American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

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Preface
What It Is and What It Is Not
This book is intended to be a general overview of U.S. government
cryptology since the end of World War II. It is projected to be a four-book
study carrying the story to the end of the Cold War, symbolized by the fall of
the Berlin Wall.
I have attempted to include the entire effort, which includes the Service
Cryptologic Agencies (as they were once called), as well as certain CIA
programs. These organizations comprised almost t-pe totality of the
cryptologic efforts of the federal government, although other organizations
(FBI is a good example) have occasionally dabbled in the discipline. Because it
is comprehensive rather than strictly organizational, it contains information
about the field sites, intermediate headquarters and the SCA headquarters
themselves. It does not cover in detail the organizational aspects of the
creation of the National Security Agency. That is covered in good detail in
Thomas L. Burns's book, The Origins of the National Security Agency: 1940­
1952, published in 1990. Thus the coverage of events between 1945 and 1952
is sketchy and simply tries to fill in blanks in the record that the Burns book
did not cover.
This is not a history of private or nongovernmental cryptology. Although
it covers relationships with our Second and Third Party partners, it does not
focus on that aspect either, except as it contributed to the development of our
own effort. Our long-standing debt to the British cryptologic effort at GCHQ
should not go unnoticed, however. It deserves a separate book.
If you are looking for a history of your specific organization, you will not
find it. This is a history of events, not organizations. The importance of the
cryptologic contribution to American security is so broad as to obscure
individual organizations and, often, the specific people involved. In certain
cases, however, I have identified major individual contributors to cryptologic
history or those who were, by chance, thrown into momentous events.
Two overarching themes characterized American cryptology from the end
of World War II to the end of the first Nixon administration: centralization
and expansion. The SIGINT system underwent a period of almost unbroken
expansion from 1945 to the American retreat from Southeast Asia. These
themes dominate the first two books in the set.
The end of the Vietnam War and the era of the Watergate scandals that
followed marked a watershed, and new themes of retrenchment and
decentralization marked the period that followed. These will be the themes
that open Book III.
THOMAS R. JOHNSON
HANDLE VIA TALENT KEYHOLE COMINT
E TO FOREIGN NATIONALS
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