REVIEWS Umbra Gamma Zarf * (Above Top Secret to you, pal.) Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the intercept all international conversa- which purported NSA satellites Ultra-Secret National Security tions of interest to U.S. national secu- track the protagonist on Washing- Agency, From the Cold War Through rity decision-makers, whether the ton streets in real time and senior the Dawn of a New Century parties are human or machines, or NSA officials run death squads. Al- By James Bamford whether the media is radio, cell- though Hayden told Bamford the Doubleday, 2001 phone, e-mail, or something more movie was an “affront to truthful- 721 pages; $29.95 exotic. As recently as 1998, Bamford ness,” he also said, “Making secrecy reports, NSA officials showed off to and power the bogeymen of politi- Thomas Blanton foreign intelligence officials by play- ing them tapes of Osama bin Laden BY NOON ON SEPTEMBER 11, AS THE chatting with his mother by satellite Pentagon and what remained of the phone. World Trade Center smoldered, local Bamford burst on the national TV stations in Washington began scene in 1982 when he published the scrolling across their screens a list of first book-length exposé of the agen- “closed” schools and federal agen- cy, The Puzzle Palace, which became cies. A professor at George Washing- a major best-seller and brought the ton University remembers seeing wrath of the NSA and the Justice De- “National Security Agency” on that partment down on the author. list, and nearly jumping out of his Among the many investigative coups chair. “NSA should have been work- reported in the book were the au- ing double-time that day, not going thor’s discovery of an almost com- on liberal leave!” he told me that plete series of the agency’s employee evening. James Bamford’s important newsletter and unearthing of detailed new portrait of the NSA, Body of Se- letters in the private papers of sever- crets, explains why. al of its founders. The government, Bamford describes the NSA as the citing damage to national security largest and most powerful intelli- and violations of the “espionage gence agency in the world, with an act,” threatened to sue Bamford for annual budget of $7 billion (and ris- two specific documents it wanted to cal culture, that’s not a bad soci- ing) and a work force of about reclassify as secret, and sent security ety.” Early in his tenure, Hayden 38,000 people (more than the CIA details to confiscate the various pri- commissioned insider and outsider and FBI combined). Another 25,000 vate collections that Bamford had critiques of the agency, all of which people work in the Central Security mined. heavily criticized its culture of secre- Services, which staffs the NSA’s lis- With Body of Secrets, the NSA cy. Its “historic insularity” and “the tening posts around the world. Until took a completely different ap- ‘Super Secret NSA’ image . [are] the activity was exposed in the proach, thanks in part to new lead- no longer useful to Agency needs,” 1970s, the NSA routinely collected ership. Just before taking office as concluded one report. copies of every single international the agency’s director in 1999, Lt. Under Hayden, the agency granted telegram to or from the United Gen. Michael Hayden saw the Bamford hours of face time with top States. Today, the agency attempts to movie thriller Enemy of the State, in officials, gave him guided tours of its headquarters in Fort Meade, declas- *The codeword “Umbra” refers to the most sensitive signals intelligence, “Gamma” sified hundreds of pages of docu- was used specifically for intercepts of Soviet officials, and “Zarf” indicates electronic ments for him, and then threw a intelligence gathered by satellite. book release party for Body of Se- 62 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists January/February 2002 crets, where Bamford signed auto- were in short supply, and people ing foreign languages (Pashto, any- graphs for four hours. competent to deal with spoken Viet- one?). The good (and bad) news for This sea change in the agency’s at- namese, with very few exceptions, the agency is that more and more of titude toward public scrutiny turns were not to be found.” I suspect that the world’s communications are tak- out to be very much in its interest, similar shortages of linguists existed ing place electronically. Perhaps the judging by the different tones of on the communist side, and that, just NSA will try to find the answer to its Bamford’s two books. Puzzle Palace maybe, signals intercepts were not so chronic shortage of linguists in com- was classic exposé journalism, warn- crucial to the outcome of the war. puters—removing the human factor, ing of the Orwellian ramifications of The most controversial section of programming in all the world’s lan- the NSA’s technical capabilities, and the book covers the 1967 Israeli at- guages, and using artificial intelli- using a quotation from George Or- tack on the U.S.S. Liberty, a floating gence so the machine “learns” pat- well’s 1984 as its lead epigram. Body listening post stationed off the coast terns and codes. But that’s the story of Secrets retains large parts of the of the Sinai, that resulted in the Bamford will tell in the next volume earlier prose (whole sentences and deaths of 34 U.S. sailors. Israeli crit- of what will probably be a trilogy. even paragraphs), but its new materi- ics have blasted Bamford’s conclu- As for those still worried about the al and overall structure almost adopt sion that Israel deliberately attacked Orwellian implications highlighted the NSA’s voice. For example, one of the ship in order to cover up mas- by Bamford’s first book, and less so the book’s epigrams is the “intercept sacres of Egyptian prisoners by Is- by Body of Secrets, Bamford offers operator’s motto”: “In God we trust, raeli soldiers that were taking place some comfort. He quotes former di- all others we monitor.” Among the nearby. Among other things, Bam- rector William Studeman on the other epigrams are quotes from for- ford’s critics argue that the massacres “routine statistics” for a single NSA mer and current directors about the did not take place and that the attack intelligence collection system: It cap- need for public oversight and trust. on the ship was a case of mistaken tures a million inputs every half Bamford laughed when I asked identity. Bamford has rebutted the hour, throws away all but 6,500, fil- him about the NSA’s spin manage- criticism vigorously, and to my lights ters out some 5,000 more, and re- ment: “If somebody wants to manip- he is ahead on points: He cites nu- tains only 1,000 that meet forward- ulate me by giving me lots of docu- merous published accounts of the ing criteria. Of these, only 10 inputs ments and tours of their secret offices massacres that appeared in major are normally selected by analysts, and so forth, then I’m happy to be newspapers and breaks new ground and only one report is produced. It is manipulated.” In fact, while the by demonstrating that the NSA’s top likely that that report is on bin Laden agency may have gotten what it leadership and internal investigators and not on you. wanted—a more favorable portrait— firmly believed the attack on the Lib- Bamford also got what he wanted, erty was deliberate and that the Is- Thomas Blanton is director of the Na- more access and many more details raelis lied to cover it up. That is news tional Security Archive at George Wash- and facts. by any definition. ington University and editor of White The largest chunk of new material— Bamford’s final chapter, titled House E-Mail: The Top-Secret Messages on the Vietnam War—illustrates “Brain,” details the NSA’s historic the Reagan/Bush White House Tried to both the upside and downside of and hidden role in pushing the enve- Destroy (1995). Bamford’s new access. He gives ex- lope on computer traordinary new details of the signals technology and su- intelligence contest in Southeast Asia, percomputing. He including a minute-by-minute ac- cheerfully reports count of the final hours of the war, that there are two during which the “largest compro- questions he couldn’t mise of highly secret coding equip- resolve during his ment and materials in U.S. history” three years of work occurred. But this focus on commu- on the book—how nications security (keeping the enemy well the NSA is from reading U.S. traffic) as the doing on breaking “Achilles heel” of the war effort codes despite the seems somewhat misplaced. Bamford widespread use of quotes an NSA document complain- encryption technolo- ing that its intercepts were going to gy, and whether the waste because “U.S. personnel with agency has made any the ability to read Vietnamese texts progress on master- January/February 2002 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63.