This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Intelligence and National Security in December 2012, available online:

http://www.tandfonline.com/ DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2012.699288

Code words, euphemisms and what they can tell us about us about Cold War Anglo-American Communications Intelligence.

David Easter

ABSTRACT This study examines the code words and euphemisms which

protected Anglo-American Communications Intelligence (Comint) during the

Cold War. It explains how the code word security system operated and identifies

the main Comint code words and euphemisms in effect from 1946 to 1999. The

paper then uses these code words and euphemisms to interpret declassified

American documents and reveal more information about Anglo-American

Comint on the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia, South Vietnam and China in the 1960s.

The great barrier to researching Cold War Anglo-American communications intelligence

(Comint) has always been official secrecy. The American and British governments have only

released a tiny proportion of the historic records held by their main Comint agencies, the

National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

NSA and GCHQ Comint also has exemptions from the American and British Freedom of

Information Acts. The records of other bodies which handled Comint in the Cold War, like

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), are

more open but Comint material is still often retained or heavily redacted before public

1

release. Human sources are problematic as well because current and former government

employees on both sides of the Atlantic can be prosecuted for disclosing Comint secrets. The

secrecy barrier is not insuperable: recent major works by Matthew Aid and Richard Aldrich

on the NSA and GCHQ respectively, have shown what can be achieved through meticulous

research and careful analysis, but it does hamper progress and there remain big gaps in our

knowledge, such as the extent of Anglo-American Comint on sub-Saharan Africa, Latin

America and communist China during the Cold War.1

One way to approach this problem of secrecy is to exploit features of the security procedures

that protected Anglo-American Comint in the Cold War. Britain and the United States,

together with their Comint partners, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, had common

procedures for handling and disseminating Comint. As part of these procedures, documents

containing Comint were marked with special code words in addition to the standard security

classifications (top secret, secret and confidential). These code words signified to the initiated

the presence of Comint and helped control access to Comint material. Documents carrying

the code words were only issued to people with Comint security clearances and were stored

more securely than government papers merely classified as ‘top secret’ or ‘secret’. Officials

were also forbidden to discuss Comint in their normal correspondence and instead employed

euphemisms to refer to it.2

These procedures and practices were designed to secure and conceal Comint but they create

opportunities for researchers. Once the code word system and the different euphemisms for

Comint are understood, it is possible to reinterpret already released documents and discover

more about NSA and GCHQ Comint. This article will explain how the security system was

set up and operated, describe the various Comint code word categories and identify the main

code words and euphemisms. The article will then demonstrate how these terms can be used

2

to analyse declassified American documents and reveal information about Anglo-American

Comint, including intelligence on the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia, South Vietnam and China.

In March 1946 Britain and the United States formally inaugurated a post war Comint

partnership by signing the British-US Communication Agreement (BRUSA).3 Under the

terms of the agreement the British and American Comint agencies would work together to

intercept and decrypt foreign communications and share all raw traffic and Comint items. It

was essential to protect the fruits of this cooperation and at meetings in 1946 and 1948

American and British officials devised joint security arrangements to control and limit access

to Comint, drawing upon their experiences in the Second War World. These arrangements

were laid out in Appendix B to BRUSA which formed the basis of all national regulations for

the security and dissemination of Comint.4

Appendix B divided Comint into two security categories: Special Intelligence and Traffic

Intelligence. Special Intelligence broadly consisted of Comint obtained from the decryption

of encrypted foreign messages. Traffic Intelligence was Comint derived from means other

than decoding or deciphering messages, such as the study of procedure signals, call signs,

direction finding bearings and other externals of communications. These boundaries were not

completely rigid, however, and the two types of Comint could sometimes cross over. Traffic

Intelligence could be regarded as Special Intelligence if it disclosed successes in gaining

intelligence from encrypted communications. Conversely, low level decrypted

communications could sometimes be downgraded to the Traffic Intelligence category.

Unencrypted, plain language messages would normally be categorised as Traffic Intelligence,

although there were some exceptions.5

After defining the terms, Appendix B set out general security and dissemination procedures

for Anglo-American Comint.6 It assigned the two categories of Comint security

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classifications and code words that would change over time. The most sensitive form of

Comint, Special Intelligence, was classified as ‘top secret’ and given the code word ‘Cream’,

which replaced the wartime high level Comint code word ‘Ultra’.7 The classification ‘top

secret’ and the code word were to appear on every sheet of paper which contained Special

Intelligence.8 The same phrase was to be written on documents which revealed success,

progress or processes in the production of Special Intelligence, even if the document did not

contain actual intelligence. This rule extended to the 1946 edition of Appendix B which had

the words ‘TOP SECRET CREAM’ written on the top right hand corner of every page. By

1948 the Special Intelligence code word had changed and a revised version of Appendix B

was marked ‘TOP SECRET GLINT’.9 The Special Intelligence code words were themselves

classified as ‘top secret’ and were not to be used in their code word sense in the presence of

people who did not have Comint clearance. Traffic Intelligence was given a lower level of

security – it was classified as ‘secret’ - and had its own series of code words. In 1946, the

code word was ‘Ivory’ and the words ‘SECRET IVORY’ were to appear on every sheet of

paper which contained or disclosed the existence of Traffic Intelligence.10

In 1953 Britain and the United States revised Appendix B and the code word categories,

putting an even greater focus on the protection of Comint while at the same time relaxing

certain elements of the system.11 In the new edition of Appendix B the nomenclature changed

as Special Intelligence was renamed ‘Crypt Intelligence’. More fundamentally, the Special

Intelligence and Traffic Intelligence security categories were replaced with a division of

BRUSA Comint into three categories based upon the required level of protection. 12 In the

new system the top level was Category III Comint, defined as Comint ‘for which the

protection of source or content is the overriding consideration and which must, therefore, be

given the highest degree of security protection.’ Into Category III went Crypt Intelligence,

unless it was specifically assigned to the lower categories, Traffic Intelligence with call-signs

4

or message headings encrypted in high security codes or ciphers, and one other type of

Comint which has been redacted in the document. At the discretion of the American and

British Comint authorities, other Traffic Intelligence could also be placed in this category.

Category II Comint had less rigorous standards of security and was the default category for

Traffic Intelligence. It also included Crypt Intelligence ‘involving the solution of codes,

ciphers and special systems of lower security’. Category I Comint had the least stringent

security restrictions and consisted of low level Comint as agreed by the authorities. In

addition to these definitions, the revised Appendix B offered some general criteria to help

assign Comint to the right category. Officials would have to take into account the difficulty in

intercepting the traffic or solving the codes and ciphers, the cryptographic sophistication of

the country originating the traffic, the intelligence value of its content and the security

grading given to the content by the originator country.

The code word system previously applied to Special Intelligence and Traffic Intelligence was

transferred over to Category III and II Comint. The classification ‘top secret’ and a code

word were to appear on every sheet of paper which contained or disclosed Category III

Comint, including maps and charts. Category II material would carry the classification

‘secret’ and have a different code word. However, notes to the revised Appendix B did allow

some exceptions to these rules.13 JIC appreciations and CIA National Intelligence Estimates

containing Comint could be issued without the code words if the statements in the papers

were so generalised that they could not be traced back to Comint. Any specific Comint detail

would have to go in supporting documents carrying the Comint code word. Category I

Comint had no code word and would be given a security classification no lower than

‘confidential’.

