies of all of the let-ters in the Eisenhower and Nimitz exchange of 1945 con-cerning merger are included in this file.14. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, USN, memorandum forSecretary of the Navy, “The Navy’s lnterest in theProcessing of Intercepted Foreign Communication.” 14October 1946, Accession No. 2468, CBIB 15, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 15. See Documentary Appendix A for AFSA/NSA, Item11. 16. See Documentary Appendix A for AFSA/NSA, Item12. 17. Memorandum, STANCICC to STANCIB,“Coordination of the Army and Navy ConmunicationIntelligence Activities,” 15 February 1946 (Incl. A of min-utes of STANCIB-STANCICC joint meeting, 15 February1946), History Collection, NSA. Series XII.H. Box 36(TSC).18. Ibid.

19. Joseph N. Wenger, OP-20-G, memorandum forCaptain W.K. Smedberg, III, (F-20), “Policy regardingcollaboration between the Army and Navy in theCommunication Intelligence Field,” 30 May 1945,Accession No. 506lN, CBSB 23, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 20. Minutes of 27th meeting of the State-Army-NavyCommunications Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee,13 February 1948, History Collection, NSA.Serial XII.H, Box 37 (TS). 21. Minutes of joint meeting of the State-Army-NavyCommunication Intelligence Board and the State-Army-Navy Intelligence Coordinating Committee, 15 February1946, History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 36.(TSC). 22. Ibid. 23. British-United States Communication IntelligenceAgreement, 5 March 1946, History Collection, NSA,Series XII.H. Box 47 (TSC). 24. See Wenger Collection in Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area for information and chronology concern-ing the development of the separate appendices to theBRUSA Agreement. See Accession No. 9090 and 9091,CBIB 24. 25. Colonel W. Preston Corderman and Captain JosephN. Wenger, memorandum for STANCIB, “Coordinationof Army and Navy Communication IntelligenceActivities,” 5 April 1946, Cryptologic Archival HoldingArea, Accession No. 2468, CBIB 15, NSA (TS). (Hereafterreferred to as Corderman-Wenger Agreement.) The datafor approval, 22 April 1946, is that given in CaptainWenger’s memorandum to Chairman, UBCIB, “Reporton the status and authority of USCIB-USCICC, its mem-bers and the Coordinator of Joint Operations,” 7February 1947. (Annex A, Item 19). See Accession No.5061 N, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area. NSA (TS). 26. Ibid.27. See Dr. George F. Howe’s “Narrative History ofAFSA/NSA,” Part I, 28-30, History Collection, NSA,Series V.A. (TSC). (Hereafter cited as Howe’s “History ofAFSA/NSA”). 28. Minutes of joint STANCIB/STANCICC meeting, 15February 1946 (Item 3), History Collection, NSA, Series,XII.H. Box 36 (TS). 29. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” 28-30.

30. E.M. Huddleson, Jr., Director, Special Projects Staff,Department of State, memoranda for the Coordinator ofJoint Operations, “Communications IntelligencePriorities,” 24 June and 19 November 1946, AccessionNo. 1984, CBPC 27, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TSC). 31. Corderman-Wenger Agreement.32. Memorandum for CJO, Subject: Report of JointIntercept Control Group for the period 1 April 1946 to 28February 1947,6 March 1947, from Lieutenant ColonelMorton A. Rubin, USA. Cryptologic Archival HoldingArea, Accession No. 1379, CBPB 57, NSA (TS). 33. See enclosure to Corderman-Wenger Agreement of 5April 1946, entitled “Coordination of the Army and NavyCommunication Intelligence Activities, 15 February1946,” Accession No. 2468, CBIC 15, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (S). 34. Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, Director. FBI,Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Chairman,STANCIB, 14 February 1946, included as Annex Q tomemorandum for members of USCICC, 25 August 1945,Accession No. 5061 N, CBIB 23, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (Restricted). 35. Copy of memorandum from Lieutenant GeneralHoyt S. Vandenberg, USA, Chairman, STANCIB, to J.Edgar Hoover, Director, FBI. “FBI Representation onSTANCIB,” 4 June 1946, included as Annex S to memo-randum for members of USBCICC, 25 August 1945,Accession No. 5061, CBIB 23, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (Restricted). 36. Major General S.J. Chamberlin, Senior Member,USCIB, memorandum for Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, DCI, “Central Intelligence GroupRepresentation on USCIB,” 3 July 1946. For text ofmemorandum see J.N. Wenger memorandum for theChairman, USCIB, “Report on Status and Authority ofUSCIB-USCICC.” 7 February 1947, Annex U, AccessionNo. 5061, CBSB 23, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TS). 37. See Accession Nos. 1984 and 1377, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA, for a great variety of corre-spondence concerning the intelligence requirements ofthe civilian members of USCIB. These requirements areoriginated by the Department of State, CIA, and the FBI,and are addressed to the intelligence and priorities com-mittees of USCIB and the CJO.

38. J.N. Wenger, memorandum for CJO, “PriorityProblems,” 24 October 1946, Accession No. 1984, CBSC27, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). Seealso minutes of 34th meeting of USCICC (Item 3), 9October 1946, History Collection. NSA, Series XII.H.Box 37 (TSC). 39. Grant Manson, State Department Member Of USCIBIntelligence Committee, “State Department Proposalsfor Modification of Requirements Expression,” 25February 1949, Accession No. 7674, CBSC 72,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 40. George F. Howe Historical Study of COMINT underthe Joint Operating Plan, 1946-1949, 164-65, HistoryCollection, NSA, Series V.E (TSC). 41. Ibid. 42. Minutes of 30th meeting USCIB, 27 April 1948, withenclosure (UBCIB: 5/36, 9 April 1948), HistoryCollection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 37 (TSC). 43. Historical Study, Joint Operating Plan, 165.44. Ibid., 164.

Chapter III

1. One year later, further changes took place at thenational level, which primarily involved the militaryservices and the defense establishment. Congress, inAugust 1949, amended the National Security Act con-verting the National Military Establishment into theDepartment of Defense, and making it a cabinet-levelagency. By this time, there was a new secretary ofdefense, Louis A. Johnson. The new act made the threemilitary services subordinate departments within thenew Department of Defense structure. At the same time,Johnson acquired unqualified authority and control overthe entire organization and became the “principal assis-tant to the President in all matters relating to theDepartment of Defense.” Steven L. Rearden, The Historyof the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The FormativeYears, 1947-1950, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: HistoricalOffice, Office of the SecDef, 1984), 53-60. (Hereaftercited as Rearden, The Formative Years.) 2. United States Communications lntelligence Board,Organizational Bulletin No. II, 31 July 1946, 8, HistoryCollection. NSA., Series XII.H. Box 34 (TS). (Hereaftercited as USCIB Organizational Bulletin.) 3. Ibid., 6-7.

4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. On 10 March 1945 General George C. Marshall, andAdmiral Ernest J. King co-signed a Joint Memorandumto the Assistant Chief of Staff (G-2) and theCommanding General, Signal Security Agency and theDirector of Naval Intelligence and the Director of NavalCommunications, which formally established the Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board. For the textof memorandum see the USCIB Organizational Bulletin,2-3. 7. The term ULTRA is generally used to refer to theBritish exploitation of German messages encrypted onthe Enigma machine. The term MAGIC refers broadly tothe work of the United States in reading high-level diplo-matic communications of the Japanese in the PacificTheater, primarily on the Purple machine. 8. See Rearden, The Formative Years, 141.9. Lay Report. 10. Thomas F. Troy. Donovan and the CIA: A History ofthe Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency(Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study ofIntelligence, 1981), 305-40. (Hereafter cited as Troy,History of CIA) 11. See Troy, History of CIA, 464, for the text of Trumanmemorandum to the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy. 12. Ibid., 351. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. See Rearden, The Formative Years, 23-27. 16. Ibid., 24-27. 17. Ibid. 18. For the text of Truman memorandum establishingthe Central Intelligence Group (CIG), see Troy, Historyof CIA, 464. 19. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part 1, 143. 20. Minutes of the 21st and 22d meetings of USCIB, 4and 19 November 1947, History Collection, NSA, SeriesXII.H. Box 36 (TS). 21. See minutes of 25th and 27th meetings of the UnitedStates Communication Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee (USCICC), 17 February 1946 and 23 October1946, 4-5 and 3-6, History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H.Box 36 (TS). 22. Starting with its 21st meeting on 4 November 1947,USCIB discussed the question of ‘“control” authorities

