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

COMINTNaval successes in the 1920s. Operating through theResearch Desk at the Office of Naval Communications, theNavy’s informal COMINT unit, designated OP-20-G, consistedof Lt. Laurence F. Safford and a four-person civilianstaff. Denied any help from the army, the unit, whichbegan operation in 1924, turned its attention to Japanesenaval codes.By then the navy, in collaboration with the FederalBureau of Investigation and the New York City police, hadalready undertaken several attempts to—quite literally—steal codes from the Japanese Consulate in New YorkCity. A series of breaks-in during the 1920s led to thecompilation of a Japanese codebook. Because of the book’sred binding, the code itself was thenceforth known as RED.COMINT cooperation during the war. The navy actually playeda critical role in decoding PURPLE: the machine that brokethe code was constructed at the Washington Naval Yard in1940. Thereafter SIS and the naval unit worked together tobreak the Japanese diplomatic code. At the same time, thenavy had more success than the army in breaking thecodes of its Japanese counterpart—but unfortunately, achange of code on December 1, 1941, helped make theUnited States vulnerable to the attack on Pearl Harbor thatoccurred six days later.However, the navy was able to penetrate Japan’snaval codes several other times, reacquiring them afterchanges by the Japanese, and thus contributed to Americansuccess in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway inmid-1942. By the end of the war, the status of navalCOMINT had risen to such a degree that SIS activelysought its help.The postwar era. Between 1942 and September 1945, SISwent through a staggering number of name changes, toSignal Intelligence Service Division, Signal Security Division,Signal Security Branch, Signal Security Division(again), Signal Security Service, and Signal SecurityAgency. In September 1945, it became the Army SecurityAgency, which was replaced by the Army Intelligence andSecurity Command in January 1977.The naval COMINT office only acquired a formalname in 1968, when it was designated the Naval SecurityGroup. Later it was placed under NSA, which replaced theArmed Forces Security Agency, a shortlived (May 1949-October 1952) attempt to consolidate cryptology operationsof all the services.An E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft (AWACS) lands at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan. ©REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS.244 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security