The procedures set out in the 1953 revision of Appendix B set the template for the rest of the

Cold War. Although BRUSA was superseded by the UK-US Communications Intelligence

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Agreement (UKUSA) in 1956, the division of Comint into three main security categories

remained.14 The only innovation was that by the 1960s Category I Comint had been given its

own code word, creating a system where there were three categories of UKUSA Comint, all

identified and protected by a separate code word which changed over time.15 As the Anglo-

American Comint partnership expanded to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand, these

countries used the same code words. The other field of Signals Intelligence (Sigint),

Electronic Intelligence or the interception and processing of non-communications

transmissions such as radar signals, was not covered by the BRUSA/UKUSA code word

system.

The BRUSA/UKUSA code words and security procedures controlled and limited access to

Comint. Ministers, officials and service personnel had to undergo special security checks, be

‘indoctrinated’ into the rules of Comint security and given specific clearances before they

were authorised to see documents marked with the Comint code words.16 Possession of a

security clearance to see top secret documents did not on its own entitle a policymaker to

view Special Intelligence or Category III Comint. In effect, the BRUSA/UKUSA code word

system created a special compartment for Comint, separating it out from other types of secret

and top secret information. Material in the Comint code word compartment was also subject

to more stringent security measures.17 In the State Department documents containing special

intelligence were not allowed to circulate freely in the building. Instead they were held in a

double locked vault on the 6th floor and one other secure location. If a special intelligence

document was required by a Comint indoctrinated State Department official, it would be

brought to him or her by a security officer. Once the official had read the document, it would

be immediately returned to the vault.18 Similar rules operated in the Foreign Office.19 These

security procedures gave Comint a certain mystique. One State Department official recalled

that:

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[State Department] Offices dealing with low priority countries benefited by exploiting the policymakers' compulsion to look at codeword material. The bearers of intercepts got favored treatment. The texts were placed between special covers, handled under lock and key, and hand delivered by special carriers. The latter enjoyed almost immediate access to the highest levels of the government, and these policymakers, in turn, often found NSA tidbits dramatic, entertaining, and juicy.20

Following the end of the Cold War the UKUSA nations scrapped the main elements of the

code word system. In 1999 the three current Comint code words were abolished along with

the terms Comint Category I, II and III, although the material they covered still remained

secret.21 Comint would henceforth be controlled and protected in different ways. This change

in procedure opened the way for the declassification of the previously secret Cold War

Comint code words. A 2008 American National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) guide for

reviewing and redacting declassified documents listed the following ‘SIGINT product code

words’ which could be released:

ACORN CREAM FLARE KIMBO PIXIE THUMB

AMBLE KRONE FROTH LARUM SABRE TRINE

BASTE DAUNT GAVEL MAGIC SAPPY TWEED

CANOE DENIM GLINT MORAY SAVIN ULTRA

CHEER DINAR HERON PEARL SPOKE UMBRA

CHUTE EIDER HYSON PINUP SPRIG USHER

COPSE BOOTY IVORY PIVOT SUEDE WITCH22

Some of these words are recognisable as high level Comint code words. Ultra and Magic

were famously used in the Second World War and as seen above, Cream was a late 1940s

code word for Special Intelligence. Three other words in the list, Dinar, Trine and Umbra,

have previously been identified by writers and historians as high level Comint code words,

starting with David Wise in his 1973 book The Politics of Lying.23 Wise, who based his work

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on unattributable interviews with former American government officials, claimed that top

secret special intelligence had been marked with the code words Dinar, Trine and Umbra.

NSA documents released subsequently confirm his claims. A declassified internal history of

the NSA referred to Dinar as a ‘Category III COMINT codeword’ and in a court affidavit in

1980 a senior NSA official revealed that Umbra was the ‘codeword applicable to Category III

(the highest category) COMINT.’24 An internal NSA journal implied that Umbra was the

replacement for Trine.25

It can be deduced that eight of the other ‘SIGINT product code words’ on the NRO list were

also BRUSA/UKUSA Special Intelligence or Category III code words. These eight words

(Acorn, Canoe, Copse, Daunt, Eider, Froth, Glint and Suede) appear on American and British

Comint material classified as ‘top secret’ and which at other times carried known Special

Intelligence or Category III code words. Good examples of this are the approximately 3,000

NSA Venona decrypts and analyses of 1940s Soviet intelligence messages which were

painstakingly produced between 1946 and 1980. A Venona special analysis report from 1947

has the phrase ‘TOP SECRET CREAM’ on every page and Venona decrypts issued in the

1960s are marked ‘top secret’ with the code words Dinar, Trine or Umbra.26 Venona

documents and decrypts produced in the intervening period, from 1949 to 1960, still carry the

classification ‘top secret’ but also one of the eight NRO code words used in the following

chronological sequence: Glint, Copse, Acorn, Suede, Canoe, Froth, Eider and Daunt.27 These

eight code words cannot be specific to Venona (‘Venona’ itself was one of several special

code words for the programme) because they also appear and follow the same sequence on

other top secret Comint documents. The BRUSA appendices in 1946 have the code word

Cream but later versions and notes issued at intervals between 1948 and 1956 are marked

with the code words Glint, Acorn, Suede, Canoe, Froth, and Eider.28 GCHQ intercepts of

Soviet Bloc communications in the late 1940s carry the code word Cream in August 1947 but

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Glint, Copse and Acorn from September 1947 to 1950.29 It should be added that when the

eight code words from the NRO list appear on any Comint related material prefixed with a

security classification, it is always with the classification ‘top secret’ and never ‘secret’ or

‘confidential’. It seems safe to assume that they are Special Intelligence or Category III

Comint code words.

By tracking the appearance of the code words on the Venona documents, the GCHQ Soviet

Bloc decrypts and CIA Korean War Freedom of Information Act releases, and by using other

sources, it is possible to reconstruct the sequence of Special Intelligence and Category III

Comint code words and the approximate time period for which they were in use:

Cream: March 1946 – August 1947.30 Froth: October 1953 – December 1954.31

Glint: September 1947 – June 1949.32 Eider: January 1955 – June 1959.33

Copse: July 1949 – July 1950.34 Daunt: July 1959 – December 1960.35

Acorn: August 1950 – June 1951.36 Dinar: January 1961 – August 1965.37

Suede: July 1951 – June 1952.38 Trine: September 1965 – November 1968.39

Canoe: July 1952 – September 1953.40 Umbra: December 1968 – 1999.41

Looking at this series, it is apparent that the high level code words were changed much more

frequently in the late 1940s and early 1950s than during the later Cold War. In their revision

of Appendix B in 1953 American and British officials had begun to move away from an

annual change over, directing that the Category III and II code words should be replaced

every two years or earlier if required.42 This rule was soon relaxed. The 1956 edition of

Appendix B merely stated that the code words should be replaced when in the opinion of the

Comint authorities, ‘a requirement exists for a change.’.43 The principle reason for

