Wil - Wilf

Wilber, Donald N. Adventures in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions. Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1986.

Haglund, I&NS 4.3, notes Wilber's claim to have both developed the concept for Operation Ajax and played a major role in making that plan operational. Nevertheless, there is "not ... much new information about US intelligence operations in the Middle East, either during the 1950s or during the war, when Wilber was an OSS agent in Iran."

[CA/ME; CIA/Memoirs; CIA/50s/Iran; WWII/OSS/Ops/Other]

Wilcox, Fulton. "Intelligence Reform: Winning the "For Keeps' Game." American Intelligence Journal 25, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 51-62.

"Absent effective information-sharing processes, almost any new organizational construct looks suspiciously like another bureaucratic stovepipe.... [E]ngaging the efforts of frontline people may be the most important" step in preventing terrorism, because "the essential prerequisite ... is to have presence 'everywhere.' Narrowly designed organizations cannot supply that presence."

[Reform/00s/07]

Wilcox, Jennifer. The Secret of Adam and Eve. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, Center for Cryptologic History, 2003. [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00037.cfm]

"In May 1943, Adam and Eve only resembled what their descendents would become: huge gray machines standing seven feet high, ten feet long, and two feet wide. But Adam and Eve were merely components, motors, and wire spread across workhorses and mounted in cabinets in Building 26 of the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio. Like the machines they preceded, they held nearly 400 vacuum tubes, 64 individually wired bakelite rotors, and innumerable feet of wire. They were the first of their kind, the U.S. Navy‘s Cryptanalytic Bombes." [Italics in original]

[WWII/Magic]

Wilcox, Jennifer. Solving the Enigma: History of the Cryptanalytic Bombe. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, Center for Cryptologic History, 2001. [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00016.cfm]

Rejewski, Bertrand, Turing, Welchman, Desch, Bombes, WAVES -- all are mentioned here. The emphasis, however, is the work done in Dayton and at Arlington Hall.

[WWII/Magic]

Wilcox, Jennifer. Women Sharing the Burden: Women in Cryptology during WWII. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, Center for Cryptologic History, 1998. [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00014.cfm]

[Women/WWII/U.S.; WWII/Magic]

Wilcox, Laird M., comp.

1. Bibliography on Espionage and Intelligence Operations. Kansas City, MO: Editorial Research Service, 1988, 1989.

Peake, Reader's Guide, notes that this bibliography includes "more than 3,000 book titles, many on assassination and terrorism.... The annotations ... are very brief and do not always convey the full scope of the content.... Titles ... are organized alphabetically by author but are not separated by major topic."

2. Master Bibliography: Political Psychology, Propaganda, Espionage, Intelligence Operations, Terrorism, and Assassination. Kansas City, MO: Laird Wilcox, 1980.

3. Terrorism, Assassination, Espionage and Propaganda: A Master Bibliography. Olathe, KS: Laird Wilcox, 1988.

This is a spiral bound, 8.5 X 11 format, privately published bibliography. It has over 3,000 titles arranged alphabetically by author. There are brief, descriptive annotations for most of the items listed, the usefulness of which is not aided by too many "etc.'s" at the end of entries.

[RefMats/Bibs]

Wild, Max. Secret Service on the Russian Front. New York: Putnam, 1932. [Chambers]

[WWI/U.S.]

Wilensky, Harold. Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry. New York: Basic Books, 1960.

Wilcox: "Study of intelligence functions, use & misuse."

[Overviews/Gen/Older]

Wiley, Bell I. "Women of the Lost Cause." American History Illustrated 8, no. 8 (1973): 10-23.

[CivWar/Conf/Women]

Wiley, Richard G. Electronic Intelligence: The Analysis of Radar Signals. 2d ed. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1993. [Surveillant 3.4/5]

[GenPostwar/Issues/S&T; NSA/Sigint]

Wilford, Hugh. "American Labour Diplomacy and Cold War Britain." Journal of Contemporary History 37 (2002): 45-65.

[CA/Eur; UK/Postwar]

Wilford, Hugh, "Calling the Tune? The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, 1945-1960." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 41-50.

"[T]he tendency has been to portray the CIA as fatally compromising the independence of the British left.... [However,] the British response to the cultural campaigns of the CIA was more complex..., involving ... resistance, appropriation and complicity."

[CA/Eur; UK/Postwar]

Wilford, Hugh. The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune. London: Frank Cass, 2003.

Peake, Studies 48.4 (2004), finds that the author "presents a well-documented account of the origins of the [CIA's] program" of support for anti-communist artists, writers, and publications, "and assesses its overall impact on communist-infiltrated trade unions and cultural organizations."

