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."
Aid, Matthew M. "'Not So Anonymous': Parting the Veil of Secrecy About the National Security Agency." In A Culture of Secrecy: The Government Versus the People's Right to Know, ed. Athan G. Theoharis, 60-82. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Alvarez, David. "Trying to Make the MAGIC Last: American Diplomatic Codebreaking in the Early Cold War." Diplomatic History 31, no. 5 (Nov. 2005): 865-882.
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 (1982). 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, reports 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.
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 127.12 (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 (Sep.-Oct. 2001), also views Body of Secrets as offering "much fascinating material," but adds that the author "takes a more paranoid turn when he discusses the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty." 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."
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>."
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; Michael Oren, "Unfriendly Fire," The New Republic, 23 July 2001; 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." 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."
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.
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.
Bamford, James. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
Bob Kerrey, Washington Post, 12 Oct. 2008, finds this an "important and disturbing" book that is "revealing and provocative." The author's "is the sobering story of how America's Cold War national security apparatus has struggled to respond" to the "storm of changes" that occurred in the 1990s. Bamford "convincingly makes the case that our intelligence problems had little to do with the limitations imposed on the NSA or other agencies"; but, rather, "deep-seated divisions and rivalries among U.S. intelligence agencies helped the hijackers go undetected." Bamford's "apparent negativity toward Israel is a significant distraction from the content of his book," and he "is entirely too sympathetic" to the 9/11 terrorists.
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.
Return to NSA Table of Contents