The Bletchley Park Codebreakers (66 page)

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1
As early as 1943: R. Aldrich and M. Coleman, ‘The Cold War, the JIC and British Signals Intelligence, 1948’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 4(3) (1989), 538–40; F. H. Hinsley et al.,
British Intelligence in the Second World War
(HMSO, London, 1984), 2: 618–19.

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2
The team returned: P. Whitaker and L. Kruh, ‘From Bletchley Park to the Berchtesgaden’,
Cryptologia
, 11 (1987), 129: Michael Smith,
Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park
(Channel 4 Books, London, 1998), pp. 174–6.

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3
GCHQ relocated: R. Lewin,
Ultra goes to War
(Hutchinson, London, 1978), pp. 129–33; R. V. Jones,
Reflections on Intelligence
(Heinemann, London, 1989), p. 15.

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4
‘From his remarks’: Wilson to Crombie, with attached memo, ‘Sigint Centre – Conditions of Service’, 13 November 1945 (FO 366/1518 PRO); Travis to Crombie with attached memo, ‘Sigint Centre’, n.d. [30 November 1945?] (ibid.); Travis to Crombie, 19 December 1945 (ibid.).

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5
Moscow and its satellites: JIC (48) (0) (second revised draft), ‘Sigint intelligence requirements’ 1948, 11 May 1948 (L/WS/1196, IOLR).

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6
Several tunnels: C. Andrew and O. Gordievsky,
KGB: The Inside Story
(Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990), pp. 308–9. I am also grateful to Matthew Aid and David Stafford for their views on this matter.

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7
During the Azerbaijan crisis: A. Stripp,
Codebreaker in the Far East
(Frank Cass, London, 1988), pp. 50–60; Jones,
Reflections,
pp. 14–16.

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8
Each of the three services: A. Thomas, ‘British Signals Intelligence after the Second World War’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 3(4) (1988), 103–4.

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9
–60 GCHQ had overseas stations: Thomas, ‘British Signals Intelligence’, 106; J. Sawatsky,
For Services Rendered
(Penguin, London, 1983), pp. 23–4.

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10
But the main British Sigint centre: D. Ball, ‘Over and Out: Signals Intelligence (sigint) in Hong Kong’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 11(3) (1996), 32; Thomas, ‘British Signals Intelligence’, 107; Sawatsky,
For Services Rendered
, pp. 25–6.

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11
‘very sensitive’ areas: Eubank (COS) to Rowlands (MoS), 31 January 1952, DEFE 11/350 PRO; Eubank to DRPC, 31 January 1952, ibid.

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GCHQ was moving: COS (52) 152nd mtg. (1) Confidential Annex, 4 November 1952 (DEFE 11/350 PRO).

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13
In the autumn of 1945: C. Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush
(HaperCollins, London/New York, 1995), pp. 150–6.

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14
During the winter of 1946–7: C. Andrew, ‘The Growth of the Australian Intelligence Community and the Anglo–American Connection’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 4(2) (1989), 223–5; J. Bamford,
The Puzzle Palace: America’s
National Security Agency and Its Special Relationship with GCHQ
(Sidgwick Jackson, London, 1983), pp. 314–17; J. Richelson and D. Ball,
The Ties that Bind: Intelligence Co-operation between the UKUSA Countries
(Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1985), pp. 141–5.

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15
‘No Room for Canadians’: W. Wark, ‘Cryptographic Innocence: The Origins of Signals Intelligence in Canada in the Second World War’,
Journal of Contemporary History
, 22 (1997), 639; Sawatsky,
For Services Rendered
, p. 29. I am much indebted to the guidance of Matthew Aid on these matters.

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16
In the late 1940s: M. Aid, ‘US Humint and Comint in the Korean War: From the Approach of War to the Chinese Intervention’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 14(4) (1999), 15.

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17
–62 For example: O. Riste,
The Norwegian Intelligence Service, 1945–70
(Frank Cass, London, 1999), pp. 95–7; R. Tamnes,
The US and the Cold War in the High North
(Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1991), pp. 76–7.

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18
But Truman’s mind: Samford (D of I USAF) to Twining, 6 August 1952 (224400, Box 66, USAF D of I records, RG 341, NACP).

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The efforts of the NSA: Brief on Fifth Report to the President by PBCFLA (Recommendation concerning Fusion of Comint-Elint Activities), 11 March 1960, File: 1960 Meetings with the President Vol. 1 (5), Box 4, Presidential Subseries, Special Assistant Series, OSANA, WHO, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.

