American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

Entirely apart from the well-known tendency throughout the intelligence community to overclassify,
the special handling required for a very significant portion of intelligence information
has at times deprived key personnel of information vital to the successful discharge of their
responsibilities. 74
The tug ofwar between the advocates of secrecy and dissemination was never-ending.
Nor could the conflict be resolved. As SIGINT became more successful, it became an
inevitable victim of its own success. Utility meant dissemination, and dissemination
meant risk.
BREACHES IN THE DIKE - THE SECURITY CASES
The first significant breaches of the security system came from within rather than
from without. The first two were quiet, and while they both involved significant
compromise, their very obscurity minimized the damage. Neither became a cause celebre,
although one of them became public. The third, however, did major damage primarily
because it became a public case.
L' Affaire Weisband
The first case did the most real damage. But it was so successfully hushed that only a
few insiders knew that it had occurred. It involved an AFSA analyst named William
Weisband.
Weisband was an immigrant. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1908, he had entered the
United States in either 1925 or 1929. (The record on this point is obscure.) He became a
citizen in 1938 and, while living in New York City, was inducted into the Army.
Weisband went into the Signal Corps, and he first began working with ASA in 1943,
where he became a favorite ofColonel Harold Hayes (who headed the Army's cryptologic
activities in the Mediterranean). As an accomplished linguist, he was an ASA natural and
received a transfer from North Africa to Arlington Hall in 1944. The end ofthe war found
him still working there, and he hired on as a civilian. ASA needed all the help it could get
in 1945, and getting a linguist like Weisband was a good day's work. 75
Unfortunately for ASA, Weisband was a Communist and suspected ofbeing a spy. He
had handled other agents passing defense information to the Soviets even before he
entered the Army. He apparently gave up handling agents once he entered the service,
but after he arrived at Arlington Hall he probably resumed his old avocation.
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