[ index | 1970 ]

National Security Agency [NSA]

août 1945: L'Opération Shamrock est initiée.

November 4, 1952: naissance de la NSA (entrée en vigueur du Truman Memorandum – un document de 7 pages adressé au Secrétaire d'Etat et au Secrétaire de la Défense).

Dès 1962, la Criminal Division et le FBI commencent à recourir aux bons services de la NSA (requêtes concernant le crime organisé et Cuba).

In 1964, AN/FLR-9 receiving systems [HF monitoring system] were installed at San Vito dei Normanni, Italy; Chicksands, England, and Karamursel, Turkey. (IC2K, § 32)

In August 1966, NSA transferred ILC collection activities from its Scottish site at Kirknewton, to Menwith Hill in England. Ten years later, this activity was again transferred, to Chicksands. Although the primary function of the Chicksands site was to intercept Soviet and Warsaw Pact air force communications, it was also tasked to collect ILC and "NDC" (Non-US Diplomatic Communications). Prominent among such tasks was the collection of FRD traffic (i.e., French diplomatic communications). Although most personnel at Chicksands were members of the US Air Force, diplomatic and ILC interception was handled by civilian NSA employees in a unit called DODJOCC.(17)

On July 1, 1969, the civil disturbance watch list program became even more restricted and compartmented, when it recieved it's own code word and charter: Operation MINARET.


Chiffres: By 1978, the CIA's Operations Division had been reduced from a peak of 8'000 during the Vietnam War to less than 4'000. Although the NSA had also suffered cutbacks, particularly once the Vietnam War ended, by 1978 it still controlled 68'203 people – more than all of the employees of the rest of the intelligence community put together. (p.18)

-- James Bamford: THE PUZZLE PALACE, 1982.

[ index | 1969 ]