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Elint was first: R. V. Jones,
Most Secret War
(Hamish Hamilton, London, 1978), p. 92.

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Towards the end: SEAC Noise Investigation Bureau report for May 1945 (WO 203/4089 PRO).

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Initially: McMurtie (JSM), to Moore (Pentagon), 20 November 1948 (File 2-8300 – 2-8399, USAF D of I records, RG 341, NACP).

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In 1948 they began: Partridge Memorandum, ‘Northern European Ferret Flights’, 20 August 1947 (File 2-800 – 2-899, USAF D of I records, RG 341, NACP).

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A British undercover team: I am indebted to Matthew Aid’s work on US Sigint for this point.

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Most of the airfields: AFOIN-T to D of I USAF, 16 April 1952 (223200, Box 64, USAF D of I records, RG 341, USAF).

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His headless body: R. R. James,
Anthony Eden
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1986), pp. 436–7.

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Eden intended: Eden to Bridges, M.104.56, 9 May 1956 (AP20/32/78, Avon Papers, Birmingham University Library (BUL)).

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Eden gave this job: Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, to Minister of Defence, Antony Head, 22 December 1956 (AP20/21/228, Avon Papers, BUL).

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In April 1956: R. M. Bissell, Jr.,
Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs
(Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996), pp. 115–16.

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‘a bigger and better’: Elkins (BJSM) to Mountbatten, 16 October 1956 (ADM 205/110 PRO).

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But the question: Inglis (DNl) to Flag Officer, Submarines, 19 October 1956, ibid.; Coote, USS Stickleback report, ibid.

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But he also warned: Elkins (BJSM) to Mountbatten, 31 December 1956, ibid.

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Serious airborne Sigint: M. Mikesh,
Canberra, B-57
(Ian Allan, Shepperton, 1980), pp. 124–9; G. Pedlow and D. Welzenbach,
The CIA and the U-2 Program
, 1954–74 (CIA, Washington, 1998), pp. 49–51; Tamnes,
High North
, pp. 128–9; C. Pocock,
The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown
(Schiffer, Atglen, PA, 2000), pp. 16, 42, 50.

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The aircraft crew: S. Ambrose,
Eisenhower the President, Vol. 2, 1952–59
(Allen & Unwin, London, 1984), p. 584.

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The twin shoot-downs: The JIC paper was JIC (60) 43 (Final), ‘Soviet Threats Against Reconnaissance Flight Bases Following the U-2 Incident’, and is summarized in DEFE 13/342 PRO.

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The impact of these: Minutes, ‘Surveillance Meeting’, 26 April 1960, 16/W/160 (ADM 1/27680 PRO).

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By March 1961: minute by Head of Military Branch 11, 10 March 1961, ibid.

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Macmillan now required: memorandum from PS to V.C.A.S. to PS to S. of S., ‘Aircraft Approach Restrictions – Operation TIARA/GARNET’, October 1960 (AIR 20/12222 PRO). The JIC paper prepared for Macmillan was JIC (60) 62 (Revised), 1 September 1960.

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39
Somewhat safer: on continuing British submarine intelligence operations in the 1960s see Riste,
Norwegian Intelligence Service
, p. 228.

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Both the NSA: http://users.ox.ac.uk/-daveh/Space/Military/milspace_sigint.html, accessed 21 June 2001.

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Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft: JCG/S/24, Operational Requirements Committee, 19 July 1967 (AIR 20/11747 PRO).

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‘and a failure would threaten: DCDS (I) Maguire memo, ‘Elint Collection in NATO’, 27 November 1967 (ibid.); DASB Brief for mtg. with CDS, 22 November 1967 (ibid.).

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The cost of the Nimrod: Aiken (AC(I)) memo, ‘Replacement Aircraft – No 51 Squadron’, 1 August 1967 (AIR 20/12072 PRO).

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Current proposals: Sinclair to Strang, enclosing LSIB (53) 3 (Final), ‘Policy for the Higher Direction of the Radio war’, 6 October 1953 (CAB 125/193 PRO).

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–71 Instead, the 1950s and 1960s: Evidence for the Department of Forward Plans, 21 August 1954 (CAB 125/175 PRO); Neale, for head of GCHQ Radio Division to Sec. Cabinet Communications Electronics and Space
Committee, 31 December 1965 (CAB 21/5395 PRO).

