American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

problem and, during 1943 and 1944, cooperatively worked a number of Soviet
cryptographic systems. 4
Meantime, the Navy, in order to collect Soviet naval traffic, had opened up an
intercept effort at Bainbridge Island in Washington State. Tightly controlled, it was
headed by Louis Tordella, later the deputy director ofNSA,5
By the end of the war, both cryptologic organizations were mounting extensive efforts
against Soviet communications, despite the official designation of the USSR as an ally.
OP-20-G, concentrating on Soviet naval communications in the Pacific from Skaggs Island
and Bainbridge, employed 192 people, while ASA had almost 100. They had both been
surreptitiously training Russian linguists for a year.
But the effort was charged with political implications. Roosevelt was trying to
maintain the fragile alliance with the USSR and was being challenged on the left by
Henry Wallace, a potential political rival who felt the administration was anti-Soviet.
In this atmosphere Brigadier General Carter Clarke of the Army G-2 paid a visit to
Preston Corderman (chief, SIS) and Frank Rowlett several months before the end of the
war. Clarke said that he had received informal instructions - allegedly from the White
House - to cease any effort against the Soviet problem. It appeared that someone in the
White House had gotten word of the compartmented Soviet problem and had concluded
that it did not accord with the current diplomatic situation. (It was discovered years later
that the White House staff was in fact infiltrated by a single Communist or "fellow
traveler," who may have been in a position to know about the Army program.) Clarke did
not desire that the program be closed, and in fact SIS (soon to be renamed ASA) received a
steady increase in resources for the program. 6
In June 1945, with the war coming to an end, the Navy proposed formal collaboration
with the Army on the Soviet problem, which was then referred to as the RATTAN project.
The Army wanted a more integrated effort, but they eventually agreed to organize under
the more decentralized Navy scheme.
At the same time, ANCIB proposed to LSIB that their cooperation against Germany,
Italy, and Japan now be extended to include the USSR. The Americans proposed that the
cooperation be fully as close as it had been during the war. This included sharing all
details, including the status and method of cryptanalytic attack, and the exchange of raw
traffic and code/cipher recoveries. The British agreed, and in August the two sides arrived
at an unwritten agreement predicated on an understanding arrived at in June between
Rear Admiral Hewlett Thebaud, chairman of ANCIB, an1
Ifor
LSIB. This historic agreement extended bilateral cooperation into the Cold War and
established the basis for what became known as the BRUSA Agreement. The two sides
agreed to call the new project BOURBON. 7
(b) (3)-P.L.
86-36
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