9

persevering with existing code words, with the security risks that this entailed, was the cost

and effort involved in replacing them. With Australia, Canada and New Zealand members of

the Comint partnership and the NSA and GCHQ producing ever greater amounts of Comint

material, changing code words became an expensive and laborious task. For each change

over the UKUSA Comint agencies had to produce thousands of rubber stamps and sheets of

pre-printed paper bearing the new code word and securely distribute them to all posts.44

Several times though the UKUSA agencies had to replace a Category III code word because

it had been compromised. For example, McGeorge Bundy, the President’s Special Assistant

for National Security Affairs between 1961 and 1966, once accidently exposed a Category III

code word to the American public and forced a code word change.45 In 1965 the New York

Times Magazine published a photograph of Bundy talking to President Lyndon Johnson on

the White House lawn. Bundy was holding a copy of the CIA Daily Bulletin on which was

clearly visible the words ‘TOP SECRET DINAR’.46 An NSA internal history recalled that

‘This produced numerous press references to “a codeword so secret the very existence is

classified”’ and the UKUSA agencies were compelled to change the Category III code word

to Trine, a process which cost around $250,000.47 Unfortunately, Trine itself was

compromised three years later in a much more dramatic fashion, when the North Koreans

seized the American Sigint spy ship USS Pueblo and captured on board a considerable hoard

of Comint material.48 North Korea displayed on national television Sigint tasking documents

from the Pueblo marked with Trine and other code words and later published pictures of

them in a propaganda book.49 Although the heads of the NSA were reluctant to change the

code words at that time, believing that it ‘would be more trouble, more expense, and cause

more confusion that would be worthwhile from a security standpoint’, Trine was replaced by

Umbra in December 1968.50 In spite of its own later exposure Umbra would remain the

Category III code word for the rest of the Cold War.

10

Some of the other words on the NRO list can be identified as lower level Comint code words.

Ivory was a Traffic Intelligence code word and Moray and Spoke were the Category I and II

code words accompanying Umbra.51 They were preceded by Larum and Savin from 1965 to

1968 and probably by Sabre and Kimbo in the first half of the 1960s.52 Pearl, Pinup and

Thumb were low level code words used in the Second World War, although Pearl also

appeared on late 1940s GCHQ documents classified as ‘secret’ relating to Soviet Bloc

communications.53 The remaining 16 words in the NRO guide are not known but presumably

some of them were Traffic Intelligence and Category I and II code words from 1947 to 1960.

Apart from these main BRUSA/UKUSA Comint code words, there were many others which

further compartmentalised information and restricted access to it.54 Probably the most

important of these subsidiary code words was ‘Gamma’, which was introduced at some point

between 1956 and 1967.55 Gamma was used to give extra protection to particularly sensitive

Comint such as intelligence on the Soviet Union, intercepts of South Vietnamese government

communications and messages of American anti-Vietnam War activists.56 Gamma documents

carried the caveat ‘GAMMA CONTROLLED ITEM’ on the cover, first and title pages and

Gamma markings on all the internal pages as well as the normal Category III Comint code

words.57 In the early 1970s Gamma contained approximately 20 sub-compartments which

protected particular operations, methods or sources, such as information about Soviet-Arab

communications.58 These sub-compartments were designated by four letter long code words

which always began with the letter ‘G’, producing such oddities as Gabe, Gant, Gart, Gilt,

Gout, Grol, Gult, Gupy and Gyro. ‘Gamma Gupy’ was the term for Comint obtained by

intercepting the car phone conversations of Soviet leaders in the 1960s and early 1970s while

from autumn 1968, intercepts of South Vietnamese cable traffic were marked ‘Gamma

Gout’.59 On documents the code words were compounded, so that a State Department

intelligence note on the Soviet role in the May 1967 Middle East Crisis had the words ‘TOP

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SECRET TRINE/GAMMA (GART-GROL) CONTROLLED’ written at the top and bottom

of every page.60 Policymakers would need clearance for all of these separate code word

compartments before they could see the document.

Perhaps because there were so many changing code words, ‘code word’ and ‘codeword’

themselves seem to have become generic terms for Comint. The warning ‘This document

contains code word material’ was printed on the front of CIA reviews and memoranda

containing Comint and it also appeared on the front page of a 1972 NSA ‘Comint Report’ on

India.61 In the 1970s the top secret edition of the CIA’s regular Central Intelligence Bulletin

carried the statement that it was

published in both a Top Secret Codeword and a Secret edition. Recipients of the more tightly held Codeword version should not discuss it or its Codeword contents with recipients of the Secret edition.62

Given that the top secret edition of the Bulletin included Comint, almost certainly

‘Codeword’ here referred to communications intelligence.63 It is possible though, that ‘code

word’ and ‘codeword’ did not always mean Comint. From the mid-1950s the United States

had developed another code word control system for intelligence gathered by high level aerial

reconnaissance and later satellites, using code words such as Talent and Keyhole.64 ‘Code

word’ and ‘codeword’ might sometimes refer to these code words and imagery intelligence.

The BRUSA/UKUSA procedures created an interlocking system for controlling and referring

to Comint and the combined markings and different terms can be seen on issues of the CIA’s

Current Intelligence Weekly Review. The review was published by the CIA’s Office of

Current Intelligence every Friday and issued to American officials in Comint or non-Comint

versions.65 A Comint version of the weekly review of 30 August 1956 had the security

classification and the Category III Comint code word, ‘TOP SECRET EIDER’, printed on the

top of its interior pages.66 Its cover page was emblazoned with the customary phrase ‘THIS

12

DOCUMENT CONTAINS CODE WORD MATERIAL’, followed by the stern instructions

that the document

is to be seen only by US PERSONNEL especially indoctrinated and authorised to receive Special Intelligence information. The security of this document must be maintained in accordance with SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE SECURITY REGULATIONS. No action may be taken by any person on the Special Intelligence presented herein, regardless of any advantage which may be gained, unless such action is first approved by the Director of Central Intelligence.

Editions of the Weekly Review from the late 1950s and 1960s had a similar format but

substituted the phrase ‘communications intelligence’ for ‘special intelligence’ in the front

page instructions.67

The influence of the BRUSA/UKUSA security and dissemination system spread beyond

these formal markings on documents. Indoctrinated American and British policymakers

sometimes used the different control terms as euphemisms for Comint in their internal

correspondence. Rather than write ‘Comint’ or ‘Sigint’ they wrote ‘special intelligence’,

‘code word material’ or the current high level Comint code word. Examples of this usage can

be seen in British documents from the Suez War of 1956. In a minute to the JIC in November

1956 a British official explained how intelligence would be coordinated during the conflict

with Egypt. He noted that the staff would ‘check for the exclusion of codeword material from

the daily report prepared...for circulation to the Cabinet.’68 In another minute, an official

described the early morning daily intelligence briefings in the War Room in Whitehall as

being only for ‘those officers who are cleared to receive Eider information’.69 Despite the

introduction of the term ‘Crypt Intelligence’ and the triple category system, the phrase

‘special intelligence’ seems to have been the euphemism most commonly used in

correspondence. This practice may even have been an approved part of UKUSA security

procedure, for the NRO review and redaction guide defined ‘Special Intelligence’ as ‘the

unclassified term which is used to identify COMINT in the unclassified environment.’70

13

Understanding the BRUSA/UKUSA security system and identifying the various code words

and euphemisms is important because they can help pierce some of the secrecy surrounding

