[ index | 1970 ]

Operation Shamrock (1945-1975)

« I have been informed that the Secretary of Defense has decided that we must terminate the operation known as Shamrock. Effective 15 May 1975 no data from this source will be processed and all activities will cease as soon as possible. »

NSA director Lew Allen, Jr., in a May 12, 1975, handwritten memorandum for the record, ended what Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Frank Church once labeled "probably the largest governmental interception program affecting americans ever undertaken."

Slightly less than thirty years earlier, as the last pages of the Second World War were being written, Operation Shamrock had it's beginnings. (p.302)

18-19 août 1945: deux agents de la SSA (Signal Security Agency) parviennent a conclure "a very secret, very intimate arrangement with the three major cable companies in order to have access to the all important telgrams." (p.303)

Compagnies collaboratrices:
– ITT Communications (qui refuse, puis accepte après menaces)
– Western Union
– RCA Communications (Radio Corporation of America)

16 décembre 1947: meeting entre les dirigeants des trois compagnies et le Secrétaire de la Défense, James Forrestal. "Forrestal, telling the group that he was speaking for President Truman, commended them for their cooperation in Operation Shamrock and requested their continued assistance." (p.309)

(Note: deux ans plus tard, Forrestal est interné, souffrant de dépression et de paranoïa. Le 22 mai 1949, il se tue en sautant par la fenêtre de sa chambre d'hôpital).

1952: La NSA, fraîchement fondée, hérite du programme Shamrock.

1963: Changement d'importance: "NSA was notified by RCA Global that it was getting ready to switch from the old system of paper tapes and hard copies fo a revolutionary computerized system in which all incoming and outgoing messages were recorded on round magnetic journal tapes." (p.312)

"[At Fort Meade] the tapes would be run through Harvest, which could be programmed to "kick out" any telegram containing a certain word, phrase, name, location, sender or adressee, or any combination." (p.313)

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

"What racketeers and Cuba were to the Kennedys, protesters and drug dealers were to Presidents Johnson and Nixon." (p.317)

October 20, 1967: Major General Yarborough (heading the Civil Disturbance Unit) requests from the NSA "any available information about possible foreign influence on civil disturbances in the United States." (specific targets: "U.S. "peace groups" and "Black Power" organizations") (pp.317-318)

As the Army began sending over its pages of protester's names, other agencies [SS, CIA, FBI, DIA] did the same – some individually, some on pre-printed forms, and some simply on the telephone.

On January 20, 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon was sworn in as he thirty-seventh President. He had won with less than 1 percent of the total popular vote following what was probably the most violent presidential election campaign year in history.

In March and April, student riots erupted in San Francisco, Cambridge, and Ithaca; in Chicago, police and ghetto blacks began battling in the streets. (p.338)

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.

"MINARET specifically includes communications concerning individuals or organizations, involved in civil disturbances, antiwar movements/demonstrations and Military deserters involved in the antiwar movements..." (pp.323-324)

What made Minaret so sensitive was not the importance of the intelligence; far less security was afforded much more important Soviet intercepts. Minaret became ultrasensitive only because it bordered on illegality and therefore had to be masked to shield the Agency. (p.324)

On November 15, over 250'000 people massed in Washington to protest the war in Vietnam while President Nixon and his close friend Charles (Bebe) Rebozo watched football on TV in the White House. (p.338)

1970: aux demandeurs s'ajoute le BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) qui constitue sa propre watch list.

March 1970: explosion of a Weatherman "bomb factory" in a Greenwich Village town house.

June 5, 1970: un meeting à la Maison Blanche rassemble le Président Nixon et des représentants du FBI (J. Edgar Hoover), DIA (Donald V. Bennet), CIA (Richard Helms) et de la NSA (Noel Gayler). Nixon préconise des méthodes plus fermes pour obtenir des données sur les "groupements révolutionnaires" à l'origine des émeutes. Nixon fonde le Interagency Committee on Intelligence (ICI) et demande qu'un rapport (détaillant les mesures nécessaires pour améliorer la productivité des services) soit rédigé.