[CA/Eur; UK/Postwar]

Wilford, Hugh. "The Information Research Department: Britain's Secret Cold War Weapon Revealed." Review of International Studies 24, no. 3 (Jul. 1998): 353-369.

[UK/Postwar/IRD]

Wilford, Hugh. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Kazin, Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2008, calls this a "brisk yet thorough narrative" of the CIA's "creation and funding of front organizations.... [N]o one has written a more comprehensive or sophisticated account of the pro-American fronts from their creation in the late 1940s to the investigative report 20 years later in Ramparts magazine that first exposed the CIA's cultural offensive.... Few of the CIA fronts reliably behaved as the agency desired. Many of the subsidized individuals and groups had a moderately leftist inclination; they were determined to fight communism in their own ways and resisted direction from above."

To Goulden, Washington Times, 20 Jan. 2008, the author "shares the prevalent mindset of liberal 'scholars' that any operation carrying the CIA imprimatur was ipso bad and misguided.... Wilford vents much spleen on CIA programs to finance intellectual, labor and student groups who contested Soviet-supported fronts worldwide."

Glazer, NYT, 20 Jan. 2008, finds this to be a "remarkably detailed and researched book." The story the author tells is "fascinating, involving a surprising collection of well-known figures in American life." The reviewer notes "Wilford’s somewhat cool attitude toward what many saw, with some legitimacy, as a worldwide conflict between tyranny and freedom." Despite a few slips, "[t]here is a great deal to be learned from this book."

For Radosh, New York Sun, 6 Feb. 2008, the author "carefully shows that in almost all the cases, those funded [by the CIA] understood the high stakes of the Cold War with the Soviets. Rather than following CIA orders, most used whatever funds they received to carry on the work they had already started, and often discarded the advice of the Agency handlers." Despite harmsing his book with some "politically motivated cheap shots," Wilford has "written a scholarly, mostly readable, and first-rate book.... One can differ with his own conclusion that covert funding 'stained the reputation' of America and still find the book of immeasurable merit."

[CA/00s; CIA/60s/Subsidies]

Wilford, Hugh. "'Unwitting Assets?' British Intellectuals and the Congress for Cultural Freedom." Twentieth Century British History 11 (2000): 42-60.

[CA/Eur; UK/Postwar]

Wilford, Timothy. "Decoding Pearl Harbor: USN Cryptanalysis and the Challenge of JN-25B in 1941." The Northern Mariner 12, no. 1 (Jan. 2002): 17-37.

"[A]n examination of key letters and message-intercepts ... suggests that the USN could partially read Japanese naval traffic on the eve of the Pacific War.... The new evidence lends more support to revisionist interpretations than to traditionalist interpretations.... Future interpretations of USN cryptanalysis must assess how much [emphasis in original] was currently read through JN25B decryption."

[WWII/PearlHarbor]

Wilford, Timothy. Pearl Harbor Redefined: USN Radio Intelligence in 1941. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001.

For Ford, Journal of Strategic Studies 26.4, "[t]he main strength of Wilford's book lies in its meticulous analysis of the relevant archival sources. The author is careful to avoid arriving at conclusions which cannot be supported by the evidence which he has consulted. Of equal importance, previous hypotheses regarding the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor are paid due heed, with a careful evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses."

Kruh, Cryptologia 26.2, notes that "[f]rom the outset, Wilford declares his loyalty to the revisionists; his views echo their claims of censorship, missing documents, illogical statements, and overlook or belittle warnings issued between November 24 and 28."

Wilford, Cryptologia 27.1/70-71, takes exception to Kruh's dismissal of his work. He states that his central thesis, which he believes is supported by archival and other research, is that "the USN gathered sufficient radio intelligence to predict the likelihood of a Pearl Harbor attack, although the Hawaiian commanders received insufficient forewarning." Kruh, Cryptologia 27.1/71-72, responds to Wilford's letter.

See also Philip H. Jacobsen [LTCDR/USN (Ret.)], "Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor? No!: The Story of the U.S. Navy's Efforts on JN-25B," Cryptologia 27, no. 3 (Jul. 2003): 193-205.

[WWII/PearlHarbor]

Wilford, Timothy. "Watching the North Pacific: British and Commonwealth Intelligence before Pearl Harbor." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 131-164.

"Throughout 1941, British Intelligence pointed to a war with Japan in South-East Asia.... British Intelligence, according to some sources, also suspected that a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent, an assessment shared with the United States."

Bath, NIPQ 19.3, notes Wilford's thesis that the Japanese fleet may have used low power, low-frequency ship-to-ship communications that allowed British DF stations to locate the ships advancing on Pearl Harbor. That information may have been passed to the U.S. authorities. The reviewer comments: "Much conjecture, little new, hard evidence."

[UK/WWII/FE/Pac & Services/Navy; WWII/PearlHarbor]

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