over USCIB during many meetings. (Hereafter cited asminutes of 21st Meeting of USCIB.) In particular, seeminutes for the 25th meeting of USCIB, 19 December1947, History Collection, NSA, Series XIL.H. Box 36(TSC). 23. See minutes of 21st meeting of USCIB. 24. W. Park Armstrong, Jr., Special Assistant to theSecretary for Research and Intelligence, memorandumto all the members of USCIB. “Amended Draft of NSCIDEstablishing USCIB,” 7 June 1948, History Collection,NSA, Series XII.H. Box 34 (c). (Hereafter cited asArmstrong memorandum, 7 June 1948). 25. Minutes of 26th, 27th, and 28th meeting of USCIB, 6,20 January 1948 and 3 February 1948, HistoryCollection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 38 (TS). 26. Lay Report, 32-34. See also minutes of 28th meetingof USCIB, 3 February 1948. 27. See minutes of 26th meeting of USCIB, 6 January1948. 28. Ibid. 29. See minutes of 28th meeting of USCIB, 3 February1948. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Forrestal memorandum for Secretaries of Army,Navy and Air Force, 13 February 1948, Spint File, CIAArchives, Langley, USCIB Charter (TS). 33. Grant Manson, State Department Liaison Officer,memorandum to Park Armstrong, Special Assistant.State Department, 3 March 1948, History Collection,NSA, Series XII.H. Box 47 (S) 34. lbid. 35. Grant Manson, State Department Liaison Officer,memorandum for the record, “Current Developments onthe Charter,” 23 March 1948, History Collection, NSA,Series XII.H. Box 47 (TS). 36. R. H. Hillenkoetter, DCI, memorandum toLieutenant General S.J. Chamberlin, Chairman, USCIB,22 March 1948, History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H.Box 47 (S). 37. Lay Report, 34-35. 38. Lay Report, 34-36. 39. See minutes of 31st meeting of USCIB, 13 May 1948. 40. See Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA” for an excellentaccount of this entire sequence concerning the USCIBcharter. In particular, see 122-29.

41. See Armstrong memorandum, 7 June 1948. Theenclosure to the basic memorandum summarizes the forissues between CIA and other members of USCIB con-cerning the charter controversy. 42. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” 126-28. 43. Grant Manson, memorandum, “Various ViewsConcerning Developments on the Charter,” 25 March1948, History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 47 (TS). 44. See Armstrong memorandum of 7 June 1948. 45. C. T.R. Adams and J.E. Fitzpatrick, Ad HocSecretariat, memorandum for the DCI, “Action agreedupon at the time of the Ad Hoc meeting of the IAC heldat 1410 on 11 June 1948,” History Collection, NSA, SeriesXII.H. Box 34 (C). Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter,DCI, memorandum for the Executive Secretary of theNational Security Council, “Proposed NSC IntelligenceDirective, Communication Intelligence,” 11 June 1948,History Collection, NSA, Series XII .H. Box 34 (S). 46. NSCID No.9, “Communications Intelligence,” July1948, History Collection, NSA, Series V.A. (C).

Chapter IV

1. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part I, 1-26. 2. Joseph N. Wenger, USN, memorandum for Director,AFSA, “Consolidation of CSA and ASA.” 12 July 1949,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 3791,CBPI 48, NSA (TS). 3. Interview of Stuart MacClintock, 25 February 1986, byRobert D. Farley, OH-05-88, Center for CryptologicHistory, NSA (S). 4. Joseph N. Wenger, OP-20-G, memorandum for CivilService Board, Staff and OINC NEGAT, Authority ofCivil Service Appointees,” 24 April 1946, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 3791, CBPI 48,NSA (TS). 5. Joseph N. Wenger, memorandum for OP-20, “CivilService,” 18 December 1945, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 3791, CBPI 48, NSA (TS). 6. Woodbury M. Burgess, USAF, “Briefing of RobertsonCommittee,” 1957, History Collection, NSA, Series VI.C. 7. Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army, memoran-dum for James V. Forrestal, “United Armed ForcesSecurity Agency,” 24 July 1948. Accession No. 2459,CBID 14, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (U).

8. Report of the Joint Committee of the Investigation ofthe Pearl Harbor Attack, U.S. Congress, 1946, 253, NSACryptologic Collection, NSA (U). 9. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part I, 144-46.10. Rearden, The Formative Years, 53-56. 11. James V. Forrestal, memorandum to Secretaries ofthe Army, Navy, and Air Force, “Terms of Reference forthe Committee on the Creation of a Unified ArmedForces Security Agency ,” 19 August 1948, HistoryCollection, NSA, Series VII. Box 4 (S) (Hereafter cited asForrestal Letter.) 12. Ibid. 13. Minutes of the 1st meeting of the Committee on theCreation of a Unified Armed Forces Security Agency, 7September 1948, History Collection, NSA, Series V.F(TS). 14. Forrestal Letter. 15. Earl E. Stone, memorandum for SecDef, “Committeeon the Creation of a Unified Armed Forces SecurityAgency–Report of,” 30 December 1948, HistoricalCollection, NSA, Series V.F (TS). (Hereafter cited asStone Board Report). 16. Ibid., (Tab D–Army View). 17 .Ibid., 6. 18. Ibid., 6. 19. Ibid., 5. 20. Ibid., (Part A), 9. 21. Minutes of 41st meeting of USCIB, 17 June 1949(USCIB 25/1), “Establishment of Armed Forces SecurityAgency “ History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 37(TSC). (Hereafter cited as 41st meeting of USCIB.) 22. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, DCI, memorandum forSeeDef, “Report of the Committee on the Creation of aUnified Armed Forces Security Agency,” 14 January1949, History Collection, NSA, Serisa XII.H. Box 38(TSC). 23. 41st meeting of USCIB, and Howe’s “History ofAFSA/NSA,” 155. 24. Brownell Committee, Report to the Secretary of Stateand SecDef, 13 June 1952, p. 21, History Collection, NSA,Seriea V.F (TSC). (Hereafter cited as Brownell Report.) 25. Minutes of 13th meeting of AFSAC, 28 April 1960,(AFSAC 25/74), 14-15, History Collection, NSA, SeriesXII.A (TS). 26. George F. Howe, “The Early History of NSA,”Cryptologic Spectrum, (Spring 1974), 11-17.

27. Howe’s History of AFSA/NSA, 158-59. 28. Rearden, The Formative Years, 410-22. 29. Captain Paul R. Schratz, USN (Ret.), “The Admiral’sRevolt,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (February1986). 30. Interview of Brigadier General Carter W. Clarke, 3May 1983, by Robert D. Farley, OH-03-83, HistoryCollection, NSA. (Hereafter cited as Carter Clarke inter-view.) 31. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” 59. 32. Louis Johnson, memorandum for the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, “Organization of Cryptologic Activities within theNational Military Establishment,” 20 May 1949,Accession No. 6490, CBIB 44, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area (TS). (Hereafter cited as Johnson DirectiveEstablishing AFSA)33. Louis Johnson, letter to Secretary of State, 20 May1949, Accession No. 6490, CBIB 44, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 34. Johnson Directive establishing AFSA. 35. 41st meeting of USCIB. 36. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” 165-66. 37. Minutes of 41st meeting of USCIB. 38. Johnson Directive establishing AFSA. 39. JCS 2010/6, Charter for Armed ForcesCommunication. Intelligence Advisory Council, 28 July1949, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No.1404, CBSD 11, NSA.(TS). (Hereafter cited as JCS2010/6.) 40. JCS 2010/12, Change in title of “Armed ForcesComunications Intelligence Advisory Council,”Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 1404,CBDD 11, NSA (TS). 41. While Stone reported as Director on 15 July 1949, theearlier date of Johnson’s Directive, 20 May 1949, is gen-erally cited as the date for the establishment of AFSA. 42. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part II, 3-6.43. Ibid.

44. AFSAC 25/29, Progress Report as of 30 January1950 by Director, AFSA, to AFSAC, 27 January 1950,Accession No. 5253, CBSB 71, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area. NSA (TS) and Howe’s “History ofAFSA/NSA,” Part II, 15-45. Howe’s “History ofAFSA/NSA,” Part II, 15. 46. Ibid. Part II, 40.

