National Security Agency - The Black Vault

1950s
1950s
The Move
to Fort Meade
challenges. In addition, after it was known that
the USSR had exploded an atomic bomb, the
government began dispersing key agencies
to ensure their survival in case of a surprise
Soviet atomic attack on the capital. AFSA/NSA
was one of those key agencies.
“Meade Mobile” provided information on relocating to the
Fort Meade area for employees.
A great deal of preparation went into
the move to Fort Meade. Employees
were offered field trips to look over the
construction of the new buildings and given
all the information they could use to line
up housing and address the challenges
associated with the transition.
Once in place, the workforce appreciated
the newly constructed facilities after
existing in structures hastily thrown up early
in World War II. The new buildings had
several interesting features, including what
was reputed to be the country’s longest
unobstructed corridor. Offices were linked
by a 99 station pneumatic tube system. And,
particularly attractive to the young workforce,
there were snack bars, with hot grills, on
alternate floors. n
A planning committee recommended that
Fort Knox, Kentucky, be a permanent home. It
was away from likely atomic targets and well
protected. Planning for a move to Kentucky
began, but there remained two serious obstacles.
First, many in NSA’s leadership felt that a
location so remote from Washington would
prevent effective interaction with DoD and
other intelligence agencies. Second, there was
considerable resistance within the cryptologic
workforce to a move that would involve such
dislocation of families.
These challenges ultimately proved too great
to overcome. The planners rethought their
options and decided that Fort George G. Meade
in Maryland offered a workable solution. It
was considered far enough away from the
expected blast zone around Washington to
meet the survivability requirement. The move
to Maryland was approved, and NSA began
occupying buildings on Fort Meade in the
late 1950s. Fort Meade has remained NSA’s
headquarters ever since.
Leadership anticipated that the initial building
would unite both halves of NSA’s mission at
Fort Meade. However, NSA quickly outgrew the
building. NSA, along with other intelligence and
defense components, expanded rapidly during
and after the Korean War. The initial building
even proved too small to contain the entire
COMINT workforce. Planning and construction
of additional buildings began soon after the
first was finished. The COMSEC organization
remained in D.C. until a new building was
completed on Fort Meade in 1968.
Recruiting a Qualified Workforce
Finding a new home was only one of the
many challenges NSA faced during its
formative years. Because cryptology is a
unique profession, NSA faced considerable
difficulty in recruiting and retaining
qualified employees for its specialized
workforce. Typically, personnel from the
Service Cryptologic Agencies did not stay
long after converting to civilian status. To
add to the recruitment challenge, none of
NSA’s job descriptions were in the Civil
Service Registry. Throughout the 1950s, NSA
pushed to have recognition as an “excepted
service,” with hiring and firing authority and
the ability to define its own jobs. President
Eisenhower supported this approach.
Eventually, NSA’s hiring and firing authority
was granted through the enactment of Public
Law 86-36, “National Security Act of 1959.”
A World-Wide Cryptologic System
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as the
dimensions of the Cold War became apparent,
NSA and the uniformed services moved from
a collection focus on Germany and Japan to
sites better situated for collecting signals
from the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, and
North Korea.
National Security Agency, circa 1950.
Over time, NSA asserted control over location
surveys, a prerequisite to establishing physical
locations for new sites. Consequently, NSA was
able to influence where the Service Cryptologic
Agencies established their field sites.
Eventually, a three-tier COMINT system
emerged worldwide, driven by needs for
COMINT and the communications capacities
of the era. Forward sites collected and
processed any “take” that was time-sensitive
and could be handled without sophisticated
equipment. Intermediate stations, often at
theater level, dealt with material that needed
more processing but still had to be distributed
quickly. Intercept that required processing on
massive computer banks or needed only for
long-term study was sent to NSA. In addition,
the Navy and Air Force operated mobile
collection platforms that fed intercept into the
system at appropriate levels.
To serve worldwide customers, particularly
the major military commands in Europe
16 60 Years of Defending Our Nation National Security Agency
National Security Agency 60 Years of Defending Our Nation 17