American Cryptology during the Cold War - The Black Vault

Tgp SEER!T UMBRA
investigations, conducted by the services. By December 1950 the system was so inundated
that 39 percent of AFSA employees were uncleared. NSA security people began casting
about for a quick way to process clearances and fastened their attention on the polygraph,
long used by law enforcement agencies in criminal investigations. Although polygraphs
were not admissable in court, AFSA discovered that CIA had begun using them for people
being indoctrinated for COMINT as early as 1948 and only two months earlier, had
broadened testing to include the entire CIA work force. 31 Studies showed it to be a more
reliable indicator of loyalty than the background investigation, and it was proposed that
the polygraph be tried as a way to get an "interim" clearance. Canine approved a trial
program in January 1951, but implementation was tricky. AFSA had to buy the
equipment, recruit polygraph examiners from the police departments and private
detective agencies around the country, build soundproof rooms for the interviews, and
become experienced in interpreting results in this new and experimental area of loyalty
verification.
The new polygraph procedures began on a trial basis at the U Street location in May of
1951. Soon examiners were working from seven in the morning to eleven at night. By the
end ofSeptember, they had cleared the backlog and went back to regular hours. AFSA had
suddenly acquired hundreds ofemployees with something called a "temporary" clearance,
who still required completion of the background investigation to become "permanent."
But in the helter-skelter time of war, no one paid the slightest attention to the difference,
and on the day NSA was created a large portion ofthe work force worked with a temporary
clearance. This situation would come back to haunt NSA in 1960 when Martin and
Mitchell fled to Moscow and NSA's clearance practices were called into question. (See p.
280.)
In the rush to clear people, there was considerable breakage. Examiners were used to
dealing with criminal investigations, and some ofthem had trouble making the transition.
Hostile questions elicited emotional responses, and the rate of unresolved interviews
approached 25 percent. The incredibly long hours added to the stress, and by the end ofthe
first summer it was hard to tell who was more stressed, the examiners or the examinees.
But after a very bumpy start, things smoothed out, and the security organization claimed
to have cleared up lingering administrative problems by 1953.
When first begun, the polygraph was "voluntary," but Canine declared that if an
applicant did not volunteer, the application went no further. The fiction of optional
polygraphs continued until 6 December 1953, after that historic date all applicants were
polygraphed. But there were always exceptions to the general rule that all employees
were polygraphed. No requirement was established to include existing employees in the
system, and the military, amid much controversy, refused to allow its people to be
polygraphed. 32
The modern (and usually functional, if somewhat cranky) classified waste disposal
system of the 1990s was a good deal less high-tech in 1952. Early destruction at both
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