47. Travis M. Hetherington, Chief Plans and PolicyDivisions, memorandam for General Canine,“Establishment of a USCIB Coordinator’s Group,” 13May 1952, with enclosure,. 3-4 of enclosure, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 2960, CBSB 33,NSA (TS). 48. Ibid. 49. Earl Stone, memorandum for members of AFSAC,Progress Reports of 30 January 1950,” 27 January 1950,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 5253,NSA (TS). 50. Johnson Directive establishing AFSA. 51. AFSA/Air Force Agreement on Task Assignment toAFSS Mobile Intercept Sites, 22 September 1950(AFSAC: 60/24), Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 4820, CBSB 57, NSA (TS). 52. Joseph N. Wenger, memorandum to George F.Howe, NSA Historian. Comments on Historical Study,25 May 1960, Part D, XII, History Collection, NSA,Series VI.D (TS). (Hereafter cited as Wenger, commentson AFSA/NSA History.) 53. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” 78-30, 92-94. 54. JCS 2010/23, “Division of Responsibility betweenArmed Forces Security Agency and the MilitaryServices,” 18 November 1950,Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, Accession No. 1404, CBDD 11, NSA.(TS). 55. Ibid. 56. During 1949 and 1950, CIA and State continuallystressed the issue of their lack of an authoritative role inUSCIB activities. In particular, see minutes of 41st meet-ing of USCIB, 17 June 1949, 2-8, History Collection,NSA, Series XII.H. Box 34 (TS). 57. Louis W. Tordella, “Presentation to Eachus StudyGroup,” 10 September 1968, 12, History Collection, NSA,Series VI.D (TSC). 58. Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, Director, AFSA, memo-randum for Assistant Chief or Staff, G-2, Director ofNaval Intelligence, Director of Intelligence, USAF,“F0rmulation of Special Intelligence Requirements,” 18August 1950, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 39058, NSA. (TS). 59. JCS 2010/28, “Succession of Directors, ArmedForces Security Agency,” 17 February 1951, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, Accession No. 1404, CBDD 11,NSA. (TS).

60. Ibid., and Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA”, Part II,137. 61. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part II, 137-38. 62. Interview of Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, 9 February1983, by Robert D. Farley, OH-03-83, Center forCryptologic History, NSA and Wenger, commentsAFSA/NSA History, Center for Cryptoogic History, NSA. 63. Carter Clarke interview. 64. Major General Ralph J. Canine, Director, NSA,Presentation to Agency seniors at Arlington Hall Station,25 November 1952, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 4918, CBNB 61, NSA (TS).

Chapter V

1. See minutes for 48th meeting of USCIB, concerningCONSIDO, 13 January 1950. Accession No. 6490 (Folder#2), Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TSC). 2. Howe’s “History of AFSA/NSA,” Part II, 126-29. 3. Louis Johnson, memorandum for the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, “Maximum Exploitation of COMINT,” 19 May1949, with enclosure, Accession No. 6491, CBIB 45,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TSC).(Hereafter cited as Johnson Memorandum, 19 May1949, concerning CONSIDO.) 4. Ibid. 5. Major General S. Leroy Irwin, USA, Director ofIntelligence, memorandum for Joint IntelligenceCommittee, “Conference with General McNarney onDraft. CONSIDO Paper,” 20 October 1949, AccessionNo. 6491, CBIB 45, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TS). 6. Johnson memorandum, 19 May 1949, concerningCONSIDO. 7. USCIB 26/1, Item 7 of the Agenda for 47th meeting ofUSCIB, 2 December 1949, “Presentation of Draft CON-SIDO Paper,” Accession No. 6490 (Folder 12), CBIB 45,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 8. USCIB 26/4 Item 2, Section I, of the Agenda for the48th meeting of USCIB, held 13 January 1950, “DraftProposal on the Establishment of CONSIDO,” AccessionNo. 6490 (Folder #1), CBIB 44, CBIB, HistoryCollection, NSA (TSC). (Hereafter cited as USCIB 26/4,13 January 1950.) 9. USCIB 26/4, 13 January 1950.

10. Rear Admiral R.H. Hillenkoetter, USN, DCI, memo-randum for USCIB Members, 12 January 1950,Accession No. 6491, CBIB 45, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area. NSA. (TSC). 11. USCIB 26/4, 13 January 1950. 12. Ibid. 13. USCIB 26/7, Item 2 of the Agenda for the 49th meet-ing of USCIB, held on 16 March 1950, “Draft Proposal onEstablishment of CONSIDO,” History Collection, NSA,Series XII.H. Box 38.1 (TSC). 14. USCIB 26/13, Item 2 of the Agenda for the 53rdmeeting of USCIB, held on 14 July 1950, “Draft Proposalon Establishment of CONSIDO,” History Collection,NSA, Series XII.H. Box 38.1 (TS.) 15. See minutes of 30th meeting of USCIB, 27 April 1948,2-7, w/encl (memorandum for Rear Admiral Roscoe H.Hillenkoetter, Director, Central Intelligence, forLieutenant General S.J. Chamberlin. Rear Admiral T .B.Inglis, and Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, dated 21 April1948. History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H, Box 38.1(TSC)16. Charles P. Collins, CIA, Chairman, USCIBIntelligence Committee, memorandum to Coordinatorof Joint Operations, “Recurrent lntelligenceRequirements List No. 3.” 15 May 1950, Accession No.1378, CBPS 57, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA(TSC). 17. Ibid. 18. Captain Mason, Chief of Office Operations, teletypemessage for Captain Wenger, V/DIR, undated, butapparently originated soon after the start of the KoreanWar. During this period, there existed a teletype circuit(known as “pony” circuit) between the Office ofOperations at Arlington Hall Station and the AFSADirectorate at Naval Security Station. The circuit wasused primarily for exchange of operational communica-tion between AFSA officials. Copy of message is inWenger Collection. See Accession No. 9139, CBIB 26,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TSC).(Hereafter cited as Mason to Wenger Message.) 19. The U.S. COMINT Effort During the Korean Conflict,June 1950 - August 1963, unpublished manusript, 8January 1954), 1-2, History Collection, NSA, Series V.M(TSC). (Hereafter Korea.) 20. Ibid., 2.21. Ibid., 3.

22. Mason to Wenger Message.23. Korea, 2-3. 24. Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, Director, AFSA, memo-randum for Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Director ofNaval Intelligence, Director of lntelligence, USAF,“Formulation of Special lntelligence Requirements,” 18August 1950, Accession No. 39058A, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (TS). See also responsesfrom Army, Navy, and Air Force as promulgated byAFSAC 6O/25, Accession No. 39058A, NSA (TS). 25. Korea, 33-34, 57-58. 26. Louis Johnson, memorandum for the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, “Organization of Cryptologic Activities within theNational Military Establishment,” 20 May 1949,Accession No. 1404, CBDD 11, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 27. Brigadier General W.N. Gilmore, Chief, ASA, memo-randum for Major General Bolling, Assistant Chief ofStaff, G-2, “Korean lntercept Effort Prior to the Outbreakof Korean Hostilities,” 5 October 1950, Accession No.9139, CBIB 26, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA(TSC). 28. AFSAC 60/26: Report by the Director, AFSA, to theJoint Chiefs of Staff, via the Armed Forces SecurityAgency Council, “Division of Responsibility BetweenAFSA and the Services,” 18 September 1950, AccessionNo. 5864 (Folder #3), CBIB, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 29. Ibid. See also Joint memorandum from RearAdmiral Felix Johnson, Director of Naval Intelligence,Rear Admiral John R. Redman, Director of NavalCommunications, and Captain L.S. Howeth, HeadSecurity Branch, Naval Communications, for Chairman,Armed Forces Security Agency Council, “Comments onAFSAC 60/26,” 27 October 1950, Accession No. 5864(Folder #3), CBIB 31, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TS). 30. Stone wrote these informal remarks on the Army’sresponse to AFSAC 60/30, 19 October 1950, AccessionNo. 9092, CBIB 24, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TS). 31. AFSAC 60/30, 19 October 1950: Major General C.P.Cabell, Director of lntelligence, USA, memorandum forChairman, AFSAC, “Report by DIRAFSA, AFSAC60/26,” Accession No. 5864 (Folder #3), CBIB 31,