Au cœur du débat: "methodology of intelligence collection". June 17: examination of the first draft of the report. Benson K. Buffham (NSA) immediately brought up the matter of resuming FBI black-bag jobs in support of NSA's activities, saying that millions of dollars could be saved by such operations. (p.343)

note: le FBI avait effectué par le passé ce type d'opérations pour la NSA ("a midnight break-in at the offices of the Syrian legation in New York City or the Iraqi embassy in Washington could provide an invaluable aid to the codebreakers of PROD"), mais Hoover s'y était opposé à plusieurs reprises. (p.336)

La NSA voit dans ce Special Report l'occasion d'assouplir les restraintes légales auxquelles elle est soumise dans l'espionnage de citoyens américains (la fameuse directive NSCID No. 6). Elle demande également l'abolition des contraintes concernant la "Surreptious Entry" (cambriolage). "It was the golden opportunity to return to the days of diplomatic black-bag jobs.

Mais la finition du rapport pose problème: Hoover (FBI) se distancie de toute activité illégale, ce qu'il exprime par des notes en bas de page. Malgré ces différends, le rapport est signé par les quatre directeurs, et soumis à Nixon. Tom Charles Huston (ex-Army Intelligence), chargé de l'établissement du rapport, y ajoute un mémorandum contenant des "recommandations" plus précises: il suggère à Nixon de sermonner Hoover pour le faire renoncer à ses objections - "twenty years ago he would never have raised the type of objections he has here, but he's getting old and worried about his legend".

On July 14, 1970, Huston recieved the good news that Nixon had approved the entire package. (...) Now [the NSA] had, in black and white, the presidential authorization to do what they had been doing all along. In addition, Tordella could once again order embassy buggings and break-ins from the FBI.

"1. Interpretive Restraint on Communications Intelligence. National Security Council Intelligence Directive Number 6 (NSCID No. 6) is to be interpreted to permit NSA to program for coverage the communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities.

(...) 4. Surreptitious Entry. Restraints on the use of surreptitious entry are to be removed. The technique is to be used to permit procurement of vitally needed foreign cryptographic material and against other urgent and high priority internal security targets."

Furieux, le directeur du FBI se rend aussitôt chez le Procureur Général John Mitchell. Celui-ci, qui n'a jamais entendu parler du Special Report ni du ICI, est surpris et choqué. Sur ses recommandations pressantes, Nixon révoque le "Huston Plan".

What really bothered the NSA threesome about the loss of the Huston Plan was not that they would have to continue such massive operations as Shamrock, Minaret, and the drug watch lists without authority, but that the FBI's wiretappers and second-story men remained beyond their reach. (p.351)

Mais les manigances se poursuivent: fin 1970 est fondé l'ultra-secret Intelligence Evaluation Committee (IEC), affilié au Département de la Justice, rassemblant à nouveau NSA, CIA, FBI et DIA. Objectif: "revolutionary terrorist activities in the United States". Mais le but véritable, consigné dans un mémo du 19 janvier 1971, est l'implémentation du Huston Plan.

Ch.7: Fissures

June 13, 1971: The New York Times starts publishing excerpts from a top secret history of U.S. decision-making in the Vietnam War: the Pentagon Papers.

Un agent double du KGB aurait transmis une copie du dossier à l'embassade Soviétique. Catastrophe pour la NSA: le dossier évente l'opération Gamma Gupy, consistant à décrypter les conversations radio-téléphoniques des pontes de Moscou, et fait référence à des communications interceptées entre le Vietnam et d'autres gouvernements. (p.360)

Nixon décide d'agir contre les fuites au sein de la Maison Blanche, en mettant sur pied son unité de "plombiers". En parallèle, le Pentagone tente de poursuivre le New York Times en justice... Le 19 Juin 1971, le tribunal donne raison au Times.

Summer 1973: The Nixon administration goes on trial as the Senate Watergate Commitee takes center stage.

