American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

Ib) (1)
Ib) (3) -P.L. 86-36
Ib) (3) -50 USC 403
Ib) (3) -18 USC 798
One small success during these early years was the development ofcustomer liaison
organizations. By 1949 both the Army G2 and the Offrce of Naval Intelligence had
established informal liaison offices with their cryptologic counterparts at Arlington Hall
and NSS. When AFSA was established, these arrangements continued undisturbed. Both
the Army and Navy groups developed a very close relationship with AFSA, and their
people often worked in an intelligence production role. By the end of the Korean War, the
Army organization, which called itself SRB (Special Research Branch), had some nfty
people. Air Force Intelligence had a similar group, which was gradually subsumed by
AFSS into a large organization of over sixty people performing both a customer (for Air
Force Intelligence) and producer (for AFSS) role. Thus the Air Force group performed both
as a producer and consumer, while the Army and N"avy acted only as producers.
Both CIA and State maintained small offices within AFSA, under a USCIB edict of
1948. Although AFSA regulations permitted them to see semiprocessed intelligence, they
never participated in the production process, maintaining their offices for liaison purposes
only. FBI's refusal to establish any office at all reflected J. Edgar Hoover's adamant
opposition to COMINT centralization. 13
While COMINT was fractious, COMSEC/was relatively serene. During World War II
there had been a single authority for joint service communications matters, the U.S. Joint
Communications Board, established in July of1942. Its principal members were the chiefs
of communications for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. In 1948 it gave way to a new
organization, the Joint CommunicaWms-Electronics Committee (JCEC), which reigned
supreme in this area for many years thereafter. The JCEC was concerned with
communications planning, standards, and interoperability, but its charter by implication
gave ita determining voice in COMSEC policy as well.
When AFSA was created, JCEC effectively transferred central COMSEC functions to it.
The charter did not extend to non.JCS organizations, but the State Department and other
civilian agencies with communIcations security concerns had for years relied on the Army
and Navy for COMSEC support., and this reliance was transferred to AFSA. AFSA began
producing codes and ciphers for all the armed services and many of the non-DoD agencies.
In addition, it undertook centralized COMSEC R&D functions, planning and programming,
setting of security standards, and technical supervision of the communications security
activities of the armed services. The SCAs retained many residual functions, such as
distribution ofAFSA-produced codes, security monitoring oftransmissions, and the like. 14
While AFSA successfully controlled the highly technical function of COMSEC, it was
never able to control COMINT. This lack of control made powerful enemies. The State
Department was upset because, under AFSA, the number of positions allocated to
I lactually declined in the three years ofAFSA existence, from 64 to 51,
and trom almost 1'1 percent of the total to only 6.5 percent.
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