Wenger Collection, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TS). 32. AFSAC 60/33, 24 October 1950: Major GeneralAlexander R. Bolling, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 mem-orandum for Chairman, AFSAC, “Comments on AFSAC60/26,” Accession No. 9092, CBIB 24, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 33. Memorandum for the Record by Captain Joseph N.Wenger, Deputy Director, AFSA, “Comments on AFSAC60/26,” November 1960, Accession No. 5864, (Folder#3) CBIB 31, Wenger Collection, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 34. Captain Joseph N. Wenger, USN, Deputy Director,AFSA, memorandum for Director, AFSA, “ArmyComments on AFSAC 60/26,” 26 October 1950,Accession No. 5864, CBIB 31, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). (Hereafter cited as Wengermemorandum, 26 October 1950). 35. Wenger memorandum, 26 October 1950. See alsomemorandum from Captain Rufus L. Taylor, OP-32,“Comments on JCS 2010/24,” 15 January 1951,Accession No. 5864, CBIB 31, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 36. Wenger memorandum, 26 October 1950. 37. Admiral Earl E. Stone, Director, AFSA, memoran-dum for Major General Alexander R. Bolling, USA,“AFSAC 60/26,” 1 November 1950, Accession No. 9092,CBIB 31, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). 38. AFSAC 60/42: Admiral Earl E. Stone, Director,AFSA, memorandum for Members of AFSAC, “Divisionof Responsibility Between AFSA and the MilitaryServices,” 24 November 1950, Accession No. 6864, CBIB31, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS).39. Minutes of 53rd meeting of USCIB, 14 July 1950, 6-11 (USCIB 77/4: Selective Intelligence Mobilization),History Collection, NSA. Series XII.H. Box 36.1 (TS). 40. Consumer Liaison Units, 1949-1957, April 1957, 7-10. Accession No. 10684, CBRI 52, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TSC). (Hereafter cited as ConsumerLiaison)41. Ibid., 2-11 42.Ibid., 3-11.43. Colonel Roy H. Lynn, memorandum for Coordinatorof Joint Operations, “Scheduling of USCIB CommitteeMeetings,” 2 May 1949, Accession No. 1426, CBPB 63,Cryptologic Archival Ho1ding Area NSA (S). Colonel

David Wade, USAF, Vice Commander, memorandum forCJO, “Transmission of Classified Material to thisHeadquarters,” 9 May 1949, Accession No. 1426, CBPB83, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (S). 44. Consumer Liaison, 19-23. 45. Ibid. 46. Within the State Department, the Special ProjectsStaff (SPS) became responsible for the receipt and dis-semination of COMINT. In May 1947, Robert F. Packardserved as the first COMINT liaison officer for the SPS,which was then located at the Pentagon. See ConsumerLiaison, 33-34. 47. Minutes of 53rd meeting of USCIB, 14 July 1960, 6-11, (USCIB 77/4.: Selective Mobilization), HistoryCollection, NSA, Series XII.H, Box 38.1 (TS). 48. T. Achilles Polyzoides, Director, Special ProjectsStaff, Department of Stete, memorandum for Director,AFSA, “Establishment of a Department of State (SpecialProjects Staff) Liaison Unit at AFSA 02,” 25 June 1951,History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H (TS). AdmiralStone, Director, AFSA, memorandum for the SpecialAssistant, Department of State, ‘“Establishment of aDepartment of State (Special Project. Staff) Liaison Unitat AFSA 02,” 5 July 1951, History Collection, NSA, SeriesXIl.H (TS). 49. See minutes of 30th meeting of USCIB, 27 April1948, 2-7, w/encl (memorandum for Rear AdmiralRoscoe H. Hillenkoetter, Director, Central Intelligence,for Lieutenant General S.J. Chamberlin, Rear AdmiralT.D. Inglis, and Rear Admiral Earl E. Stone, dated 21April 1948. History Collection, NSA Series XII.H, Box 38(TSC). 50. Ibid.51. Minutes of 41st meeting of USCIB, 17 June 1949(USCIB 25/1) “Establishment of Armed Forces SecurityAgency,” History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 38.1(TSC) 52. AFSA/Air Force Agreement on Task Assignments toAFSS Mobile Intercept Sites, 22 September 1950(AFSAC 60/24), Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,Accession No. 4820, CBSB 57, NSA (TS). Wenger“Comments on Historical Study.” 53. Major General Charles A. Willoughby, G-2, Far EastCommand. message dated 12/1908Z March 1951,addressed to ACSI, Washington, Accession No. 9139,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TS). Captain

J.S. Holtwick, USN, Chief, Office of Operations, memo-randum for B.K. Buffham and H. Conley, “Visit to FEC,”12 March 1951, Accession No. 9139, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (9). Major General Charles A.Willoughby, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Far EastCommand, memorandum for Herbert Conley andBenson K. Buffham, 15 March 1951, Accession No. 9139,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, NSA (TSC). Reportof Tour of Far East Command, by B.K. Buffham and H.L.Conley, 4 April 1951, Accession No. 9139, CryptologicArchival Holding Area, NSA (TSC), 54. Brownell Committee, Report to the Secretary of Stateand SecDef, 13 June 1952. 62, History Collection, NSA,Series V.F . (TSC). (Hereafter cited as Brownell Report.) 55. Ibid. See also Captain Redfield Mason, Chief, AFSA02, memorandum for Commanding General, ASA,“Korean Linguists for ASAPAC,” 1 August 1950,Accession No. 9139, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area,NSA (TSC). 56. These improvements are generally attributed to theintervention of Soviet advisors who became alarmedover the communications procedures of the NorthKoreans. See Richard Chun, “A Bit on the KoreanCOMINT Effort,” (unpublished manuscript, 1971), 3,History Collection, NSA, Series V.M. (TSC). 57. Robert E. Drake, “The COMINT Role in the KoreanWar,” (unpublished manuscript, Circa 1954), 6, HistoryCollection, NSA, Series V.M (TSC). 58. Louis W. Tordella, “Presentation to Eachus StudyGroup,” 10 September 1968, 12, History Collection, NSA,Series VLD (TSC). 58. The minutes of the USCIB meetings from 1949-1950provide evidence of the beginning of a gradual change inthe attitude of the CIA representatives. DCIHillenkoetter, who served as the third DCI from 1 May1947-7 October 1950, became more assertive in hisefforts to carve out a greater role for CIA in the nationalintelligence process. In particular, see USCIB 26/4, 13January 1950. See also the minutes of the 41st meeting ofUSCIB, concerning the establishment of AFSA, 17 June1949. History Collection, NSA, Series XII.H. Box 38.1(TSC). (Hereafter cited as minutes of 41st meeting ofUSCIB, 17 June 1949.)

Chapter VI

1. During the USCIB meetings of 1949 and 1950, CIA andState continually raised the issues of their lack of anauthoritative voice in guiding the activities of AFSA. Inparticular, see the minutes of the 41st meeting of USCIB,17 June 1949, 2-8, History Collection, NSA, Series X.II.H(TS). (Hereafter cited as minutes of 41st meeting ofUSCIB, 17 June 1949.) 2. In later years, a portion of the CONSIDO concept wasresurrected anew and implemented by the SIGINTPolicy Board. Twenty-five years after the disapproval ofthe CONSIDO Proposal, the National ForeignIntelligence Board established the National SIGINTRequirements System (NSRS) as a community require-ments mechanism in 1975. 3. Minutes of 41st meeting of USCIB, 17 June 1949. 4. The standing requirement for a unanimous vote onmajor decisions had prevailed in USCIB for a number ofyears. Consequently, it became very difficult for the rep-resentatives of CIA and State to win support for a favor-able decision in USCIB on controversial issues, particu-larly when they sought to acquire an enhanced role ininfluencing the AFSA intelligence process. See NSCIDNo. 9, “Communications Intelligence,” 1 July 1948,History Collection, NSA, Series V.A. (TS). 5. John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline ofthe CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1986, 102-11 and Rearden, The Formative Years, 20-27. 6. Lawrence K. White on the Directors. Oral HistoryInterview by Dino Brugioni and Urban Linehan, Studiesin lntelligence (CIA), Winter 1987. Vol. 31, No.4. 1-6. 7. Walter B. Smith, DCI, memorandum for ExecutiveSecretary. National Security Council, “Proposed Surveyof Communications Intelligence Activities,” 10December 1951 (CIA Archives) (TSC). 8. Robert A. Lovett and Dean G. Acheson letter toBrownell, Bohlen, Magruder and Jackson, 28 December1951 (Exhibit A in Brownell Report). History Collection,NSA, Series V.F (TSC). 9. Ibid. 10. Lieutenant General Ralph J. Canine, “Memorandumfor the Record,” 7 February 1952, Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area. Accession No. 6009, CBSD 75. NSA.(S). 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid.

