Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 07:24:24 -0400 From: bobhunt@erols.com Subject: [lpaz-repost] (fwd) CAS: WSJ: Breaking Codes, Listening In To: Individual-Sovereignty@egroups.com, sierratimes@egroups.com, MDLP-NEWS@onelist.com, lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com
On Tue, 08 May 2001 22:47:04 -0700, Ray Heizer <heizer@home.com> wrote:
May 9, 2001
Breaking Codes, Listening In
By TIMOTHY NAFTALI
In the espionage games of the 21st century, the computer mouse is a lot more important than the martini of James Bond tales. Nor do many of today's intelligence warriors have much to do with shadowy foreign capitals or glamorous casinos. They live in peaceful Washington suburbs and work for the National Security Agency, the nation's chief code-breaking and eavesdropping organization.
A close look at the National Security Agency
Twenty years ago, James Bamford opened a window on the NSA with "The Puzzle Palace" -- an achievement in itself, given the nature of the agency's business. (NSA, it was said, stood for No Such Agency.) "Body of Secrets" (Doubleday, 721 pages, $29.95) updates the story. Part history and part expose, the book offers an "anatomy" of the NSA, seeking to strip away the myth surrounding it.
And there is plenty of myth. American eavesdroppers appear famously in conspiracy movies like "The Conversation" or "Enemy of the People," and a certain aura of menace inevitably hovers over their work. These days foreign businessmen, especially the French, fear that the NSA is passing along their cell-phone conversations to General Electric or Xerox. Mr. Bamford tries to set the record straight about this claim and many others, for the most part separating fact from fiction in a judicious and informative way.
Part of the myth is historical. Tales of U.S. intelligence have been dominated of late by the Venona intercepts, the long-deciphered but only recently released Soviet transmissions of the 1940s that implicate Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs, among others. The success of Venona has fed speculation that the full record of high-level code-breaking will rewrite the history of the Cold War.
Mr. Bamford reports a different reality. Successes against key Soviet cable traffic were actually rare. After the Soviets changed their cipher system in 1948, American code-breakers came up with very little for two decades. Thus the North Korean attack in 1950, which had been approved by Stalin and planned by his advisers, caught Washington flat-footed. Similarly, the NSA provided no warning of Khrushchev's tactics in Berlin in 1961 or his decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba in 1962.
The Vietnam War, however, brought a string of NSA successes. The agency supplied policymakers with irrefutable evidence that, despite Hanoi's "insurgency" propaganda line, the North was indeed infiltrating regular troops into South Vietnam. The U.S. Army, wich had political reasons for not accepting a high estimate of enemy troops, did not welcome the information. Disagreements between the NSA and the Army also damaged Washington's preparations for the Tet offensive. Mr. Bamford reports that until Jan. 30, 1968 -- the eve of Tet -- the Army ignored NSA warnings of an imminent Communist attack.
American coverage of Soviet signals improved in the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to taps on underseas cables, tunnels built under embassies and limousine eavesdropping. But "Body ofSecrets" does not provide any evidence that the more expensive operations -- to tape underwater cables the Navy had to redesign a submarine -- were worth the cost.
The last third of the book examines the NSA in the wake of the Soviet collapse, as it monitors America's remaining adversaries and its friends. There is, for example, a fascinating story of how the Clinton administration used NSA information to keep the French from helping Iran. Once the agency had captured Tehran's telephone efforts to purchase missile components from a French firm, Washington sent a series of high-level complaints to Paris, and the French cooperated.
Mr. Bamford also deals with fears that the NSA poses a threat to privacy. There are historical reasons for such fears. "Body of Secrets" reveals that for 40 years any commercial telegram sent to or from the U.S. was routinely shared with the NSA. Now, however, the agency is not permitted to eavesdrop on "U.S. persons" without a warrant.
The situation today is less good for foreign businessmen. Thanks to an old agreement, U.S. snoopers coordinate their work with the other major English-speaking powers (Canada, Britain and Australia). Together these countries can intercept telephone calls almost anywhere in the world -- hence those French suspicions about helping General Electric. But Mr. Bamford concludes that the NSA does not collect commercial information for American companies. If eavesdropping turns up evidence of bribery or some other improper commercial practice, however, the NSA will be sure to tell the State or Commerce departments.
The most exciting revelation in "Body of Secrets" is also its most problematic. On a sunny day in June 1967, a U.S. spy ship, the USS Liberty, was attacked by Israeli jets and destroyers leaving 37 crewmen dead and more than 100 injured. Israel tried to escape responsibility, claiming it misidentified the ship as the Egyptian "El Quseir." For three decades intelligence insiders have seethed over this unprovoked attack.
According to Mr. Bamford, a U.S. Air Force EC-121 Ferret, which was flying near the Liberty during the attack, picked up evidence that the Israelis knew they were hitting an American ship. Mr. Bamford's source is not intercepted traffic from the plane but the recollections of the chief Hebrew-language analyst on that flight, who recalls one of his teammates telling him that he heard references to "a U.S. flag" from the Israeli pilots. Mr. Bamford's charge is so serious that NSA should declassify the 33-year-old EC-121 intercepts.
Mr. Bamford's speculation about Israel's motive is less compelling than his re-creation of the event itself. On flimsy evidence he offers the hypothesis that Tel Aviv launched the attack to prevent the U.S. from picking up evidence of a war atrocity committed by Israeli soldiers just opposite the Liberty in the Sinai. It is an uncharacteristically weak argument in an otherwise authoritative and engaging book.
Mr. Naftali is director of the Presidential Reordings Project at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
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