The Secret Sentry Read Free

of a secret and increasingly desperate struggle.
And the U.S. military, which soon began drawing up plans for war with the Soviet Union, would find SIGINT even more vital
than it was in World War II, largely because Russia (as well as its satellite nations and China) was highly resistant to penetration
by human intelligence operations.
    * The designation of the Soviet intelligence and security service changed on numerous occasions. After the postrevolutionary
Cheka, it became the State Political Directorate, or GPU (1922–1923); the United State Political Directorate, or OGPU (1923–1934);
the Main Directorate for State Security, or GUGB (1934–1943); the People’s Commissariat for State Security, or NKGB (1943–1946);
and the Ministry for State Security, or MGB (1946–1953). From 1953 to 1954, all intelligence and internal security functions
were merged into the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MVD). Between March 1954 and October 1991, the principal Soviet intelligence
and security service was the Committee for State Security (KGB). In October 1991, the KGB was dissolved following the collapse
of the USSR and the abortive coup d’état against Mikhail Gorbachev.

CHAPTER 1
    Roller-Coaster Ride The Travails of American Communications Intelligence: 1945–1950
    When troubles come, they come not as single spies but in battalions.
    —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HAMLET
    On August 14, 1945, the day Japan formally surrendered, the American signals intelligence empire stood at the zenith of its
power and prestige. The U.S. Army and Navy cryptologic organizations, the Signal Security Agency (SSA) and the Naval Communications
Intelligence Organization (OP-20-G) respectively, together consisted of more than thirty-seven thousand military and civilian
personnel manning thirty-seven listening posts and dozens of tactical radio intelligence units around the world. The reach
of America’s code breakers was extraordinarily deep, with the army alone able to read 350 diplomatic code and cipher systems
belonging to sixty countries. Needless to say, the two American SIGINT organizations seemed to be in much better shape, both
quantitatively and qualitatively, than the poorly funded three-hundred-man American cryptologic establishment that had existed
when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 1
    Structural changes within army and navy COMINT organizations came quickly after the end of the war. On September 15, 1945,
the SSA was redesignated as the Army Security Agency (ASA), which was given complete control over all U.S. Army COMINT activities. 2 On July 10, 1946, the U.S. Navy COMINT organization OP-20-G was deactivated and all navy COMINT intercept and processing units
were merged into a new and much smaller organization called the Communications Supplementary Activities (CSA). 3
    The Terrible Peace
    Within hours of Japan’s surrender, the thousands of American radio intercept operators and intelligence analysts around the
world suddenly found themselves unemployed as the few remaining Japanese radio transmitters went off the air. Listening posts
around the world were given “make-work” projects until the intercept operators could be discharged and sent home. 4 The same was true at the army and navy SIGINT analysis centers in Washington, D.C. 5
    President Harry Truman’s order for rapid demobilization after Japan’s surrender took its toll on America’s SIGINT capability.
General Corderman was forced to dismantle the unit he had personally spent so much time and effort building, and he did so
amid intense opposition from Army G-2 and his own top deputies, such as his operations chief, Frank Rowlett, who urged him
to fight the demobilization order. Decades later, a still-angry Rowlett recalled that his boss “made a speech to them, and
in essence what he said was, we’d like you to stay but here’s your hat.” 6
    Over the next 120 days, the army and navy COMINT organizations lost 80 percent of their personnel. 7 Desperate