13. Brownell Report, 62. 14. Ibid., 50. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Ibid., 134. 17. Ibid., 6, 121-28. 18. Ibid., 121-28. 19. Ibid., 7 of cover letter. 20. Ibid., 124-28. 21. Ibid., 129-34.22. Ibid., 131-34.23. Ibid., 53-56. 24. Ibid. 25. Ralph J. Canine, Director, AFSA, memorandum forSecDef, “Brownell Committee Report,” 8 July 1952.Cryptologic Archive Holding Area, Accession No. 5741 N,CBSC 33, NSA (TS). 26. Memorandum for the Record by Rear Admiral J.N.Wenger, Deputy Director for Intelligence, AFSA, “Draftof Proposed Presidential Directive for Organizing theCOMINT Activities of the U.S.,” 14 October 1952,Accession No. 5741 N, CBSC 33. Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area, NSA (TS). 27. Harry S. Truman, memorandum for the Secretary ofState and the Secretary of Defense, 24 October 1952.History Collection. NSA, Serial V.A (TS). 28. National Security Council Intelligence DirectiveNo.9, Revised, Communications Intelligence, 24October 1952, Cryptologic Archival Holding Area.Accession Number 14842, CBBD 76, NSA (TS). 29. Ibid. 30. Harry S. Truman, memorandum for the Secretary ofState and the SecDef, “Communications Security (COM-SEC) Matters,” History Collection, NSA, Series V.A (TS). 31. Robert A. Lovett, SecDef, memorandum. for theService Secretaries, Joint Chiefs of Staff. Director,National Security Agency, “Interim Implementation ofNSCID No.9,” Revised 4 November 1952, HistoryCollection. NSA, Series V.A (TS). 32. Ibid. 33. Lieutenant General C.D. Cabell, Director Joint Staff,memorandum for General Bradley, GeneralVandenberg, General Collins, and Admiral Fechteler,“National Security Agency,” 9 February 1963,Cryptologic Archival Holding Area, Accession No. 2466,CBIB 15, NSA (S). 34. Ibid.

35. Almost four decades later, the national directivesunequivocally identify NSA as the central authority inthe field of U.S. cryptology. NSCID No. 6, issued inFebruary 1972 charges the director with “full control”over all SIGINT collection and processing activities,which now include COMINT and electronic intelligence(ELINT) processing. But, as in 1952, there still exist anumber of grey areas between NSA and the services,mainly because of charter limitations and exceptions tothe authority of NSA. Moreover, national directives alsoprovide for the delegation of SIGINT authorities, as nec-essary, to the military services for conducting a numberof direct support activities, including tactical ELINToperations. While considerable progress has been madein pulling together U.S. SIGINT activities into the sem-blance of a single system, divided control still exists.

Notes on Sources

Most of the documents used in the preparation of thishistory are in the holdings of the NSA/CSS RecordsCenter and Archives and the Center for CryptologicHistory. A diverse number of sources originated theseholdings, which reflect a broad range of departmental,national, and operational relationships extending overthis period of cryptologic history. The NSA/CSS RecordsCenter and Archives holds three basic groups of resourcematerials: the stored records that are held for a temporary period pending a disposition review by theowning organization; the retired records that are undergoing an appraisal to determine their archivalvalue; and the accessioned records that are filed as permanent Agency records in the Cryptologic ArchivalHolding Area (CAHA), or Archives. The Agency’s Center for Cryptologic History maintains its ownresearch collections.

Among Agency records, two separately organized collec-tions deserve special mention. These are the accessionedrecords of the Archives and the special collections main-tained by the Center for Cryptologic History. For theresearcher, there is very little distinction between thekind of records in the Archives and those maintained inthe Center for Cryptologic History. There are major dis-tinctions, however, in the method of organization andarrangement of the documents for retrieval purposes –and in the continuity accorded historical themes. Thesedifferences in organization stem mainly from basic dif-ferences in the approach to records keeping as well asfactors associated with the organizational evolution ofeach organization. In the course of developing intotoday’s structures, each organization underwent a differ-ent sequence of growth, and each developed its ownoperating concepts and methodology.

Starting with the AFSA period and extending into theNSA years, the Office of the Adjutant General (AG)served as the first administrator of cryptologic records.During the early 1950s the AG established the begin-nings of the Agency’s records management program anddirected the creation of a Records Repository for theretention of vital records. These early rudimentaryactions safeguarded from destruction massive holdings

acquired from the World War II era as well as otheressential records associated with the establishment ofAFSA and NSA. However, as NSA directed its primaryenergies toward its operational missions and as organi-zational changes occurred, the position of Agency offi-cials concerning the priority of non-operational tasks ofthis nature became clear. The resource allocation offi-cials consistently demonstrated little enthusiasm for theprogram and generally provided only token support interms of resources and priorities.

In responding to its new national role, NSA commenceda pattern of frequent organizational change that extend-ed from 1952 until the late 1970s. This pattern of recur-ring institutional change impacted unfavorably on thedirection and emphasis accorded its records manage-ment function. During this period of approximatelytwenty-five years, the management responsibility for thetask rotated among at least six key components: Office ofthe Adjutant General, Office of Administrative Services,Comptroller, Office of Policy, Office of ManagementServices, and Office of Telecommunications. Despite thiscycle of change and the continuance of the strictures onresources, the records management program achievedsome progress over the years. But, overall, these circum-stances clearly affected the quality and scope of the pro-gram and impeded its implementation. They alsoencouraged the creation of special collections of histori-ans and history-minded technicians.

As the Agency expanded, the lack of storage facilitiesemerged as another major problem in the conduct of theAgency’s records management program. Until the late1970s, the Agency resorted to storing its record holdingsat several different locations within the Agency as well asa number of locations outside NSA’s control. Theseexternal locations included facilities at Crane, Indiana;Arlington Hall Station; Vint Hill Farms; TorpedoStation, Alexandria, Virginia; and Fort Holabird,Baltimore. The dispersal of records represented an inefficient method of operation and impacted negativelyon the various steps in the review and disposition cycle.As a practical matter, however, perhaps the greatestdamage occurred in the retrieval process. The dispersalof stored, retired, and permanent records not only affected the quality and timeliness of service provided to

operational elements, but it also impeded the retrievalefforts of researchers and historians.

All of these factors contributed to a lack of direction andstability for the entire records program. The big push forchange did not come until 1977, when the Agency estab-lished the Cryptologic Archival Holding Area (CAHA) –or Archives, as it is commonly called. The establishmentof an Archives stemmed from action by President Carterdirecting the mandatory declassification of intelligencedocuments that were thirty years old or older. In com-plying with Executive Order 12065, Admiral Inman, thedirector of NSA, ordered that a new urgency be placed ondeclassification matters and on the records managementprogram of NSA. As an integral part of this action,Inman directed the immediate establishment of a newarchival office to assume archival responsibility for allelements of the Agency and to function under the controlof the Director’s Policy Staff. By 1980, with the physicalrelocation of all of the stored, retired, and accessionedrecords in the Office of Archives and RepositoryServices, the Agency concluded its first serious attemptto establish an archival program.

Of the records processed thus far by the archives since itsestablishment in 1977, the accessioned records generallystart with the World War I era and extend to 1960. Theaccessioned records yielded significant information forthis study. These records are arranged and filed under anine-letter code group, called a Cryptologic RecordGroup (CRG), which identifies the file location as well asthe “origin, geographic pertinence, and subject content”of the record. The most useful part of this immense col-lection is its subject correspondence file of letters, mem-oranda, reports, and other correspondence between theArmy and Navy cryptologic organizations and betweenthe military services and officials in the defense estab-lishment, the National Security Council, the WhiteHouse, and other executive departments. There are alsoa number of Special Collections within these holdings,such as the Wenger Collection, personal papers, and var-ious project files, that proved to be extremely valuable.