Comint. Although the Special Intelligence and Category III code words and Comint

euphemisms were originally intended to protect and conceal intelligence, once their meanings

are known they can signal the presence of Comint in a document and reveal information

about it. They can indicate NSA and GCHQ Comint targets, show what intelligence the

agencies were providing American and British policymakers and give clues to code breaking

successes. Yet there are limits to using the code words in this way. In the past American

government reviewers often redacted the high level Comint code words on documents prior

to their public release; on CIA intelligence reports it is common to see the classification ‘top

secret’ with the following word deleted. Indeed, reviewers sometimes overlooked a code

word and inadvertently revealed what they were trying to hide. On a 106 page long CIA

report about Soviet defence spending from 1955, a reviewer has carefully deleted the word

following ‘TOP SECRET’ on top and bottom of every page, except for the top of page 23,

where the tell-tale phrase ‘TOP SECRET EIDER’ can be seen.71

It should also be borne in mind that the Special Intelligence and Category III code words

were not exclusively for intelligence derived from code breaking. The guidance in BRUSA

Appendix B suggests that the high level code words were sometimes used for Comint based

on traffic analysis and perhaps plain text and speech intercepts. They could also protect

documents which contained information on Comint collection methods or the handling of

Comint instead of actual Comint. There is an element of uncertainly as well, because parts of

Appendix B relating to Special Intelligence and Category III Comint are redacted and

procedures may have been amended after 1956. Nonetheless, if a specific intelligence report

was marked with a Special Intelligence or Category III code word it does indicate that some

of the information in that report came from Comint. Furthermore, it will have come from

14

Comint requiring the highest degree of security protection. On most occasions this would be

decrypted or deciphered communications rather than traffic analysis or plain text.

Despite the best efforts of the reviewers, high level code words and Comint euphemisms

appear on declassified American intelligence reports relating to many different countries

during the Cold War: Bolivia, China, the Congo, France, Greece-Turkey, India-Pakistan,

Indonesia, Laos, North Vietnam, South Africa, South Vietnam and the Soviet Union.72 This

article will take the examples of the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia, South Vietnam and China to

demonstrate how code words and euphemisms can be used with other evidence to pick out

NSA and GCHQ intelligence targets and uncover Comint. For simplicity’s sake, the article

will treat the NSA as being the producer of Comint in American intelligence reports but

because of the BRUSA/UKUSA cooperation arrangements, GCHQ may actually have been

the source for some countries in Africa and Asia. For example, Comint on China in a CIA

memorandum might have originated in a GCHQ intercept from Britain’s listening post in

Hong Kong. Equally, NSA intercepts, solutions to foreign codes and decrypted Comint

would have been shared with GCHQ.

Firstly, Category III code words and Comint euphemisms on documents can identify little

known targets of the NSA, such as the Congo in the 1960s. After independence in 1960, the

Congo went through a prolonged and complex crisis, with multiple secessions, civil war,

military coups and intervention by Belgian and United Nations’ troops. Amidst the chaos and

instability, the United States was determined to deny the USSR a foothold in the Congo and it

opposed Soviet-learning Congolese leaders, such as Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister,

and Antoine Gizenga, Lumumba’s deputy, who later established a rebel regime based in the

city of Stanleyville.

15

It is clear from code word documents that the NSA supplied Comint on the Congo to

American policymakers. On 11 August 1960 the Congo featured in a ‘Synopsis of

Intelligence Material Reported to the President’ written by John Eisenhower, Assistant Staff

Secretary to President Dwight Eisenhower.73 The short synopsis carried the classification

‘TOP SECRET DAUNT’, marking it out as containing Category III Comint, but frustratingly

the text on the Congo has been completely redacted. The following month, the CIA sent the

Director for Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff an analysis of Soviet Bloc aid to the

Congo that was also stamped with the words ‘TOP SECRET DAUNT’.74 The paper, which is

partially redacted, gave details of Bloc supply flights into the Congo and the numbers of Bloc

personnel in the country. Other evidence points to the NSA being able to read the

communications of Gizenga’s rebel government in Stanleyville. Gizenga was in contact with

the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, who had recognised the Stanleyville regime and

secretly agreed to funnel it Soviet supplied arms.75 The Comint edition of the CIA’s Current

Intelligence Weekly Review reported on 25 May 1961 that

Although there is no firm information that Gizenga plans any major offensive action, intercepted messages from Gizenga to Nkrumah have urged that the Ghanaian President expedite the airlifting of Soviet arms to Stanleyville.76

A veiled reference to Comint implies that Bolivia was another target of the NSA in the 1960s.

Bolivia was governed by the pro-American President Rene Barrientos and during 1966-67 he

successfully defeated a Marxist guerrilla insurgency led by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Yet in

1968, NSA Comint on Bolivia was connected to more mundane matters of taxation and

American financial aid. In July Barrientos was due to visit the United States for talks,

including a meeting with President Johnson at his ranch in Texas. Ahead of the visit

Barrientos delayed a surtax on imports into Bolivia which was an agreed condition for an

American loan. Walt Rostow, the Special Advisor for National Security Affairs, advised

Johnson that

16

From our special intelligence, we have the distinct impression the delay is related to Barrientos’ visit to the Ranch. We suspect his advisors have told him that by talking to you, he can probably get the budget support money without imposing the surtax.77

These documents do not conclusively prove that the NSA could read encrypted Bolivian and

Congolese communications - the Comint on Bolivia and the Congo could have come from

intercepted plain text or voice - but it does seem likely. In the 1950s and 1960s non-

communist developing countries like Bolivia and the Congo frequently used codes and

ciphers which were vulnerable to attack by the NSA and GCHQ.78

Indonesia and South Vietnam are already known to have been targeted by the NSA during the

Cold War and there is evidence that the agency broke their codes and read their

communications. In these two cases, code word documents substantiate the existing evidence

and illustrate what kind of information the NSA was passing on to the White House.

Indonesia was a country of interest to the United States because of American hostility to the

radical, left wing Indonesian leader, Sukarno. In 1958 the CIA covertly supported rebellions

against Sukarno on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Celebes.79 The United States soon

had to stop aiding the rebels but code word documents suggest that in 1959 the NSA was

monitoring the Indonesian authorities’ response to the rebellions. According to two ‘Synopsis

of Intelligence material reported to the President’, President Eisenhower was informed in

March 1959 that rebel action had forced the Indonesian government to send air and ground

reinforcements from Java to North Celebes.80 He was also told that an Indonesian army

mission trying to procure arms abroad was authorised to investigate Czech and Polish offers

to build an arms factory in Indonesia. These two very brief synopses on Indonesia were

marked ‘TOP SECRET EIDER’, implying that the information for the president had come

from Comint. This Comint was probably obtained through reading encrypted Indonesian

traffic for in September 1960, two defectors from the NSA announced at a press conference

17

in Moscow that the agency collected intelligence and decoded messages from Indonesia,

along with six other countries.81

Claims that the NSA was spying on South Vietnamese communications first surfaced during

the Vietnam War.82 In 1971, the well informed Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson

alleged that the agency was intercepting and decoding South Vietnamese messages.83 This

operation had in fact been going on for several years and in 1968 it had become entangled

with American domestic politics.84 In the closing stages of the American presidential election

campaign NSA intercepts showed that Richard Nixon’s camp was secretly encouraging the