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46
There were inevitable tussles: comments of Clive Loehnis at JIC (58) 8th mtg. (7), 23 January 1958 (CAB 159/29 PRO); also JIC (58) 55th mtg. (6) 14 August 1958 (CAB 159/30 PRO).

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47
By the late 1950s: Aldrich,
Espionage, Security and Intelligence
, pp. 147–9. See also Radford (JCS) memorandum, ‘Clandestine Listening Devices’, 6 April 1956, file: Presidential papers 1956 (8), Box 3, Presidential subseries. Special Assistant Series, OSANA, WHO, Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Library.

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This hermetic separation: private information.

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Around the main buildings: R. D. Cole, ‘GCHQ: A Doughnut on the Landscape’,
Eye Spy
, 1 (2001), 89–91.

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50
Moscow maintained: D. Ball,
The Use of the Soviet Embassy in Canberra for Signals Intelligence (Sigint) Collection
(ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Working Paper No. 134, Canberra, 1987), p. 1.

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This is a long: http://www.fas.org/irp.agency/navsecgru/digby/, accessed 26 June 2001.

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These developments: http://users.ox.ac.uk/-daveh/Space/Military/milspace_sigint.html, accessed 21 June 2001; Mark Urban,
UK Eyes Alpha
(Faber and Faber, London, 1996), pp. 56–69.

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53
The Iraqi attack: Loehnis comments at JIC (65) 3rd mtg. (9), 21 January 1965 (CAB 159/31 PRO). On the wider issues see R. Mobley, ‘Deterring Iraq: the UK Experience’,
Intelligence and National Security
16(2) (2001), 55.

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54
During the Gulf War: Christopher Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only
(HarperCollins, London/New York, 1995), pp. 518–20; http://www.fas.org/spp/military/
docops/operate/ds/signals.htm, accessed 23 June 2001.

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To present: private information.

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There is no doubt: R. Reeves, ‘E-squad launched to crack criminal codes on the net’.
Guardian
, 5 September 1999; N. Rufford, ‘Blair’s Spy Summit on Red Mafia’,
Sunday Times
, 5 December 1999; P. Soomer, ‘Protection or persuasion?’,
Guardian
, 30 March 2000.

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57
It now appears: S. Singh,
The Code Book
(Fourth Estate, London, 1999), pp. 286–9; D. Campbell, ‘Great Idea – Hide It’,
Guardian
, 6 May 1999.

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The advent: J. Werran, ‘CESG Securing the GSI’, http://sourceuk.net/articles/a00445.html, accessed 20 June 2001.

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The future shape: R. D. Cole, ‘GCHQ: A Doughnut on the Landscape’, Eye Spy, 1 (2001), 91–2; R. Norton-Taylor, ‘GCHQ to get new headquarters for £800m’.
Guardian
, 7 March 2000: M. Evans, ‘Spies pack their tea-chests for £300m move’,
The Times
, 7 March 2000; M. Evans, ‘Spy HQ bill overshoots by £227m’,
The Times
, 26 November 1999.

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60
France deploys: Duncan Campbell, ‘I Spy an Ally’,
Guardian
, 15 March 2000.

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1
Telford Taylor on Sigint co-operation with Bletchley Park: Telford Taylor, ‘Anglo-American signals intelligence co-operation’, in F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp (eds),
Codebreakers
(OUP, Oxford, 1993).

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2
Taylor on US inter-service Sigint rivalry: ‘Operations of the Military Intelligence Service War Department London’ (MIS WD London), 11 June 1945, Tab A, 38 (RG 218, NACP). On the background to US inter-service rivalry, see my Chapter 1 above, ‘Bletchley Park in Pre-War Perspective’.

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Korean War and origins of NSA: Christopher Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush
(HarperCollins, London/New York, 1995), pp. 185–7, 196–7.

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‘Round the World Tour by Sir Edward Travis and Rear-Admiral Rushbrooke and Staffs [Commander Loehnis, RN and F. H. Hinsley Esq], 14 March–27 April 1945’, map showing the detailed route taken by each with dates: copy given by Sir Harry Hinsley to Christopher Andrew, published as endpaper in Hayden B. Peake and Samuel Halpern (eds).
In The Name of Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Walter Pforzheimer
(NIBC Press, Washington, DC, 1994). While Travis, Loehnis and Hinsley went to Washington near the end of their tour, Rushbrooke went to Canada. Despite the date on the title of the map, the detail on it shows that the British delegation did not leave North America until May.