The Center for Cryptologic History traces its origins tothe AFSA era when a history office was established as avery small element within the training division (AFSA

14). But shortly after the establishment of NSA in 1952,the history function received new attention and empha-sis at the Directorate level. This change occurred mainlybecause of the interest of General Canine, who wantedthe events associated with the establishment of NSA tobe documented from a historical viewpoint. He support-ed the recruitment of three professional historians andcreated a new history element, which functioned as apart of his Plans and Policy Staff. Following the appoint-ment of Dr. George F. Howe as the first professional his-torian, the history program enjoyed some degree of high-level support and recognition which lasted for severalyears. Within a few years, however, following the retire-ment of General Canine, the political situation began tochange for the history element. By the mid-1950s, as thegrowing Agency became increasingly preoccupied withmore pressing operational considerations, the positionof the history group began to deteriorate. Lacking anysponsorship at the Directorate level, the group encoun-tered great difficulty in obtaining support and resourcesfor conducting even a modest history effort.

Like the early Records Office, the History Office becamea casualty of frequent reorganization actions, as well asperiodic resubordinations within the Agency. By 1989the History Office had been placed organizationally in atleast seven different Key Components. These KeyComponents included the Training Office, Plans andPolicy, the Central Reference Organization in the Officeof Operations, the Policy Staff, the ManagementOrganization, the National Cryptologic School, and theOffice of Telecommunications.

Vice Admiral Studeman’s 17 September 1989 memoran-dum announced the decision to establish the Center forCryptologic History as an element of the director’s staffand marked a new departure for the Agency’s historyprogram. Personnel were transferred from the Office ofTelecommunications the following month to constitutethe core of the new organization, with Henry F.Schorreck retaining his position as NSA historian.Components of the Center include the oral history pro-gram and the publishing arm (which also publishesCryptologic Quarterly, the Agency’s professional jour-nal) as well as the research collections and historians.

During the years of austerity, the NSA Historian ofnecessity performed only limited research activities andconcentrated on the development of historical recordsrelating to the evolution of the cryptologic structure ofthe United States. Today, the Center for CryptologicHistory, by virtue of its History Collection, is a majorholder and authority on early U.S. cryptologic records.The collection is designed to assist in meeting the needsof Agency researchers and in providing information sup-port services to Agency officials.

The records in the History Collection begin with theAmerican Revolution and extend into the present. Theseholdings are divided into Series, generally on a chrono-logical basis, with further subdivisions made topically.The History Collection contains published and unpub-lished manuscripts, a broad range of policy and opera-tional correspondence, personal collections, crisis files,historical studies, and transcripts of oral history inter-views. Another important collection of historical recordsexists as a totally separate entity within the Center. The“Cryptologic Collection” became a part of the HistoryCollection in 1987. Originally a part of the TechnicalDocuments Section of the NSA Library, the CryptologicCollection is slanted heavily toward technical matters. It contains a wealth of material on cryptographic systems from the World War II period and earlier,descriptions of cryptanalytic solutions and techniques,and extremely useful information concerning cryptologic organizations.

Among the records acquired from the three services forthis early period, the holdings contributed by the Armyare noteworthy and are the most prolific of the three mil-itary services. During the early 1980s, the U.S. ArmyIntelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) wel-comed NSA personnel in their screening of INSCOMholdings from World War I to the post-World War IIperiod. As a result of this cooperation, the Archives nowholds an immense collection of Army cryptologic recordsfor the early years of cryptology.

The archival holdings acquired from the Navy and AirForce vary considerably. With particular reference to theNavy, the Archives does hold a collection of Army-Navyrecords that devolved to NSA following the organization-

al realignments occurring during the postwar years.Initially this sequence began with the Joint Army-NavyOperating Agreement of 1946, which forced each serviceto move toward closer cooperation on cryptologic mat-ters. The Agreement resulted in a first-time consolida-tion of a broad range of Army-Navy operating docu-ments and correspondence, including the records of thevarious Joint Committees. As a part of this process, theNavy also intermixed with its contemporary holdingssome earlier naval records dating to the immediate pre-war period. As further organizational changes occurred,this collection of joint Army-Navy holdings passed to thecustody of each successor structure. The cycle of institu-tional change, extending over six years, included theestablishment of AFSA in 1949 and ended with the cre-ation of NSA in 1952. Today this legacy of Army-Navyrecords is invaluable, not only for research, but also as asource of accurate perspective on the nature and prob-lems of these early joint operations.

Because of its later arrival as a third cryptologic service,the Air Force records for this early period do not startuntil after World War II. The Air Force created the AirForce Security Service (AFSS) as a separate command inTexas in 1949, five months before the establishment ofthe Armed Forces Security Agency. During a transitionperiod, the initial AFSS structure relied on the ArmySecurity Agency for administrative and operational sup-port. By the time of the Korean War, however, the AFSSstarted to function as an independent service andacquired its own facilities and targets. Still, even for thislatter period, there is a paucity of internal Air Force doc-umentation at NSA concerning the inner workings of thenew cryptologic service. This may have been due, in part,to the remote location of AFSS Headquarters in Texas.Today the Air Force unit histories appear to constitutethe bulk of the Air Force cryptologic records in thearchives. But for the purposes of this report, these unithistories proved to be of minimal value. The combined holdings of the Archives and the Centerfor Cryptologic History contain significant documenta-tion issued not only by the military services (both thecryptologic and intelligence organizations), but also bythe evolving United States Communication IntelligenceBoard (ANCIB–STANCIB–USCIB) and the civilian con-sumer agencies. In particular, the correspondence, agen-

das, and minutes of the initial policy boards(ANCIB–STANCIB–USCIB) provided exceptional perspective about the nature of the conflicts and powerstruggles taking place within the intelligence structureduring the postwar period from 1945 to 1952. The internal correspondence from some consumer agenciesgave special insights into the unity reflected by the representatives of CIA and State in their joint oppositionto the exclusive military control of the COMINT effort.This block of records also provided enlightening per-spective, once again from the point of view of the non-military consumer, about the AFSA structure andthe activities of the Brownell Committee.

Oral interviews, conducted mainly by Robert D. Farley,the first NSA Oral Historian, and his successors andselected Special Research Histories (SRH), resultingfrom declassification, helped fill out the documentaryrecord.

Primary Sources

U.S. Congress

U.S. Congress, House Hearings, Committee onExpenditures in the Executive Departments, NationalSecurity Act of 1947, 80th Congress, 1st Session, 1947.

U.S. Congress, Senate Hearings, National Security ActAmendments of 1949, 81st Congress, 1st Session, 1949.

U.S. Congress, Joint Committees, Report of the JointCommittee of the Investigation of the Pearl HarborAttack, 79th Congress, 2nd Session, 1946. (JointCommittee Print.)

Presidential Papers

Acheson, Dean, Henry L. Stimson, and James V.Forrestal, Memorandum for President Truman,“Continuation and Extension of Collaboration with theBritish in the Communications Intelligence Field,”undated, NSA Center for Cryptologic History.

Roosevelt, Franklin D., memorandum for the Director ofthe Budget, 8 July 1942, NSA Archives.

Roosevelt, Franklin D., memorandum for GeneralMarshall, 9 July 1942, NSA Center for CryptologicHistory.

Truman, Harry S., memorandum for the Secretaries ofState, War, and Navy, 12 September 1945, NSA Centertor for Cryptologic History.

Truman, Harry S., memorandum for the Secretary ofState and the Secretary of Defense, 24 October 1952,NSA Center for Cryptologic History.

Truman, Harry S., memorandum for the Secretary ofState and the Secretary of Defense, “CommunicationsSecurity (COMSEC) Matters,” 24 October 1952, NSACenter for Cryptologic History.

National Directives

United States National Security Council, NSCID Number9, Communications Intelligence, 1 July 1948.

United States National Security Council, NSCID Number9, Revised, Communications Intelligence, 24 October1952.

International and United StatesMilitary Agreements

“Army-Navy Agreement concerning Allocation ofDiplomatic Traffic,” 30 June 1942, NSA Center forCryptologic History.

“Agreement between British Code and Cipher Schooland U.S. War Department concerning SpecialIntelligence,” 10 June 1943, NSA Archives.

Marshall, George C. and Edward J. King, “Joint Army-Navy Agreement for the Exchange of CommunicationsIntelligence,” 4 February 1944, NSA Center forCryptologic History.