South Vietnamese government not to commit to peace talks in Paris.85 Lyndon Johnson

confided to a Democrat senator in November 1968 that ‘intercepted telegrams revealed that

the South Vietnamese were being told “that Nixon is going to win: therefore they ought to

wait on Nixon.”’86 Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, complaining about the Republican

Party’s efforts, referred to ‘the intercepts of messages from Bui Diem [the South Vietnamese

Ambassador in Washington] to Saigon’.87

Checking for Category III code words on documents uncovers direct evidence of this NSA

eavesdropping on South Vietnam. On 21 October 1968 the Director of the NSA sent the

White House a telegram which contained a report about a meeting in Paris on 19 October

between American and South Vietnamese officials.88 The content of the report was

unremarkable: the Americans and South Vietnamese negotiators had disagreed about the

involvement of the communist National Liberation Front at the Paris peace talks. What is

interesting is that the NSA telegram was marked ‘TOP SECRET TRINE’, indicating that the

report was high level Comint. The report has been partially redacted to hide the author’s

identity but the phrasing of the text and the point of view of the author suggests that it was

written by a South Vietnamese rather than an American participant at the meeting. Taking the

Comint code word into account, it appears to be an intercepted South Vietnamese message

18

(presumably this was before these intercepts were given the additional Gamma Gout code

words).

Finally, Category III code words and Comint euphemisms can offer insights into Anglo-

American Comint on China, demonstrating the sort of intelligence the NSA and GCHQ could

produce on this primary Cold War target. Close reading of an American document suggests

that during the 1960s the NSA was able to read some Chinese military traffic. A CIA

intelligence memorandum from 1965 on Taiwan’s capability to attack the mainland included

a map of the communist order of battle in southern China.89 The map gave the locations of

Chinese army divisions, border defence divisions and air and naval bases and provided

figures for the local and national strength of the Chinese army, navy and air force. It was

marked ‘TOP SECRET DINAR’, indicating that some of the information on the map had

come from Comint (by contrast, an accompanying map of the Taiwanese order of battle was

only classified ‘secret’ and had no Comint code word). This implies that the CIA was using

intercepted Chinese military communications, along with other forms of intelligence, to work

out the location, organisation and strength of the Chinese armed forces. Some of the Comint

might have come from plain text and speech transmissions and traffic analysis but it is

possible that the NSA could solve at least low level Chinese military codes

Comint markers and other evidence show that the NSA could use this intelligence to track the

movements of the Chinese military. For example, in June 1962 Beijing secretly sent six

infantry divisions and one artillery division into Fukien province, raising the battle strength

opposite Taiwan from 194,000 to 311,000 men.90 Although the Chinese government initially

made this move without any publicity, Washington was aware of it, partly through Comint.

From 1962 until 1966, the noted Asia scholar Allen Whiting was head of Far East division of

the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) and he was responsible for

collating and assessing information on the Chinese build up.91 Whiting had access to

19

intelligence from the NSA and he subsequently wrote that American ‘signal intelligence

[was] monitoring [Chinese] headquarters deployment in advance of the total force.’92 Roger

Hilsman, the Director of the INR, assessed the intentions behind the deployment by

examining ‘the limited collateral evidence and some aspects of the special intelligence on

Chinese Communist activities in the East China area’.93 Another map in the CIA’s 1965

memorandum plotted the build up of Chinese forces in Fukien in 1962 and was also classified

‘TOP SECRET DINAR’, betraying the presence of Category III Comint.

In a similar way, the NSA eavesdropped on China’s military response to the escalating war in

Vietnam. Whiting described how after the Tonkin Gulf crisis in August 1964, the US

followed Chinese deployments through the use of ‘signals intelligence, drone reconnaissance

planes and Chinese Nationalist piloted U-2s’.94 American ‘communication intercepts

monitored the movement of [Chinese] air units from one point to another.’95 Code word

material supports Whiting’s claims. In February 1965 the CIA produced a special report on

China’s post Tonkin Gulf military deployments.96 The report has been partially redacted but

the phrase ‘TOP SECRET DINAR’ is still visible on one section entitled ‘Military

Preparations in Communist China’. This section stated that since August 1964, Beijing had

transferred the headquarters of its South Sea Fleet to Fort Bayard (now Zhanjiang), moved

the 7th Air Army nearer the Vietnamese border area and established Sino-Vietnamese air

warning liaison facilities. The Chinese air force had boosted its strength in southern China,

building new airfields, improving existing ones and bringing in an extra 200 fighter planes as

reinforcements. The CIA paper also reported a secret meeting between Chinese and North

Vietnamese military leaders in June 1964. Books based on Chinese sources have since

confirmed that this meeting and many of the military deployments did in fact take place.97

These are only a few examples but they illustrate how Comint code words and euphemisms

can help interpret documents and extract more information about Anglo-American Comint.

20

During the Cold War the BRUSA/UKUSA states developed a comprehensive system to

secure and manage Comint. The security categories and code words were an integral part of

the system, with the code words always meant to mark out the documents that contained

Comint. Security officers could then ensure that these papers were kept under lock and key

and only seen by staff indoctrinated into Comint. Now that the code words have been

declassified and identified, they can expose Comint in American and British (and Canadian,

Australian and New Zealand) documents. Euphemisms were also intended to protect Comint

by disguising the source of information in minutes and letters. Yet euphemisms are very

weak form of security because once the meaning of the euphemism is known, the information

immediately becomes apparent to the reader. This works to the advantage of researchers, for

government reviewers seem to let the euphemisms ‘special intelligence’ or ‘codeword

material’ pass unaltered on documents while assiduously redacting mentions of ‘Comint’ or

‘Sigint’.

The net result is that the code words and euphemisms act as Comint markers and enable

researchers to discover more about Anglo-American Comint, even when documents have

been heavily redacted before public release. These markers can flag up papers containing

Comint and thereby reveal little known targets of the NSA and GCHQ, like the Congo and

Bolivia in the 1960s. They can reveal what type of intelligence the NSA and GCHQ was able

to supply on countries such as Indonesia, South Vietnam and China during the Cold War.

Comint markers on documents also hint at cryptanalytic successes. For example, they suggest

that the NSA and GCHQ could read Congolese and Bolivian codes and cyphers and perhaps

some Chinese military codes. In short, they lift some of the veil of secrecy over Anglo-

American Cold War Comint and provide a useful research tool which can be used more

widely in the future.

21

22

1 Matthew Aid, The Secret Sentry: the untold history of the National Security Agency, (New York:

Bloomsbury Press 2009); Richard J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most

Secret Intelligence Agency, (London: Harper Press 2010).

2 Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence

(London: John Murray 2001), pp. 541.

3 British National Archive (TNA), HW 80/4, British-US Communication Intelligence Agreement, 5

March 1946; HW 80/6, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British

Communications Intelligence Agreement, 11th-27th March, 1946, Introduction, not dated.

4 TNA, HW 80/6, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Communications

Intelligence Agreement, 11th-27th March, 1946, Appendix B, not dated; HW 80/7, Technical

Conference for the implementation of the US-British Comint Agreement, 15th July – 26th July,

1948, Appendix B, not dated.

