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448 INTO THE THATCHER ERA
problems seemed less unique. 'Sure, we knew they were leaky:
recalls Odom, 'but we felt we had a way of compartmentalising
sigint carefully to deal with this.' What mattered to him was
that the Germans were investing more and more money in
sigint, and were becoming a bigger player in Europe. They had
already demonstrated their technical proficiency in some excellent
electronic warfare projects conducted jointly with Israel. In
the pragmatic world of sigint alliances, diversifying partners
made perfect sense. However, GCHQ 'went up the wall' when
they heard about it, Odom recalled with a wry grin, 'since it
undermined their specialness'. 35
One of the top priorities for any Director of GCHQ is to ensure
smooth dealings with NSA. Relations between intelligence chiefs
are often rather personal. For example, 'Pat' Carter, who had
been Director of NSA in the late 1970s, was exceedingly
anglophile, and established a happy bond with his opposite
number at GCHQ, Joe Hooper. By contrast, Bill Odom took an
initial dislike to Peter Marychurch, who he referred to as 'the
Sheep'. Indeed, Odom hated all the qualities that had prompted
Whitehall to choose Marychurch. Following the tenure of his
gung-ho predecessor Brian Tovey, GCHQ wanted a more stable
and avuncular figure. Marychurch was not a great intellectual,
but he was an effective administrator and a good diplomat. After
he had spent a period of time as GCHQ's representative in New
Zealand, some were surprised to see him recalled to become
Director. He had spent less time in London than many of his
contemporaries, and so seemed rather disconnected from the
big defence debates of the day. By contrast, Bill Odom prided
himself on his intellectual toughness and his ability to talk global
strategy, having been the right-hand man to Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser. 36
One of the reasons Odom liked the West Germans was that
they agreed with him that NATO armed forces in Europe had
long been starved of sigint. Under existing rules, only when war
actually broke out would high-grade sigint from UKUSA be
released to the West Europeans and also pushed forward to