“Outline of the Collaboration in Cryptanalysis betweenthe Army and the Navy,” 18 August 1944, NSA Archives.

“British-United States Communications IntelligenceAgreement,” 5 March 1946, NSA Center for CryptologicHistory.

“Corderman-Wenger Agreement concerningCoordination of Army and Navy COMINT Activities,” 6April 1946, NSA Archives.

“Establishment of a United States CombinedIntelligence Liaison Center in Great Britain,” 3 May1946, NSA Archives.

“AFSA/Air Force Agreement on Task Assignments toAFSS Mobile Intercept Sites,” 22 September 1960,AFSAC 60/24, NSA Archives.

Official Documents Issued by UnitedStates Intelligence Boards

Most important to this study were the minutes, agendas,and organizational bulletins of the evolving ANCIB-STANCIB-USCIB structures. High-ranking officials ofthe military cryptologic organizations and the civilianagencies presented their views on the COMINT struc-ture, its functioning, and its placement in the nationalintelligence structure. From 1945 to 1952, the issuancesof the early intelligence boards revealed the conflicts andstruggles of the intelligence community relating to theissues of unification and the consolidation of cryptologicresponsibilities. These unique sources are in a singleconsolidated grouping within the NSA Center forCryptologic History. This brief list reflects only a sam-pling of the documents available for this period

Minutes of the Army-Navy Communications IntelligenceCoordinating Committee, 1944- 1945

Minutes of the Army-Navy Communications IntelligenceBoard, 1945-1946

Minutes of the State-Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Board, 1945

Minutes of STANCIB concerning the establishment andoperation of the Joint Operating Plan, 1946-1949

Minutes of USCIB Meetings concerning the establish-ment of AFSA in 1949 and the parallel proposal concern-ing the CONSIDO Plan

Executive Department Documents andReports

Army-Navy-FBI Allocation Committee, “Report ofConference Appointed to Study Allocation ofCryptanalysis,” 30 June 1942, NSA Archives.

“Report of Joint Army-Navy Intercept Control Group forthe period 1 April 1946 to 28 February 1947,” 6 March1947, NSA Archives.

Stone Board Report to the Secretary of Defense concern-ing the Creation of a Unified Armed Forces SecurityAgency, 30 December 1948, NSA Center for CryptologicHistory.

Progress Report by Director, AFSA, to Armed ForcesSecurity Advisory Council, 27 January 1950, NSAArchives.

Report by Director, AFSA, to Armed Forces SecurityAdvisory Council, concerning Division of ResponsibilityBetween AFSA and the Services, 18 September 1950,AFSAC 60/26, NSA Archives.

Joint Military Memorandum to Army and NavyCOMlNT Committee, 31 July 1940.

Joint Army and Navy Report to Chief Signal Officer andthe Director of Naval Communications, 3 October 1940.

Report by Secretariat of Army-Navy CommunicationsIntelligence Coordinating Committee concerningMerger Planning, 30 August 1945.

United States Communications Intelligence BoardOrganizational Bulletin No. II, 31 July 1946.

Secretary of Defense, “Promulgation of Terms ofReference for the Committee on the Creation of a UnifiedArmed Forces Security Agency,”19 August 1948.

JCS 2010/12, Organizational Announcement concerningArmed Forces Communications Intelligence AdvisoryCouncil, 28 July 1949.

Secretary of Defense Directive, “The Establishment ofthe Armed Forces Security Agency within the NationalMilitary Establishment,” by Louis A. Johnson, 20 May1949.

JCS 2010/23, “Division of Responsibility Between AFSAand the Military Services,” 18 November 1950. AFSAC 60/49, “Announcement of the Establishment ofAFSS Group Headquarters, 18 June 1951.

Page 124

Secretary of Defense, “Implementation of NSCIDNumber 9,” Revised, by Robert A. Lovett, 4 November1952.

Historical Studies and Monographs

History of the Signal Security Agency in World War II,“Organization, 1929-1945” (ASA 1945), Vol. I, Part I.

History of the Signal Security Agency. “The JapaneseArmy Problems–Cryptanalysis.” (ASA 1947).

Parker, Frederick D., A New View to Pearl Harbor:United States Communication Intelligence, 1924-1941,United States Cryptologic History Series. (NSA 1988)

Oral Interviews

Clarke, Carter W., Interviewed by Robert D. Farley,Clearwater, Florida, 3 May 1983, NSA Center forCryptologic History.

MacClintock, Stuart, Interviewed by Robert D. Farley,Fort Meade, Maryland, 25 February 1986, NSA Centerfor Cryptologic History.

Stone, Earl E., Interviewed by Robert D. Farley, Carmel,California, 9 February 1983, NSA Center for CryptologicHistory.

White, Lawrence K., Interviewed by Dino Brugioni andUrban Linehan, Washington, D.C., 8 June 1972, CIAHistory Office.

Special Research History (SRH)

SRH200 – Army-Navy Collaboration, 1831-1945, Part2.

SRH230 – The Role of COMINT in the Battle ofMidway, Henry F. Schorreck.

Unpublished Studies

Chun, Richard A., A Bit on the Korean Effort. Typescript.Working note prepared for NSA History Office, 1971.

Drake, Robert E., The COMINT Role in the Korean War.Typescript. Study prepared for the Director, NSA, circa1954.

Howe, George F., “Narrative History of AFSA/NSA,”Parts I-IV, (NSA 1959).

Howe, George F., “Historical Study of COMINT underthe Joint Operating Plan, 1946-1949” (NSA).

The U.S. COMINT Effort During the Korean War June1950-August 1953. Typescript. 1954

Lay, James S., History of USCIB. Vol. I. Typescript.Study prepared for CIA Historical Office, undated.

Secondary Sources

Hough, Richard, The Greatest Crusade–Roosevelt,Churchill, and the Naval Wars (New York: WilliamMorrow and Co., 1986).

Ranelagh, John, The Agency: The Rise and Decline ofthe CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1986).

Rearden, Steven L. The History of the Office of theSecretary of Defense, The Formative Years, 1947-1950(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984).

Troy, Thomas F., Donovan and the CIA: A History of theEstablishment of the Central Intelligence Agency(Central Intelligence Agency, 1981).

Schratz, Paul R., The Admiral’s Revolt (U .S. NavalInstitute Proceedings, February 1986).

Acheson, Dean: 24, 41, 56, 83, 99Air Force Office of Intelligence (AFOIN): 75Air Force Security Group (AFSG): 41, 49Air Force Security Service (AFSS): 3, 42, 49-51, 63, 73,75, 77-78, 98Akin, Colonel Spencer B.: 7-8Ankenbrandt, Brigadier General Francis L.: 39, 52Arlington Hall: 12-13, 28, 31, 35, 50, 59, 74Armed Forces Communications Intelligence AdvisoryCouncil (AFCIAC): 58Armed Forces Communications Intelligence Board(AFCIB): 53-54Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA): 3, 49, 55-59, 61-74Armed Forces Security Agency Council (AFSAC): 58-59,62, 65-66, 68, 71-73, 79, 87-88Armstrong, W. Park, Jr.: 46-47, 54, 57, 69, 75-76, 90Army Security Agency (ASA): 31-32, 41, 49, 55Army Security Agency, Pacific (ASAPAC): 74, 77-78Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board(ANCIB): 3, 5, 18, 22-24, 27-30Army-Navy Communications Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee (ANCICC): 5, 18, 22-24, 28-29, 96Army-Navy Joint Operating Plan (JOP): 32-36, 59, 62-63, 96

B-36 Strategic Bomber: 55Becker, Loftus E.: 90Bohlen, Charles E. (“Chip”): 83, 86, 99Bolling, Major General Alexander R.: 52, 86Bradley, Brigadier General Omar: 86, 92-93British-United States of America Agreement (BRUSA):30-34, 36, 44Brownell, George A.: 3, 83-84, 99Brownell Committee: 3, 81, 83, 87-88, 90-92, 99-100Brownell Report: 2, 81, 86-87, 89, 92-93, 100Buffham, Benson K.: 77Bullock, Colonel Frank W.: 11Bureau of the Budget: 40Byrnes, James F.: 40

Cabell, Major General Charles P.: 52, 57, 91Canine, Major General Ralph J.: 64-66, 86, 89-91, 98

