[ index | 1970 ]

Lew Allen, Jr.

NSA director: August 15, 1973 - July 5, 1977

Allen, tall and professorial-looking, with rimless glasses and a few wisps of fine dark hair across his crown, arrived at the Puzzle Palace on August 15, 1973, following an assignment of only five and a half months with the CIA. Born on December 30, 1925, in Miami, Florida, Allen graduated from West Point and later earned his master's and doctorate in physics from the University of Illinois. His early career was spent mostly in the nuclear weapons field, where he specialised in the military effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions. In December 1961 he was assigned to the Space Technology Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, both within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. From that point, his career was centered in the supersecret National Reconnaissance Office [NRO]. After serving as assistant to the director of Special Projects, he was named director of Special Projects within the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force as well as deputy commander for Satellite Programs, Space, and Missile Systems Organisation. These two positions, in combination, presumably formed a third: operational head of the NRO.

The assignment of the space-age spy, used to keeping as far from the limelight as possible, to the Puzzle Palace seemed to be a matter of the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Among the hot potatoes Allen found dumped in his lap on taking over the Agency was a legal case being prosecuted by the Justice Department that threatened to expose one of the NSA's most secret operations [Shamrock]. On top of that, the greatest part of General Allen's four years as director was spent defending his palace against the onslaugt of Executive Branch, Senate, and House intelligence investigations. In the process, he became the first director ever to testify publicly before a congressional hearing.

As bloody as the battles were, however, they were no doubt worth the reward: promotion to four-star general and, after a brief assignment as head of the Air Force Systems Command, control of the entire Air Force as chief of staff. (p.111-112)

-- James Bamford: THE PUZZLE PALACE, 1982.

[ index | 1969 ]