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Truman and Sigint: Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only
, pp. 150–6, 161–3. Truman Sigint memo: Truman, Memorandum for the Secretaries of State, War and the Navy, 12 September 1945 (Naval Aide Files, box 10, file 1, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri). Bradley J. Smith,
The Ultra-Magic Deals
(Presidio, Novato, California, 1993), p. 212.

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Origins of UKUSA agreement: Christopher Andrew, ‘The Making of the Anglo–American Sigint Alliance, 1940–1948’, in James E. Dillard and Walter T. Hitchcock (eds).
The Intelligence Revolution and Modern Warfare
(Imprint Publications, Chicago, 1996).

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British–American agreements: some papers relating to these agreements have now been released, and are at http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ukusa.shtml (accessed 5 November 2010) and in PRO HW 80.

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Eisenhower, Sigint and the Special Relationship: Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only
, pp. 199–200, 216–17.

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The Venona decrypts, together with some explanatory material, are accessible on the NSA website: http://www.nsa.gov:8080/. Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner (eds),
VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939–1957
(National Security Agency/Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, 1996) provide a valuable introduction to, and a selection of, the decrypts.

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Venona and Soviet espionage: Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin,
The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West
(Allen Lane, London, 1999), chaps 7–9. Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev,
The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era
(Random House, New York, 1999).

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US–UK co-operation on Venona: Benson and Warner (eds), VENONA, p. xxii, n45. GCHQ has released no details of British participation in Venona. Internal evidence in the decrypts, such as British rather than American spelling and a distinct British numbering system, shows, however, that a minority of the Soviet telegrams were decrypted by GCHQ cryptanalysts.

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Gardner and British intelligence: information to Christopher Andrew from Meredith Gardner and interview with Gardner broadcast in BBC radio documentary, VENONA, written and presented by Christopher Andrew (producers: Mark Burman and Helen Weinstein), first broadcast on Radio 4 on 18 March 1998. Gardner later became NSA liaison officer with GCHQ in Cheltenham.

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Keeping the Venona secret from the CIA: Christopher Andrew, The VENONA Secret’, in K. G. Robertson (ed.),
War, Resistance and Intelligence: Essays in Honour of M. R. D. Foot
(Macmillan, London, 1999).

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Weisband and Philby: Benson and Warner (eds), VENONA, pp. xxvii–xxviii, 167–70. Andrew, ‘The VENONA Secret’. KGB files show that Weisband had been recruited as a Soviet agent in 1934; Weinstein and Vassiliev,
The Haunted Wood
, p. 291.

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Case for perpetual secrecy of Ultra and fears that historians might discover it: COS (45), confidential annexe, 31 July 1945 (PRO CAB 76/36); Special Order by Sir Edward Travis (Director GCHQ), 7 May 1945 (PRO FO 371/39171): both cited by Richard J. Aldrich,
The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence
(John Murray, London, 2001), pp. 1–3.

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no historian of the Second World War: The significance of Sigint was made clear by David Kahn’s pioneering
Codebreakers
, published in 1967. Although a bestseller, however, its contents appeared to stun, rather than to inspire, most historians of international relations.

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whether there was a Russian Ultra: Geoff Jukes, ‘The Soviets and “Ultra”’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 3(2) (1988), 323. Though Jukes’s conclusions are debatable (see Ralph Erskine ‘The Soviets and Naval Enigma: Some Comments’,
Intelligence and National Security
, 4(3) (1989), 503), his article remains a path-breaking study. Cf. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The
Mitrokhin Archive
, pp. 125–7, 135–6.

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Bush and Sigint: Andrew,
For The President’s Eyes Only
, p. 5 and chap. 13.

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Eisenhower and Sigint: Andrew,
For The President’s Eyes Only
, chap. 6.

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Soviet Sigint successes: Andrew and Mitrokhin,
The Mitrokhin Archive
.

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A number of research students at Cambridge University have written dissertations which deal with various aspects of twentieth-century Sigint, see Matthew M. Aid and Cees Wiebes (eds),
Secrets of Signals Intelligence during
the Cold War and Beyond
(Frank Cass, London, 2001); also published as special issue of
Intelligence and National Security
, 16(1) (2001). A number of research students at Cambridge University are currently writing dissertations which deal with various aspects of twentieth-century Sigint.