National Security Agency - The Black Vault

1970s
1970s
The Church
Committee
From its inception, NSA had developed
what could only be described as a cursory
relationship with the U.S. Congress. At times,
the Agency would engage with Congress
on budget matters and other serious issues.
However, due to the secretive environment
of the Cold War and the perception that
the subject matter the Agency dealt with
was both highly specialized and classified,
many congressmen were uncomfortable
exercising more than minimal oversight.
This scenario changed dramatically after
credible media reports surfaced that U.S.
intelligence agencies had violated the
rights of American citizens by engaging in
unlawful behavior. In order to investigate
these claims, the United States Senate formed
an investigating committee under Senator
Frank Church (D, Idaho). Soon after, the
House would follow suit, forming a committee
under Congressman Otis Pike (D, New York).
When their work was finally completed,
both investigative bodies produced reports
denoting that two specific NSA projects,
Project SHAMROCK and Project MINARET,
had violated a number of Americans’ Fourth
Amendment rights. n
NSA Director, Lt Gen Lew Allen, Jr. USAF testified during a
Senate hearing in 1975. (See Document B at end of chapter)
A critical part of the directive called for the
Director of NSA to serve simultaneously
as the Chief of the CSS. The initiative also
tasked the Director to carry out a wide range
of responsibilities in the areas of tasking,
training, research and career development, and
government cryptology.
Lieutenant General Phillips
In the early summer of 1972, Admiral Gayler
gained his fourth star and headed off to
Hawaii to become head of the U.S. Navy’s
Pacific Command. Taking his place was Air
Force Lieutenant General Samuel C. Phillips.
Phillips had no intelligence experience,
but was well versed in the area of missiles
and space. His focus during his brief time
at NSA was on organizational reforms and
streamlining NSA operations.
Lieutenant General Allen
He was replaced by another Air Force General,
Lieutenant General Lew Allen, Jr., in August 1973.
Previous to his appointment to the Directorship,
Allen had managed a wide range of overhead
assets, including satellites that monitored Soviet
nuclear arms control treaty compliance. Allen
was the first NSA Director to hold a Ph.D.,
having obtained his doctorate in physics at the
University of Illinois.
One of his most compelling challenges
was to deal with the ramifications of the
investigations of the U.S. Intelligence
Community, including NSA, by the Church
and Pike Committees.
SHAMROCK and MINARET
In the 1930s Congress passed a law prohibiting
communications companies from revealing the
content of telegrams to third parties. During
WWII, however, Congress implemented a series
of censorship laws that superseded the original
law and allowed U.S. authorities to examine the
content of telegrams sent to and from the United
States. In addition, any encrypted messages were
sent to Arlington Hall.
When WWII ended, the authorization for the
program expired. However, with the coming of
the Cold War, the Army Security Agency appealed
to the patriotic sentiments of the companies to
continue to provide copies of messages to and
from the Soviet Union. This practice, by then
known as Operation Shamrock, continued up to
the NSA era.
The Church Committee raised concerns
about whether NSA, in carrying out Operation
SHAMROCK, had exceeded its legal authorities
and violated the privacy rights of Americans as
protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Operation MINARET began in the 1960s.
The project involved the monitoring of the
international voice communications of specific
U.S. citizens whose names had been placed on
a “watch list.”
A Guide for the Silent Sentinel: United
States Signals Intelligence Directive
(USSID)
The activities of the Church and Pike
Committees revealed holes in the legal
procedures that underpinned NSA and its
work, although, from its earliest days NSA had
sought to construct standards and regulations
to govern and guide its work.
The predecessor to the USSID system, dating
from 1958, was the Manual of U.S. SIGINT
Operations (MUSSO). MUSSO was intended
to bring structure and orderly procedures to
a SIGINT system that had grown rapidly over
the previous decade and worked efficiently in
its early years.
System managers, however, found serious
difficulties with MUSSO as the cryptologic
environment evolved and greater challenges
emerged. Specifically, there were serious
problems in trying to craft a system that
could adapt to the wide range of changing
procedures and practices in timely ways. Most
importantly, the manual did not provide any
clear authority for the procedures in question.
With the growing demand for SIGINT, it was
clear that NSA needed better guidelines and, in
the early 1970s, NSA’s leadership introduced
the United States Signals Intelligence Directive
(USSID) system. Unlike previous systems,
these directives provided timely procedural
guidelines for practitioners throughout the
SIGINT system. They could also be updated
quickly to reflect changing needs and
procedures and be disseminated rapidly via
electrical communications.
The development and promulgation of USSID
#1 proved to be critical to the Intelligence
Community. Issued in 1971, the document
spelled out the structure of the U.S. SIGINT
System around the world. (See Document C
at end of chapter.) Over time these USSIDs --
NSA directives on SIGINT -- would prove to be
indispensable to NSA employees and affiliates
in gaining an understanding of the proper
handling of SIGINT. To ensure that all Agency
employees and affiliates were familiar with
the standards, training requirements on the
handling of information regarding U.S. persons
were stringent and demanding.
A Host of Increasing
Asymmetrical Challenges
In addition to the Soviet threat, terrorism
emerged as an important concern in the ‘70s,
which sparked a significant shift in how NSA
organized its operational and analytic business.
Real-time reporting was essential.
Despite the challenges associated with
“standing up” a new analytic area, NSA proved
to be adept at producing critical information
on terrorist incidents and activities. In
1974 Agency analysts uncovered a plot to
assassinate Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
during an overseas trip.
During the ‘70s, NSA became directly involved
in covering terrorist-related kidnappings,
assassinations, and hijackings. The support and
assistance provided by the Agency in these
events were ultimately seen as indispensable
to the Nation’s ongoing effort to prevent
and manage terrorist threats. These activities
further cemented NSA’s key role in providing
intelligence support to The White House, as
well as other important consumers.
54 60 Years of Defending Our Nation National Security Agency
National Security Agency 60 Years of Defending Our Nation 55