Aid, Matthew M. "The
National Security Agency and the Cold War." Intelligence and National
Security 16, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 27-66. Aid, Matthew M. "The
National Security Agency and the Cold War." Intelligence and National
Security 16, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 27-66.
The focus of this article is NSA's work against its most important target -- the Soviet Union. "NSA['s] accomplishments ... were arguably the most impressive of any American intelligence organization during the Cold War."
Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
Clark comment: Bamford's second major work on NSA has brought forth the same kind of strong feelings as accompanied his earlier The Puzzle Palace. Although the book is much more than a new interpretation of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, Bamford's handling of that incident has dominated much of the discussion.
Steven Aftergood, "Bamford 'Liberty' Account Repudiated," Secrecy News, 17 Jul. 2001 (http://www.fas.org), reported that "[k]ey aspects of ... Bamford's recent account of the 1967 Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty are being disavowed by some of his own sources."
This report elicited a spirited response from the author: "Aftergood's piece was a model of poor reporting.... [He] never bothered to call me ... for any comment prior to publication. This despite the fact that we are both located in Washington and have spoken many times both in person and on the phone." Bamford's letter, dated 25 July 2001, is available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/bamford.html. See also, Michael Oren, "Unfriendly Fire," The New Republic, 23 July 2001, for a hostile critique of Bamford's work.
Powers, NYRB, 21 Jun. 2001, and Intelligence Wars (2004), 243-255, says that Bamford provides "a wealth of human and technical detail" in this new history of NSA. The "strengths of the book are to be found in its portrait of the NSA an institution of staggering size and capacity....
"Bamford is a writer of stern and bracing moral judgment, generally as willing to praise as censure, but something about the Liberty incident unhinges him a little, and his account is muddied at the end by a story of the killing of a journalist on the Lebanese-Israeli border last year. The two incidents are neither related nor comparable.... Bamford should have summed up what happened to the Liberty, so troubling in so many ways, in a calmer mood....
"Bamford is particularly good on the SIGINT war in Vietnam.... But [his] stories are not confined to ancient history; he has much to say about recent events like the Gulf War of 1990-1991, which also had a SIGINT side, as do just about all episodes of international rivalry or strife."
For DeFalco, Proceedings, Dec. 2001, Bamford's is "a truly revealing and engaging work." It is "highly readable and often engrossing" as it "recounts secret episodes that reveal much of the inner workings" of NSA.
Cohen, FA 80.5, views Body of Secrets as offering "much fascinating material," but the author "takes a more paranoid turn when he discusses the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty."
To Anderson, I&NS 17.1, "this is unquestionably an important work." Bamford "expands our knowledge of NSA's present-day workings and provides extensive detail about its history and operations." On the USS Liberty controversy, his explanation "is neither satisfying nor well documented"; and his "theory is written in an emotive style that does not serve his cause." The footnotes in Body of Secrets are "cumbersome and frequently uninformative.... For a complete and annotated bibliography, readers must use <http://www.randomhouse.com/features/bamford/bib.html>."
Bath, NIPQ 17.4, calls Body of Secrets "a significant addition to our knowledge" of NSA "and of cryptographic activities during the Cold War. Most assuredly it should be a key volume in any serious library of intelligence history."
Peake, Intelligencer 12.1, finds that this "important work" is "well-documented." It "describes what NSA does and how they do it in non technical terms," producing a "clear and comprehensive picture of the organization." An exception to the latter description "is the table of contents with its enigmatic even inscrutable chapter titles" that "are not helpful in communicating what topics the book covers."
See also, Thomas Blanton, "UMBRA GAMMA ZARF," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 58, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 2002): 62ff; and Steve Weinberg, "NSA Revisited," IRE Journal 24, no. 4 (Jul.-Aug. 2001): 29.
Bamford,
James. The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982. With New Afterword. New York: Penguin, 1983. [pb] UB251U5B35
Clark comment: This work continues to be reviled by critics; but if Bamford had not written it, we would not have had an early, serious, and in-depth look at NSA's activities and organization. It is not completely superceded by Bamford's later Body of Secrets (2001).
Pforzheimer suggests that the book "must be used with caution because of some errors of fact." The Afterword in the 1983 paperback edition includes material on the British spy, Geoffrey Arthur Prime, and on Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of NSA.
For Lowenthal, the book is "[s]tronger on organizational history than on the actual work of signals intelligence."
Powers, NYRB, 3 Feb. 1983, and Intelligence Wars (2004), 243-255, comments that the author "has assembled all that was known, and much that was unknown," about NSA, "but the result does not make for light reading." Except for a handful of stories, the "book reads like a study of AT&T," with methodical lists of organizational detail.
Watson, et al, Encyclopedia, p. xiii, notes that Puzzle Palace "is the result of an outstanding research effort, and it provides a detailed and accurate study of the agency."