5 TNA, HW 80/9, Introduction to the Appendices to the US-British Comint Agreement, Appendix

B, Annexure B1, 1 June 1951.

6 TNA, HW 80/6, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Communications

Intelligence Agreement, 11th-27th March, 1946, Appendix B, not dated

7 Ibid; National Security Agency (NSA), Joint Meeting of State-Army-Navy Communication

Intelligence Board and State-Army-Navy Communication Intelligence Coordinating Committee, 15

February 1946.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/communication_intel_board/army_navy_19460215_mtg.pdf,

(Accessed 11 January 2011).

8 TNA, HW 80/6, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Communications

Intelligence Agreement, 11th-27 March, 1946, Appendix B, not dated.

9 TNA, HW 80/7, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Comint

Agreement, 15th July – 26th July, 1948, Appendix B, not dated.

10 TNA, HW 80/6, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Communications

Intelligence Agreement, 11th-27 March, 1946, Appendix B, not dated.

11 TNA, HW 80/10, BRUSA Planning Conference 1953, Final Report, Appendix B, BPC53/B/Final,

19 March 1953.

12 The wording of Appendix B suggests the categories may already have been in use when the

Appendix was written in March 1953.

13 TNA, HW 80/10, BRUSA Planning Conference 1953, Final Report, Notes to Appendix B,

BPC53/B/Final, 19 March 1953.

14 TNA, HW 80/11 UK-US Communications Intelligence Agreement, Appendix B, Not dated.

15 Jeffrey Richelson, The US Intelligence Community, (Boulder: Westview Press 2008) pp. 512-513;

National Security Agency (NSA), Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’,

July/August 2002. http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/crypto_almanac_50th/Quiz.pdf,

(Accessed 3 February 2011).

16 TNA, HW 80/10, BRUSA Planning Conference 1953, Final Report, Notes to Appendix B,

BPC53/B/Final, 19 March 1953.

17 Richelson, op. cit., pp. 511.

18 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964-68, Volume XXXIII, Organization and

Management of Foreign Policy: United Nations, Document 270, 16th Report of the Intelligence

Organization of the Department of State, October 1967, pp, 592; David Wise, The Politics of Lying:

Government Deception, Secrecy and Power, (New York: Random House 1973) pp. 55-56, 61.

19 Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, (London:

John Murray 2001) pp. 541.

20 Interview with Thomas L. Hughes. The Library of Congress, The Foreign Affairs Oral History

Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_PpXI:: (Accessed 29 December

2011).

21 The National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 24, ‘The National Security Agency

Declassified’, ed. by Jeffery Richelson, Document 23, SSO (Special Security Office), DIA,

‘Implementation Guidance for Elimination of Codewords’, 22 October 1999,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa23.pdf, (Accessed 12 February 2011).

22 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Review and Redaction Guide for Automatic

Declassification of 25-Year-Old Information (2008), pp. 8, http://www.nro.gov/foia/docs/foia-

rrg.pdf, (Accessed 14 January 2011).

23 Wise, op. cit., pp. 57.

24 NSA, Thomas Johnson, American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989, Book II

Centralization Wins, 1960-1972, (Centre for Cryptologic History, NSA 1995), pp. 473,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_histories/cold_war_ii.pdf (Accessed 19

December 2010); NSA, In Camera Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates, Citizens Against Unidentified

Flying Saucer Secrecy v. National Security Agency, Civil Action 80-1562, 9 October 1980,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/in_camera_affadavit_yeates.pdf, (Accessed 21

December 2010).

25 NSA, Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’, July/August 2002.

26 NSA, Venona Documents, I.D. Special Analysis Report 1., ‘Covernames in diplomatic traffic’, by

ASA I.D., 30 August 1947,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1947/30aug_special_analysis_report1.pdf, (Accessed

4 January 2011); Intercept 3/NBF/T1201, ‘1. Query about a sample sent by Arthur 2. Taylor’s

information about guns’, (8 June 1943), 3 January 1961,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1943/8jun_tech_queries.pdf (Accessed 4 January

2011); Intercept 3/PPDT/101, ‘1. Barch’s Meeting 2. Fuch’s and probable reference to atomic

energy project’, (10 August 1941), 11 October 1968,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1941/10aug_barch_mtg.pdf, (Accessed 4 January

2011); Intercept 3/PPDT/T106, ‘London Addressee Artur’, (24 July 1941), 29 May 1969,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1941/24jul_artur.pdf, (Accessed 5 January 2011).

27 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Venona, Part 1: The American Response to Soviet Espionage,

Minute Lamphere to Gardner, ‘FLORA DON WOYSCHIN with alias’, 9 May 1949,

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-

monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/25.gif (Accessed 21

December 2010); Minute Lamphere to Gardner, ‘EMIL JULIUS KLAUS FUCHS, aka: Karl

Fuchs’, 26 September 1949, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-

publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-

1957/28.gif (Accessed 21 December 2010); NSA Venona Documents, Intercept S/NBP/T87,

‘References to a promise of Soviet citizenship to “Lily” and “Aleksandrov” and to Beck’s

embarrassment’, (12 November 1944), 11 June 1951,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/12nov_kgb_officers.pdf (Accessed 5 January

2011); Intercept S/NBF/T94, ‘The failure of Albert to reply to the “office”’, (25 August 1944), 4

July 1951, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/25aug_failure_albert_reply.pdf

(Accessed 5 January 2011); Intercept S/NBF/T380, ‘Recommendation by “Greek” of certain

Germans’, (29 January 1944), 22 September 1953,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/29jan_greek.pdf (Accessed 26 December

2010); Amendment to intercept S/NBF/T328, ‘Gustav’, (31 January 1944), 19 October 1953,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/30jan_gustav_p2.pdf (Accessed 26 December

2010); Intercept 6/NBF/T224 Reissue, ‘References to “The Polecats”’, (20 May 1944), 11 January

1955, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/20may_trotskyites.pdf (Accessed 26

December 2010); Intercept 3/NBF/T1147 ‘Alex’s absence in Portland’, (23 June 1943), 9 July

1959, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1943/23jun_code_clerk.pdf (Accessed 26

December 2010)

28 TNA, HW 80/7, Technical Conference for the implementation of the US-British Comint

Agreement, 15th July – 26th July, 1948, Appendix B, not dated; HW 80/9, ‘Introduction to the

Appendices to the US-Comint Agreement, 1 June 1951; ‘Amendment No. 1 to Appendices to US-

British Communications Intelligence Agreement (Third Edition), 27 July 1951; HW 80/10,

‘BRUSA Planning Conference 1953, Final Report’, 25 March 1953; HW 80/9, Appendix G,

Exchange of Collateral Material and Comint material, 1 October 1953; HW 80/11, UKUSA

Agreement, 10 October 1956.

29 TNA, HW 75/49, Intercept S/AAL/T24 ‘Albanian Security Message’, 19 August 1947; Intercept

S/AAL/T23 ‘Albanian Security Reports concerning fugitives and persons attempting to escape into

Greece’, 2 September 1947; HW 75/23, Intercept, S/ACK/T65 ‘Mention of decree concerning

official relations of Czech offices with foreign consular offices’, 6 July 1949; HW 75/24, Intercept,

S/ACK/T104 ‘Granting of Leave to SNB Units’, 1 August 1950.

