body-of-secrets-anatomy-of-the-ultra-secret-national-security-agency-2002

elegant simplicity opened the way to a building of infinite complexity.The history of modern codebreaking and the history of computers are,to a large degree, coterminous. Yet because of its "policy of anonymity,"NSA's role has been almost totally hidden. When the Association forComputing Machinery sponsored a commemoration of the twenty-fifthanniversary of its founding, NSA simply stayed away. Likewise, whencomputing pioneers gathered at the quarter-century anniversary meetingof the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society,NSA again exhibited an advanced case of shyness.But NSA's role in computer development has been, and continues tobe, enormous. The man responsible for much of that work—as well as forthe thick shroud of secrecy that still surrounds it—was Dr. Louis W.Tordella, NSA's keeper of the secrets.By the outbreak of the Second World War, the importance ofmachines to aid in codebreaking was known but their use was limited. Atthat time the Signal Security Agency had only fifteen machines andtwenty-one operators. But by the spring of 1945, the SSA was employing1,275 operators and supervisors to work on 407 keypunch machines.Besides its off-the-shelf tabulating machines, the agency hadspecialized machines custom built for codebreaking. Known as RapidAnalytical Machines (RAMs), they employed vacuum tubes, relays, highspeedelectronic circuits, and photoelectrical principles. They were theforerunners of the modern computer, but they were expensive andoverspecialized. A number of them were built to attack a specific code orcipher, so if a cipher system was changed or abandoned, the machinewas of little value.The Navy's Op-20-G contracted with Eastman Kodak, National CashRegister, and several other firms to design and build its RAMs. TheArmy's Signal Security Agency, on the other hand, worked closely withBell Laboratories. Another major contractor during the war was IBM,which built a specialized attachment for its IBM tabulator, therebyincreasing the power of the standard punch-card systems by severalorders of magnitude.Two of the SSA's cryptanalytic machines were immense. Costing amillion dollars apiece, an extraordinary sum at the time, they werecapable of performing operations which, if done by hand in the old BlackChamber, would have required over 200,000 people. By the end of 1945another monster machine was nearing completion; it had powerequivalent to 5 million cryptanalysts.Tordella hoped the development by outside contractors of new,sophisticated cryptologic equipment would continue. But with no war to494