SUPERSECRET SPY AGENCY OUT IN OPEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605470009-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 29, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605470009-4
COVER STORY
Supersecret
spy agency
out in open
By Sam Meddis
USA TODAY
USA TODAY
29 May 1986
On Oct 24, 1952 - without
a hint of publicity - President
Harry S. Truman scrawled his
name across the bottom of a
seven-page top secret memo.
That memo, says intelli-
gence expert James Bamford,
"was the birth certificate for
America's newest and most se-
cret agency ... the eavesdrop-
ping equivalent of the H-bomb."
Born in deepest secrecy, the National Security Agency
has quietly spread Its electronic ears around the world.
True to Its pedigree, the agency refuses to talk about its
work. But there is little doubt it has successfully poked Into
other nations' communications - from Third-World Libya
to superpower Soviet Union. At Its disposal is a dazilng, far-
flung array of satellites, ships, submarines, jets and ground-
based "antenna farms." They may intercept signals from
other satellites, radio transmitters, sonar, radar, microwave
towers and underwater cables.
Until recently, the nearly 34-year-old NSA - like its high-
flying spy planes - has been comfortably hidden from
view. Now the espionage trial of former NSA communica-
tions specialist Ronald Pelton - which continues in Balti-
more today - has sent the agency's cherished anonymity
Into a tailspin.
Everybody from President Reagan to CIA Director Wil-
liam- v u over -mWZ interest In me case,
Last week, Casey asked the Justice Department to prosecute
NBC News after a Today show report said Pelton may have
betrayed a long-running intelligence project
But the threat hasn't scared off the media. Wednesday,
about a half-dozen TV cameras staked out Baltimore's federal .
courthouse. Inside, some 50 reporters at in the Pelton trial
courtroom, hungry for tidbits about the supersecret agency.
The NSA - with an estimated 90,000 workers - collects
about 85 percent of the USA's foreign inteWgence, says Barn-
ford, who wrote a book on the agency, The Puzzle palace.
Its $5 billion to $10 billion annual budget dwarfs the CIA's $2
billion. Each Year, the NSA generates an awesome 24,000 tons
of classified paper documents, computer tapes and photos.
The agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., is like a
1,000-acre security bunker, triple-ringed with cyclone, barbed-
wire and electrified fences.
With a topsy-turvy kind of logic, the brain of the NSA com-
plex is in a huge basement There, an area the size of several
city blocks cradles the world's fastest, smartest computers.
They use what's known in intelligence circles as "brute
force" to crush foreign codes and help create unbreakable
ones for some 18 government agencies. Codes the president
needs to authorize a nuclear strike are brewed there.
"We've built up this tremendous technical capacity," said
,C American University's Jeffrey T. Richelson, who wrote The
US. Intelligence-Community.
The intelligence "take" is believed to be vast, involving such
matters, as, say, the status of the Soviet grain harvest, the build-
up of Soviet troops on the Polish border or instructions from
Moscow to its Third World embassies.
Among the high-tech systems the NSA and sister agencies
now use, says Richelson:
^ A photo-reeonnatssance "Key-Hole" satellite that can de-
tect objects 4 inches wide. Six-stories tall and weighing 30,000
pounds, the one orbiting KH-11 satellite provides ground sta-
tions with nearly instant pictures on TV monitors.
^ About nine SR-71 spy planes - nicknamed "Blackbirds"
because of their black, heat-reptant paint They by a sky-
scorching 3,000-plus miles per hour up to 85,000 feet high. They
can film 60,000 square miles an hour. They're supposedly ca-
pable robablythree- SIGINT (signal intelligence) satellites.
Named Chalet and Magnum, they hover at stationary positions
- 22,300 miles above the equator.- and intercept electronic
communications and missile information.
^ An assortment of specially equipped Boeing 707s, Stur-
geon 637-class subs and Navy frigates and destroyers - all
packed with sensitive electronic gear. Such ships have been
used to collect intelligence on targets in Nicaragua.
Technologically, the Soviets are "a long way behind" the
USA, Richelson said. It wasn't until 1984 that the Soviets put up
a satellite like the KH-11- a system the USA had in 1976.
By the end of this decade, USA satellites will have made
another technological leap - with heat and radar sensors that
can "see" in the dark, Richelson said.
The trend could put more and more James Bonds out of
work. "The more advanced you get technologically, the more
money you spend on that and the less you rely on human
agents," said Bamford.
That may be why officials are so edgy about publicity.
"Technical" Intelligence - replacing human spies with ma
chines - Is one of the major powers' hottest pursuits.
"It's it constant cat-and-mouse game," said Paul Stares, a
military space expert at the Brookings Institution.
At times, the game gets rough - as with the 1960 shooting
down of the U-2 spy plane of Francis Gary Powers over Soviet
territory, the Israeli attack on the intelligence-gathering ship
USS Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1968 capture
of the spy ship USS Pueblo by the North Koreans.
But intelligence agencies run such risks because rewards of
electronic espionage can be enormous.
Perhaps the biggest coup: The interception and decoding of
German military messages in World War II - a project code-
named Ultra. The operation allowed Allied commanders to de-
feat the wolfpacks of U-boats in 1943 - and helped turn the
tide in the Battle In the Atlantic.
Electronic eavesdropping apparently also was behind the
USA's ability to give a minute-by-minute account of Soviet
communications leading to the 1983 attack on the Korean Air
Lines sight 007 jumbo jet
In April, decoding of Libyan diplomatic cables reportedly
gave President Reagan the "smoking gun" evidence he needed
to send warplanes to attack Libya Reagan could confidently
say the intercepted messages directly linked Libya to the ter-
rorist bombing of a West Berlin disco that month.
But there's a big tradeoff Though fewer agents are needed,
more desk-bound functionaries are required to run such a sys-
tem - making it highly vulnerable to leaks.
Prosecutors say Pelton - accused of selling secrets to the
Soviets for a petty $35,000 - is such an example
"The NSA is absolutely vital to our security - it's worth its
weight in missiles," says Georgetown University intelligence
expert Allan Goodman. "But you can never be sure if you're
penetrated or not"
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605470009-4