30 Guy R. Vanderpool, ‘COMINT and the PRC Intervention in the Korean War’, Cryptologic

Quarterly, 15/2 (1996) endnote 13, pp. 22.

31 NSA Venona Documents, Amendment to intercept S/NBF/T328, ‘Gustav’, (31 January 1944), 19

October 1953, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/30jan_gustav_p2.pdf (Accessed

26 December 2010); Intercept S/NBF/T662, ‘Reference to “the distant neighbour’s line”’, (19

February 1946), 10 December 1954,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1946/19feb_distant_neighbor.pdf (Accessed 26

December 2010)

32 HW 75/49, Intercept, S/AAL/T24 ‘Albanian Security Reports concerning fugitives and persons

attempting to escape into Greece’, 2 September 1947; HW 75/23 Intercept, S/ACK/T64 ‘State

Security Organisation’, 29 June 1949.

33 NSA, Venona Documents, Intercept 6/NBF/T224 Reissue, ‘References to “The Polecats”’, (20

May 1944), 11 January 1955,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/20may_trotskyites.pdf (Accessed 26 December

2010); Intercept 3/NBF/T1143, ‘1. A warning about conduct 2. Proposed transfer of Zyryanov’,

(21 February 1943), 16 June 1959,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1943/21feb_reprimand.pdf (Accessed 26 December

2010). However, while the overwhelming majority of Eider documents from Venona and other

sources fit within this date range, there are three Venona intercepts from January 1960 marked with

Eider. This is the period when Daunt was in use as a code word and the only occasion when two

code words overlap. It is not known why this occurred. Perhaps there was simply a shortage of

paper pre-printed with the Daunt code word and NSA officials used Eider paper instead.

34 HW 75/23, Intercept, S/ACK/T65 ‘Mention of decree concerning official relations of Czech

offices with foreign consular offices’, 6 July 1949; HW 75/24, Intercept, S/ACK/T103 ‘Infiltration

of agents into Czechoslovakia’, 17 July 1950.

35 NSA, Venona Documents, Intercept 3/NBF/T1147 ‘Alex’s absence in Portland’, (23 June 1943),

9 July 1959, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1943/23jun_code_clerk.pdf (Accessed

26 December 2010); Intercept 3/NBF/T1334, ‘Reference to “Oleg”’, (13 May 1945), 13 December

1960, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1945/13may_oleg.pdf (Accessed 27 December

2010).

36 HW 75/24, Intercept, S/ACK/T104 ‘Granting of Leave to SNB Units’, 1 August 1950; CIA

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Special Collections: Korean War, Current Intelligence

Bulletin, 28 June 1951, http://www.foia.cia.gov/KoreanWar/DailyReports/1951/1951-06-28a.pdf.

(Accessed 5 January 2011).

37 NSA, Venona Documents, Intercept 3/NBF/T1201 Re-issue, ‘1. Query about a sample sent by

Arthur 2. Taylor’s information about guns’, (8 June 1943), 3 January 1961,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1943/8jun_tech_queries.pdf (Accessed 27 December

2010); Intercept 3/NBF/T1720, ‘The Despatch and Legalization of the Australian Woman’, (31

December 1942), 24 August 1965,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1942/31dec_naval_gru.pdf (Accessed 27 December

2010).

38 NSA, Venona Documents, Intercept S/NBF/T94, ‘The failure of Albert to reply to the “office”’,

(25 August 1944), 4 July 1951,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/25aug_failure_albert_reply.pdf (Accessed 27

December 2010).

CIA FOIA, Special Collections: Korean War, Current Intelligence Bulletin, 29 June 1952,

http://www.foia.cia.gov/KoreanWar/DailyReports/1952/1952-06-29.pdf (Accessed 5 January

2011).

39 NSA, Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’, July/August 2002.

40 CIA FOIA, Special Collections: Korean War, Current Intelligence Digest, 1 July 1952,

http://www.foia.cia.gov/KoreanWar/DailyReports/1952/1952-07-01a.pdf (Accessed 5 January

2011); NSA, Venona Documents, Intercept S/NBF/T380, ‘Recommendation by “Greek” of certain

Germans’, (29 January 1944), 22 September 1953,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/29jan_greek.pdf (Accessed 26 December

2010).

41NSA, Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’, July/August 2002; Richelson, op.

cit., pp. 513.

42 TNA, HW 80/10, BRUSA Planning Conference 1953, Final Report, Appendix B, BPC53/B/Final,

19 March 1953.

43 TNA, HW 80/11 UK-US Communications Intelligence Agreement (UKUSA Agreement),

Appendix B, Not dated.

44 NSA, Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’, July/August 2002; James Bamford,

The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America’s Most Secret Agency, (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1983),

pp. 162.

45 Wise, op. cit., pp. 57; Bamford, op. cit., pp. 161-162.

46 Ibid; NSA, Thomas Johnson, American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989, Book II

Centralization Wins, 1960-1972, (Centre for Cryptologic History, NSA 1995), pp. 473-4.

47 Ibid.

48 Aid, op. cit. , pp. 141-142.

49 NSA, Thomas Johnson, American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989, Book II

Centralization Wins, 1960-1972, (Centre for Cryptologic History, NSA 1995), pp. 448; National

Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 278, The Secret Sentry Declassified, Document 24,

Les Actes D’Agression Declares de L’Imperialisme U.S. Contre Le Peuple Coreen, (Pyongyang,

Editions en Langues Etrangeres 1968) (extract)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB278/24.PDF, (Accessed 4 March 2011).

50 National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 278, The Secret Sentry Declassified,

Document 3, Robert Newton, The Capture of the USS Pueblo and its effect on SIGINT Operations,

US Cryptologic History, Special Series, Crisis Collection, Vol. 7, (Ft. Meade, Center for

Cryptologic History 1992), pp. 124,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB278/03.PDF, (Accessed 4 March 2011).

51 NSA, Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series, ‘Quiz’, July/August 2002;

52 Ibid; Kimbo: NSA, Cuban Missile Crisis, ‘Reflection of Soviet Bloc Pilots/Technicians in Cuban

Air Force Training’, 24 August 1962

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cuban_missile_crisis/24_august_reflection.pdf, (Accessed 5

April 2011); Sabre: NSA, Cuban Missile Crisis, ‘Cuban Air Force VHF communications

procedure’, 17 May 1962,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cuban_missile_crisis/17_may_cuban_air.pdf, (Accessed 5

April 2011).

53 Bamford, op. cit., pp. 398; TNA, HW 75/30, Note ZIP/RUP/C9 ‘Note on the RUP/T series’, 17

January 1947.

54 Richelson, op. cit., pp. 512-514.

55 In an interview with Oliver Kirby, his period in the NSA’s Office of Collection from

approximately 1954 to 1956, was described as ‘pre-GAMMA time’: NSA, Declassification and

Transparency, Oral History Interviews, Oliver R. Kirby NSA-OH-20-93, pp. 53, 55-56,

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/oral_history_interviews/nsa_oh_20_92_kirby.pdf, (Accessed

4 April 2011). Gamma appears on a State Department document from 1967: Declassified Document

Reference System (DDRS), Intelligence Note, ‘The Soviet Contribution to the Start of the Current

Mid-East Crisis’, Denney to Secretary of State, 1 June 1967.

