ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

COMINTsettings of the Lorenz encoder were statistically significant.The Colossus output did not give a decoded message,but rather the settings of the first set of five wheels.Humans, using a combination of statistics, language skills,and intuition did the remaining decoding. Finally, thecomplete wheel settings were fed into a device that producedthe deciphered message. Later, the versatile Colossiwere reprogrammed to do more of the code-breakingwork, but there was always considerable input from theirhuman operators.Breaking the Lorenz cipher gained the Allies crucialinformation that aided in major operations, such as theBattle of Kursk, and the D-Day landings. Colossus showedthat Turing’s ideas of a universal computer could be madeinto practical machines. However, the existence of Colossuswas kept secret for many years, and so the AmericanElectronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC),completed by the U.S. Army in 1946, was consideredthe world’s first computer until information on Colossuswas finally declassified in the 1970s. In 1996, a Colossuswas reconstructed, and it can be seen at the BletchleyPark Museum.❚ FURTHER READING:BOOKS:Hinsley, F. H., et al. British Intelligences in the SecondWorld War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations,Volume Three, Part I. London: Her Majesty’s StationaryOffice, 1984.Sale, Anthony E. “The Colossus of Bletchley Park—TheGerman Cipher System,” in Raùl Rojas and Ulf HashagenThe First Computers: History and Architectures. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 2000.Smith, Michael. Station X: The Codebreakers of BletchleyPark. London: Channel 4 Books, 2000.ELECTRONIC:WWII Codes and Ciphers. (December 19, 2002).SEE ALSOCipher KeyCipher MachinesCodes and CiphersEnigmaCOMINT(Communications Intelligence)❚ JUDSON KNIGHTCOMINT or communications intelligence is intelligencegained through the interception of foreign communications,excluding open radio and television broadcasts. It isEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Securitya subset of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, with the latterbeing understood as comprising COMINT and ELINT, electronicintelligence derived from non-communication electronicsignals such as radar. During the early part of themodern intelligence era, the terms “signals intelligence”and “communications intelligence” were used virtuallyinterchangeably, and therefore, much of what was describedas signals intelligence in World War II is moreproperly understood as COMINT.Early History of Army andNavy COMINTCOMINT is the province of several services, both militaryand non-military, most notably the National SecurityAgency (NSA) and the United States Army Intelligenceand Security Command (INSCOM). Until the establishmentof NSA in 1947, however, the majority of COMINTtook place under the aegis of “signals intelligence” activitiesin the two principal military services. Though militarycryptanalytic and cryptographic operations dated back atleast to World War I, and included activities at the WarDepartment Military Intelligence Division under the directionof Herbert O. Yardley, the first true COMINT organizationwas the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service (SIS).Established on April 24, 1930, SIS not only undertookcryptographic and cryptanalytic tasks, but developed ciphermachines and produced studies on cryptology. Itsgreatest achievement was its breaking of the Japanesediplomatic ciphers with the PURPLE code machine prior toWorld War II. In June 1942, after the outbreak of war, SISacquired an intercept operation in the form of the 2ndSignal Service Battalion, which conducted radio interceptsat Vint Hill Farms in Warrenton, Virginia.A tale of two services. The interaction of army and navyCOMINT activities during the war is rather like a moralitytale of two brothers, the older one highly favored, butfailing to live up to expectations, and the younger onecoming from behind to triumph. In this analogy, the armywas the “older brother,” and the navy, which lacked a trueCOMINT organization during the war, the surprising darkhorse. After its initial victory with PURPLE, SIS conducteda long and frustrating effort to crack Japanese militarycodes, succeeding only in 1944.The Navy had, at the end of World I, a cryptologicbureau that had emerged during the war. The bureauprovided codes for the use of President Woodrow Wilsonduring the Paris Peace Conference, but when Yardleydemonstrated his ability to break the naval codes, theOffice of Naval Intelligence (ONI) closed down thecryptologic bureau in July 1918. Navy COMINT effortsthen retreated to the shadows—a fitting place for intelligenceoperations.243