American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

'(b) (1)
(b) (3) -50 USC 403
(b) (3) -18 USC 798
Ib) (3) -P.L. 86-36
Berlin was in an entirely different situation. Its status as a four-power occupied city
meant that Soviets could walk relatively freely even in the American Sector..Stalin's
attempt to squeeze the Westerners out of Berlin (resulting in the Bedin Airlift) in 1948
placed the city in a uniquely precarious position. In such circumstances the first COMINT
intercept organization, a detachment of the ASA sit~ Iarrived in a
covert status and stayed only a few weeks in 1951. But ASA covert detachments kept
appearing in Berlin, and in the following year the command established a permanent unit
there, and the troops moved from tents to covered buildings.
In 1953 the Army G-2 concluded that the results had been paltry and recommended
the site be closed, a strange finding given the later reputation of Berlin as a SIGINT
bonanza. Fortunately, no one listened to the G-2, and ASA continued to occupy a variety of
locationsI
t AFSS followed ASA into
Berlin in 1954, beginning a presence in the city that would last until after the fall of the
Berlin Wall. 102
Berlin became a SIGINT gold mine, a window into the heart of the Communist Bloc
military system. In the mid-1950s the collection sites began to report the t~istence ofYHF
communications, and NSA moved in to investigate. An NSA technician _
\ I
discovered that Berlin was crisscrossed with above-HF communications that the West had
never before intercepted, including Soviet high-capacity multichannel and microwave
transmissions. The discovery was to have a profound influence on the development of the
SIGINTcollection system. 103
(3) -P.L. 86-36
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