American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

ecommended special decentralization authority for COMSEC, including certain aspects of
physical security, supply, and engineering.
The R&D organization, said McKinsey, should stick solely to research and
development. Development of off-the-shelf equipment applications, local component
fabrication, equipment repair, or anything that involved known or proven technologies,
should come under some other organization - most notably, PROD. Regarding the fielding
of COMSEC equipments, unless it involved pure research, it was not properly an R&D
function, McKinsey said, and should be resubordinated to COMSEC. This was an issue,
however, that would be replayed many times during the Cold War,.27
THE MOVE
Itis desired that you take immediate action to recommend for my approval a suitable location for
the Armed Forces Security Agency within a 25-mile radius ofWashington ... the new site survey
should be carried out as a matter ofhigh priority....
William C. Foster, Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1951
When AFSA was created in 1949, it was without its own facilities. The new
organization was forced to borrow space at Arlington Hall and Naval Security Station
(NSS).
In an appendix to the document that created AFSA, the JCS directed that AFSA
prepare a plan consolidating COMINT and COMSEC into a single facility. Mer studying the
problem, AFSA concluded that the two could not be consolidated into their existing
buildings at Arlington Hall and Nebraska Avenue. In its September 1949 report to the
JCS, AFSAC pointed out that the buildings in use at Arlington Hall were temporary
structures designed for wartime use. 28
In the autumn of 1949, with the explosion of the Soviet nuclear device, atomic hysteria
was sweeping Washington. To its original charge, the JCS added one other - that a
standby location be procured which was outside the Washington area to minimize the
possibility that American cryptologic capabilities be destroyed on the first day ofa war. 29
Commander Arthur Enderlin, whom Admiral Stone had appointed to chair the study
committee, was adamantly opposed to a standby location. He and his committee
considered it a waste of money and refused to recommend an alternate site. The JCS
demanded a recommendation, but Enderlin refused. Stone reiterated the order - Enderlin
remained unmoved. Stone fired Enderlin and in his place appointed Captain Thomas
Dyer, one of the leading cryptanalysts of World War II. Dyer was a known advocate ofthe
alternate location concept. 30
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