For some insights on Bamford's monumental research effort, see Paul Constance, "How Jim Bamford Probed the NSA," Cryptologia 21, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): 71-74.
Clive, Keith P. "The Battle of the Seals." Cryptologia 26, no. 2 (Apr. 2002): 103-112.
The author discusses the histories of the seals of NSA and the Central Security Service (CSS). A brief description of CSS and its Deputy Chief (the Chief is DIRNSA) is also provided.
Hager, Nicky. Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network. Nelson, New Zealand: Craig Potton Publishing, 1996.
Kruh, Cryptologia 21.1, says that Secret Power is "an excellent book with much new information about signals intelligence, intelligence agency operations and [the] UKUSA" agreement.
According to McGehee, CIABASE Update Report, Aug. 1997, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) uses electronics to spy on countries throughout the Pacific, including friends and trading partners. Hager shows how New Zealand's spies, geared to serve an alliance with the United States, proved useless in preventing domestic terrorism and providing accurate intelligence.
Herman, I&NS 12.4, finds this work to be "one of [the] more informative and thought-provoking examples" of investigative journalism undertaken with the aim of condemning intelligence. The author presents "a detailed study" of New Zealand's Sigint organization and its collaboration within the UKUSA Sigint alliance. Along the way, Hager presents "an elaborate, almost excessive account of the minutiae of organization." It would, however, "be unwise to take his details [on the Allied exchanges and collaboration] as gospel." In additions, readers "should be on the watch for an undeclared conspiracy theory about US motives and influence."
Hayden, Michael V. [LTGEN/USAF, DIRNSA] "Background on NSA: History, Oversight. Relevance for Today." Defense Intelligence Journal 9, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 13-26.
"[S]lightly reformatted and edited version" of the DIRNSA's presentation at American University on 17 February 2000 and his testimony before the HPSCI on 12 April 2000.
Ingram, Jack E. [Curator, National Cryptologic Museum] "The Origins of NSA." American Intelligence Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1994): 39-42.
Minimal on early history; increases after 1947, but remains a quick orientation or overview.
Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
According to Surveillant 2.6, this biography devotes "almost two chapters to a surprising account of extensive wiretaps and eavesdropping, within the US and abroad, by NSA and others."
Levy, Steven. Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government -- Saving Privacy in the Digital Age. New York Viking, 2001.
Powers, NYRB, 21 Jun. 2001, and Intelligence Wars (2004), 243-255, finds that this work recounts "in lively detail" NSA's "clandestine campaign" against public encryption. "How these [public key] systems actually work is complicated but not dauntingly so," and Powers "urge[s] interested readers to consult Levy's book."
Powers, Thomas. "Notes from Underground." New York Review of Books, 21 Jun. 2001. Chapter 17 in Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, 257-273. Rev. & exp. ed. New York: New York Review of Books, 2004.
Primarily a review of Bamford's Body of Secrets (2001), this article also mentions Levy's Crypto (2001), which deals with the battle over public encryption.
National Cryptologic School. On Watch: Profiles from the National Security Agency's Past 40 Years. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: 1986.
Shane, Scott, and Tom Bowman. "No Such Agency." Baltimore Sun, reprint of six-part series, 3-15 December 1995, 1-16.
Clark comment: The Baltimore Sun's series is the first extensive public discussion of NSA since the publication of Bamford's The Puzzle Palace. The series lacks the weight of a well-defined research base, but it is generally accurate. However, its journalistic conception is clearly shown in the subject areas the writers have chosen to address. They probably believe that they asked the "hard questions"; I am not so sure of that. Nonetheless, this is the best easily available look inside the gates at Ft. Meade.
Part 1: "America's Fortress of Spies," 1-3; Part 2: "A Strange and Secret Workplace," 4-6; Part 3: "Espionage from the Front Lines," 7-8; Part 4: "Rigging the Game," 9-11; Part 5: "Catching Americans in NSA's Net," 12-13; Part 6: "Battling High-Tech Warriors," 14-16.
Surveillant 4.3 says that "[t]his series reprint is highly recommended." For Kruh, Cryptologia 20.2, the articles are "a fascinating report sprinkled with new or little known information" about NSA.
Tully, Andrew. The Super Spies: The Inside Story of NSA -- America's Biggest, Most Secret, Most Powerful Spy Agency. New York: Morrow, 1969. New York: Pocket Books, 1970. [pb]
This was not that well done at the time it was published. The existence of Bamford's The Puzzle Palace makes it little more than a curiosity item today.
Williams, Jeannette, with Yolande Dickerson. The Invisible Cryptologists: African-Americans, WWII to 1956. Ft. George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, Center for Cryptologic History, 2001. [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00035.cfm]
The author's "exhaustive search of the cryptologic archives ... recovered the basic story of the segregated cryptologic organizations -- including the previously unknown existence of a large office of African-Americans in World War II."
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