56 Aid, op. cit., pp. 144-145, 152-153; Bamford, op. cit., pp. 160.

57 Digital National Security Archive, Department of the Air Force, Administration of the Gamma

Control Program, FTD Regulation 205-9, 3 January 1989.

58 Bamford, op. cit., pp. 160-161.

59 Aid, op. cit., pp. 144-145, 152-153.

60 DDRS, Intelligence Note, ‘The Soviet Contribution to the Start of the Current Mid-East Crisis’,

Denney to Secretary of State, 1 June 1967.

61 CIA FOIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, SC No. 00578/63, 8 February 1963; Intelligence

Memorandum SC No 06810/66, ‘Buildup of Vietnamese Communist forces continues after

resumption of air attacks’, 21 February 1966; National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book

No. 187, U.S. Intelligence and the Indian Bomb, Document 16, NSA Comint Report, ‘Capital

Projects Planned in India’, 31 August 1972,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB187/IN16.pdf, (Accessed 2 March 2011).

62 CIA FOIA, Central Intelligence Bulletin, 6 September 1972.

63 Ibid. The top secret version was only to be seen by US personnel indoctrinated and authorised to

receive Comint; FRUS, 1969-1976, Volume II, Organization and Management of US Foreign

Policy, 1969-1972, Document 217, Memorandum Latimer to Kissinger, 1 December 1970, pp. 468.

64 Federation of American Scientists, CIA, Centre for the Study of Intelligence, Intelligence

Monograph, ‘Critique of the Codeword Compartment in the CIA’, March 1977,

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/codeword.html, (Accessed 14 February 2011); National Security

Archive. Electronic Briefing Book No. 225, ‘Secrecy and U.S. Satellite Reconnaissance, 1958-

1976’, Document 23, Chief Special Intelligence Staff, Special Centre Notice 6-64, ‘Classification of

Talent and Keyhole Information’, 16 January 1964,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB225/doc23.pdf, (Accessed February 27 2011).

65 FRUS, 1969-1976, Volume II, Organization and Management of US Foreign Policy, 1969-1972,

Document 217, Memorandum Latimer to Kissinger, 1 December 1970, pp. 468.

66 CIA FOIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, SC No. 03826/56, 30 August 1956.

67 CIA FOIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, SC No. 01999/58, 3 April 1958; Current

Intelligence Weekly Review, SC No. 00578/63, 8 February 1963.

68 TNA, CAB 176/59, Minute JIC/2691/56 Atkinson to JIC, 2 November 1956.

69 TNA, AIR 19/852, Minute W.M.L MacDonald to ACAS(P), 5 November 1956.

70 NRO, Review and Redaction Guide for Automatic Declassification of 25-Year-Old Information

(2008), pp. 149.

71 CIA FOIA, CIA Report, CIA/SC/RR 122, ‘Soviet Defense Expenditures’, 27 October 1955.

72 CIA FOIA, Memorandum SC No. 00613/63B, ‘France’s Position in Tropical Africa’, 11 October

1963; DDRS, ‘Synopsis of Intelligence material reported to the President’, 16 April 1959; CIA

FOIA, Intelligence Memorandum, ‘India-Pakistan: Comparative Capabilities in a New Military

Confrontation’, 13 September 1971; DDRS, ‘Synopsis of Intelligence Material Reported to the

President’, 11 August 1960; CIA FOIA, Intelligence Memorandum SC No. 09646/66, ‘The

Effectiveness of the Rolling Thunder Program in North Vietnam 1 January – 30 September 1966’,

November 1966; DDRS, CIA Intelligence Memorandum SC No. 03818/66, ‘South Africa on the

Crest of the Wave’, 30 August 1966; CIA FOIA, Special Intelligence Estimate, SIE-5, ‘The Scale

and Nature of the Soviet Air Defense Effort 1952-4’, 3 December 1952.

73 DDRS, ‘Synopsis of Intelligence Material Reported to the President’ by John Eisenhower, 11

August 1960.

74 Cold War International History Project, CWIHP Document Reader, ‘The Congo Crisis, 1960-

1961’, edited by Lise Namikas and Sergey Mazov, Minute Amory to Director for Intelligence, The

Joint Staff, JCS, 9 September 1960, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/Congo%201960-

611.pdf, (Accessed 2 March 2011)

75 Sergei Mazov, ‘Soviet Aid to the Gizenga Government in the Former Belgian Congo (1960-61) as

Reflected in Russian Archives’, Cold War History, 7/3 (2007), pp. 431.

76 DDRS, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Review, SC No. 01165/61, 25 May 1961.

77 FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico, Document 176,

Information Memorandum, Rostow to Johnson, 26 June 1968, pp. 392.

78 Bamford, op. cit., pp. 495, 497, 499.

79 Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower

and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: The New Press 1995).

80 DDRS, ‘Synopsis of Intelligence material reported to the President’ by John Eisenhower, 4 March

1959; ‘Synopsis of Intelligence material reported to the President’ by John Eisenhower, 18 March

1959.

81 Bamford, op. cit., pp. 189-190.

82 Aid, op. cit., pp. 145-146.

83 Jack Anderson, ‘U.S. Is Forced to Spy on Saigon’, Washington Post,. April 30, 1971, pp. 19, D19

84 Aid, op. cit., pp. 145-147

85 Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept The Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, (New York: Alfred

A. Knopf 1979) pp. 198.

86 FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968 – January 1969, Document 186,

Editorial Note, pp. 536-537.

87 Ibid, Document 195, Notes of Meeting, 5 November 1968, pp. 566.

88 DDRS, Telegram KAB518, DIRNSA to White House, 21 October 1968.

89 CIA FOIA, Minute SC No. 10078/65/a, Cline to Bundy, 18 August 1965; Memorandum SC No.

10078/65, ‘Probable Effects in China and Taiwan of a GRC Attack on the Mainland’, 18 August

1965.

90 Ibid; John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Digital Archives, China: Security, 1962-

63, ‘The President’s Intelligence Checklist’, 19 June 1962.

91 Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina, (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan 2001), pp. xv, 261 endnote 67.

92 Ibid; Allen S. Whiting, ‘China’s Use of Force, 1950-96, and Taiwan’, International Security, 26/2

(2001), pp. 111, footnote 31.

93 DDRS, Memorandum, Hilsman to Harriman, ‘Evidence of Peiping’s Concern over Possible GRC-

US Intentions’, 22 June 1962.

94 Allen S. Whiting, ‘China’s Use of Force, 1950-96, and Taiwan’, International Security, 26/2

(2001), pp. 114

95 Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina, (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan 2001), pp. 177.

96 The CIA has actually declassified two copies of the report and redacted different sections on each

copy. By comparing the two reports it possible to see the full text of the section ‘Military

Preparations in Communist China’ and the code word DINAR. See CIA FOIA, Special Report SC

No. 00657/65C, ‘Chinese communists brace for possible spread of Indochina War’, Copies

numbered 014 and 407, 12 February 1965.

97 Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

2001), pp. 208-209, 213-214; Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: the Unknown Story, (London:

Jonathan Cape 2005), pp 502.