June 7, 1973: That morning, the New York Times revealed for the first time the existence of the Huston Plan and published it's full text, including the revelation that NSA was "currently" monitoring international communications and wanted restrictions lifted on embassy black-bag jobs.

Simultanément, au cours d'un procès à Détroit contre des Weathermen militants, les avocats demandent que soit révélée "toute surveillance fédérale illégale dirigée contre la défense". Les agences refusent de se plier à la demande du tribunal. La NSA informe le procureur que des écoutes ont eu lieu, mais parvient à maintenir son anonymat. Sur requête de la cour, FBI, SS et NSA suspendent leur "watch list activity". L'opération MINARET s'interrompt fin 1973. (pp.371-373)

December 22, 1974: the New York Times reports details of Operation Chaos, the supersecret and highly illegal CIA spying program directed against Americans. (...) The Commission on CIA Activites Within the United States, better known as the Rockefeller Commission, gave the CIA a one-eyed lookover. The commission left the Puzzle Palace almost untouched. In a brief paragraph devoted to the watch list program, the NSA was obliquely referred to as "an international communications activity of another agency of the government." (p.375)

Malheureusement pour la NSA, une autre commission du Congrès investigue, sous la direction du démocrate Otis Pike, "with a mandate to look into the whole intelligence communitiy." Le 8 août 1975, le directeur de la NSA, Lew Allen, Jr., comparaît devant la commission, mais parvient à ne pas vendre la mèche.

En octobre 1975, Frank Raven, ancien chef du G-Group (chargé des opérations sur sol américain), comparaît devant le Senate Intelligence Commitee, dirigé par Frank Church. L'annonce de deux jours de sessions publiques, durant lesquels Allen serait appelé à témoigner, sème un vent de panique au sein de la NSA. Malgré une tentative du Président Ford de stopper le sénateur Church, les "public hearings" débutent le 29 octobre. Lew Allen donne un rapport détaillé sur les watch lists et l'opération MINARET. "Over the six-year period between 1967 and 1973, Allen estimated, the Agency had issued about 3900 reports concerning the approximately 1680 watch-listed American citizens (...) but in all cases at least one terminal was on foreign soil." Suite à ce succès, le comité Church se tourne vers l'opération SHAMROCK, à laquelle il consacre un rapport classifié daté du 6 novembre 1975.

En parallèle, un autre subcomité, dirigé par Bella S. Abzug, investigue contre la NSA, alerté par un article du New York Daily News du 22 juillet 1975, révélant l'interception du trafic télégraphique par le FBI et la NSA. Considérant que le rapport du comité Church ne va pas assez loin, le Abzug Subcommittee décide d'interroger des représentants des compagnies de télégraphie. En février 1976, 3 agents du FBI, 1 employé de la NSA, et des cadres de ITT, RCA et Western Union sont appelés à comparaître. Le Président Ford et le Secrétaire de la Défense Donald Rumsfeld tentent de s'opposer à ces interrogatoires publics, accordant l'indemnité juridique aux agents du FBI, ainsi qu'à la Western Union.

Pourtant, le 3 mars 1976, le vice-président de la Western Union témoigne devant le subcomité et lui remet une "list of NSA targets" datant de 1968. Dans la semaine qui suit, RCA et ITT comparaissent également et révèlent l'étendue de l'opération Shamrock. Le subcomité publiera fin 1977 un "draft report" intitulé "Interception of International Telecommunications by the National Security Agency", vite enterré. (pp.386-387)

Enfin, une task force secrète, chargée par le Procureur Général Edward H. Levi d'enquêter sur les diverses opérations de la NSA, achève le 30 juin 1976 un rapport de 175 pages, si secret que seulement deux copies seront imprimées.

In the end, despite the fact that the task force had managed to uncover no fewer than twenty-three different categories of questionable electronic-surveillance activities involving the NSA, CIA, FBI, the report concluded with the recommandation that "the inquiry be terminated in all respects for lack of prosecutive potential." Acquittal. (p.389)


-- James Bamford: THE PUZZLE PALACE, 1982.

[ index | 1969 ]