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): 1, 34-35, 41-47, 49,52-54, 56-57, 66-69, 74, 76, 78-79, 82-83, 89-92, 97-99Central Intelligence Group (CIG): 34, 37, 39-40Chief of Naval Operations (CNO): 18, 27-30, 54Churchill, Winston: 19-21Clarke, Colonel Carter W.: 18, 26-27, 55, 57, 65, 98Collaboration: 10-11, 14, 19-20, 22-25, 30-32, 43, 58Collins, Samuel P.: 59Collocation: 25, 35-36, 96Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet (COMINCH): 18Communications Reconnaissance Battalion (CRB): 74Communications Reconnaissance Company (CRC): 74Communications Reconnaissance Group (CRG): 74Communications Supplementary Activity, Washington(CSAW): 14, 59Conley, Herbert L.: 77Consolidated Special Information Office (CONSIDO):67-69, 79, 82, 98-99Coordinator of Joint Operations (CJO): 30, 32-34, 36,57, 59, 62-63, 77, 96Corderman, Colonel W. Preston: 18, 26-27, 29-30, 32Crimmins, John: 76Cutler, Lloyd N.: 83

Denfield, Admiral Louis: 54Department of Defense (DOD): 49, 51, 62, 67-68, 76, 81,88-91, 93Department of State: 1, 5-6, 9, 16, 24, 34-35, 37, 39-40,42, 44, 46-47, 49, 53, 56-57, 65-66, 69, 75-76, 79, 81-83,89, 99Dill, Sir John: 20Director of Central Intelligence (DCI): 34, 37, 40-47, 69,76, 82-83, 88, 90, 92, 96-97, 99Director of Joint Operations (DJO): 53Donovan, Brigadier General William J.: 17Douglass, Kingman: 83, 99Duncombe, Harmon: 83

Edwards, Vice Admiral Richard S.: 18Eisenhower, Dwight D.: 24, 29-30, 82Erskine, Brigadier General Graves B., USMC: 92

INDEX

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): 1, 9, 11-12, 16, 22,33-34, 37, 39-40, 43, 47, 49, 67-68, 88, 97, 99Federal Communications Commission (FCC): 9, 11Forrestal, James V.: 24, 29, 37-38, 40-41, 44-45, 51-52,54, 97Friedman, William F.: 61-62, 67-68

Government Code and Cypher School (G.C. & C.S.),U.K.: 20, 22Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ),U.K.: 34

Harper, Captain John S.: 60, 62Hayes, Major Harold G.: 12, 32-33, 52 Hillenkoetter, Admiral Roscoe H.: 37-38, 42, 44-48, 54,56-57, 69, 76, 82, 96-97Hoover, J. Edgar: 16, 33, 43

Ingles, Major General Harry C.: 14-15Inglis, Rear Admiral Thomas B.: 41, 57Intelligence Advisory Board (IAB): 41Intelligence Advisory Council (IAC): 46Irwin, Major General S. Leroy: 57

Jackson, William H.: 83, 86, 99Japanese Special Weather Intelligence (SWI): 14Joint Army-Navy Agreement for the Exchange ofCommunications Intelligence: 14Joint Army-Navy Regulations for the Dissemination andUse of Communications Intelligence ConcerningWeather: 14Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): 9, 17-18, 24, 43-45, 49, 54, 56-59, 62-63, 65-66, 68-69, 73, 81-82, 86-88, 91-92, 95, 97Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), JCS: 9, 16Joint Intercept Control Group (JICG): 33, 59, 63Joint Liaison Group (JLG): 33, 63Joint Processing Allocation Group (JPAG): 33-34, 59, 63

King, Admiral Ernest J.: 14, 18, 24, 28-29, 39, 42Kinney, Captain Philip R.: 17Korean War: 3, 49, 64, 67, 70-71, 73, 75-81, 92, 97-98Kullback, Dr. Solomon: 61-62

Leahy, Rear Admiral William D.: 40, 43-44London Signals Intelligence Board (LSIB): 23Lovell, James R.: 68

Lovett, Robert: 83, 86, 89-92, 99Lynn, Colonel Roy H.: 42, 57, 59

Magruder, Brigadier General John: 83, 86, 99Manson, Grant C.: 83Marr-Johnson, Colonel Patrick (U.K.): 31Marshall, General George C.: 14, 18, 20, 28-29, 42Mason, Captain Redfield: 59-60, 62Matejka, Major General J. V.: 57Matthews, Francis P.: 54-56Mauborgne, General Joseph A.: 6, 8 McCormack, Alfred: 24, 41McDonald, Brigadier General George C.: 39, 41 McNarney, General Joseph T.: 54-55, 57, 68Munitions Building: 10, 13

National Intelligence Authority (NIA): 37, 40National Military Establishment (NME): 41, 55-56, 96National Security Act of 1947: 2, 34, 41-42, 44, 47, 51, 69,95-97National Security Agency (NSA): 1-3, 9, 78, 90-93, 95, 98National Security Council (NSC): 1-2, 37-38, 41, 43-47,54, 62, 66, 81, 83, 86, 90, 97, 99National Security Council Intelligence Directive Number9: “Communications Intelligence” (NSCID No. 9): 9, 34,47, 69, 91, 97Navy Security Station (NSS): 59Neely, Horace D.: 75Nimitz, Fleet Admiral Chester W.: 29-30Noyes, Rear Admiral Leigh: 6, 8

Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI): 74Office of Strategic Services (OSS): 11, 16-17, 18, 22Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD): 54, 89

Parker, Frederick D.: 18Partridge, Brigadier General Richard C.: 86Patterson, Robert P.: 40Pearl Harbor: 1, 8-10, 19, 24-26, 39, 51, 62, 95Polyzoides, T. Achilles: 69

Redman, Admiral Joseph R.: 18Redman, Commander John R.: 11Roosevelt, Franklin D.: 1, 5, 10-11, 19-21, 95Rowlett, Francis B.: 61-62Royal Air Force (RAF): 23

Royall, Kenneth C.: 46, 51Rubin, Lieutenant Colonel Morton A.: 33

Safford, Commander Laurance F.: 7-8, 62Samford, Major General John A.: 86 Senior U.K. Liaison Officer (SUKLO): 23Senior U.S. Liaison Officer (SUSLO): 23Shute, Benjamin R.: 83Signals Intelligence (SIGINT): 53Signal Intelligence Service (Army), (SIS): 12-13, 61Sinkov, Dr. Abraham: 60-62Smith-Hutton, Captain Henri H.: 17Souers, Admiral Sidney W.: 37-38, 40, 45-46, 56 Special Committee of Merger Planning (SMP): 28Special Research Branch (Army Intelligence) (SRB): 75State-Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board(STANCIB): 24, 27, 30-34, 44, 75State-Army-Navy Communications Intelligence

Coordinating Committee (STANCICC): 24, 32-33State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC): 24Stimson, Henry L.: 24Stone Board: 52-55, 72Stone, Admiral Earl E.: 52, 57, 73Strong, Major General George V.: 5-7, 20-22, 27, 45-47,53-54, 72-73, 76, 81-82, 88-89, 92-93, 97Sullivan, John L.: 46, 55Symington, W. Stuart: 46, 56

Taylor, Commander Rufus L.: 33Thebaud, Admiral Hewlett: 23Todd, Major General Walter E.: 57 Travis, Edward W. (U. K.): 20, 22 Truman, Harry S.: 2, 24, 37, 40-43, 45, 47, 54-55, 81-83,90-92, 96, 99-100

U.S.-U.K. Relationship: 19, 22-24, 31 Unanimity: 18, 32, 39, 45, 59, 89, 97 United Nations (UN): 78United States Communication Intelligence Board(USCIB): 34-37, 39-40, 42-47, 49, 53-54, 56-57, 59, 62-70, 74-77, 79, 81-82, 86-91, 96-100United States Communication Intelligence CoordinatingCommittee (USCICC): 34, 39, 42

Vandenberg, Lieutenant General Hoyt S.: 31-32, 34, 41,43, 54-55

Veeder, Captain William S.: 52

War Council (WC): 41, 51, 54-55Ward, John S.: 76Washington, D.C. Control-Collection Office(WDC/CCO): 75Weeks, Colonel James L.: 75Wenger, Admiral Joseph N.: 8-9, 18, 26-27, 29-30, 32,50, 57, 59, 62, 72-73, 90Willoughby, Major General Charles A.: 77