The Growth of American Intelligence Between Wars
Adapted from the AIA presentation
The development of American intelligence between the wars focused upon the roles played by William Friedman and Herbert Yardley. Yardley got his start in intelligence as a telegrapher at the U. S. State Department during World War I. After the signing of the Armistice ending the war, Yardley created a cryptanalytic bureau whose job it became to decipher codes used in diplomatic correspondence by other nations.
His new organization, dubbed the American Black Chamber, set up operations in a brownstone row house near Columbia University in New York City. Yardley's group proved their worth when they succeeded in decrypting Japanese diplomatic ciphers. Armed with this news, the American Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, was able to obtain terms favorable to the United States during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921.
By 1929, however, America's leadership saw little reason to continue funding for Yardley's operation. Yardley received orders to shut down and turn over his materials to William Friedman and the Signal Intelligence Service.
Angry, out of a job, and disappointed over his future prospects, Yardley wrote a book called The American Black Chamber. In this book he explained in considerable detail the activities of his former unit. The United States Government forbade the publication of a second edition of the book, but its contents quickly became public knowledge. When descriptions from the book reached Japan and the other nations Yardley discussed, tensions ran high for months. They promptly changed their codes.
It would take Friedman and a team several years to break the new Japanese (Purple) Code, for example. Nevertheless, it was Friedman and his associates whose work in decoding would ultimately culminate in the formation of the National Security Agency whose specialties today include SIGINT and cryptography.
World War II represented a flowering of technological changes and refinements to innovations appearing in the 1900s. Sometimes technology moved faster than the abilities of humans to master it.
In August 1940, Army Intelligence had broken the Japanese diplomatic code. The decryption effort bore the name MAGIC.
By late November 1941, MAGIC had produced information that American installations in the Pacific might well be in danger and that war with Japan was entirely possible. On Dec. 7, 1941, MAGIC intercepted and decoded a radio message from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy in Washington. The message signaled a break in diplomatic relations between Japan and the U. S. While the information was available 8 hours before the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, there existed no national decision making process at this time. There were no analysts to sort out quickly all the possibilities and there were no established procedures to notify those empowered to make the appropriate decisions.
Signals intelligence brought major allied successes in World War II. Admiral Chester Nimitz, significantly outnumbered by superior Japanese naval forces in the Pacific, used COMINT to confirm the Japanese intent to attack Midway.
With this prior knowledge, Nimitz positioned his forces in advance and inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese Navy. The Japanese never recuperated. In early April 1943, U. S. Army Intelligence, through Purple, intercepted news that the commander in chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy would be visiting bases in the Bougainville area of the South Pacific.
Using COMINT derived from MAGIC, the date, place and time of arrival allowed American forces to ambush the admiral's bomber. Admiral Isoruko Yamamoto's plane crashed, leaving no survivors.
World War II also bore witness to important improvements in technology. These made easier the job of being intelligence officers. Scientists and engineers with M 209 converters, preliminary versions of what later would become computers, processed vast amounts of data quickly.
New cameras and better film brought tremendous advances to aerial photography. Improvements in radios allowed the Allies to transmit coded instructions to the French resistance just before zero hour on D Day. The Allied landings at Normandy and the successes that followed brought into the spotlight the utter importance of coordinated intelligence on many fronts to military operations.
Like the telegraph in the American Civil War, the radio in World War II proved invaluable. Enemy operators could intercept its messages. On several noteworthy occasions, disastrous consequences resulted. World War II represented a watershed in the close relationship between technology and intelligence. What would follow would be a much closer relationship between the two.
At the end of World War II, the nation's leaders clearly understood the expanded role the U. S. would have to play in post World War II international affairs. The debacle at Pearl Harbor became a sober reminder of the need to have a cohesive intelligence structure in place in an emerging Cold War security environment.
Had senior leadership been given sufficient warning of the impending Japanese sneak attack, they could have informed the service commanders in Hawaii to be vigilant.
The lack of central control over cryptologic operations in the immediate post war era greatly concerned senior U. S. officials. With the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe already completed, the looming specter of Communist domination over the wartorn nations of Western Europe appeared a very real possibility. The modern American cryptologic efforts born in the years prior to World War II and perfected during the conflict clearly pointed to the need to change the manner in which intelligence activities were carried out.
In an effort to deal with the fast changing world situation, a combined intelligence board to oversee cryptologic issues began operations in late 1945. Consisting of members from the State Department, Army and Navy, the board recognized that the uncoordinated and fractionalized cryptologic apparatus in place since the 1920s had to be better controlled.
On Feb. 15, 1946, after approval by the Army and Navy, a new executive organization called the Coordinator for Joint Operations was established.
The CJO's role in the nation's intelligence structure involved carrying out the routine business of coordinating central cryptologic matters.
Prior to the birth of the CJO in September 1945, the cryptologic function of the U. S. Army, the Signal Security Agency, gained status as a separate independent command called the Army Security Agency, cutting its ties to the Army Signal Corps. In an effort to put into perspective the need to restructure intelligence within the U. S. government, it is necessary to examine the broad intelligence picture in the U. S. at the end of World War II.
President Truman's disestablishment of The Wartime Office of Strategic Studies Sept. 10, 1945, ended that intelligence organization's activities.
In its place, Truman created the Central Intelligence Group, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Tasked with providing the President with a single source of information, the CIG began operations on Jan. 22, 1946. The State Department and the military branches worked out arrangements to provide the new CIG with manpower to carry out its important mission.
By early 1947, the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Soviet Union presented itself as a prominent factor in the need to restructure America's National Defense establishment.
The National Security Act of 1947 stated the intent of Congress was to provide for the authoritative coordination and unified direction of the armed forces under civilian control but not to merge them. A separate, but equal issue within the act itself dealt with the need to create a peacetime foreign intelligence organization— the CIA. Congress had virtually no role in the creation and development of the CIG.
The CIG formally became the CIA Sept. 18, 1947 — the same day the U. S. Air Force gained its genesis. The early relationship between the new CIA and the DOD quickly became an indispensable link within the new national security establishment. In a time before high technology intelligence tools like the U 2 or spaceborne intelligence satellites existed, early CIA intelligence estimates sometimes lacked objectivity. Indeed, in one of the more important early CIA intelligence estimates on the status of the Soviet Nuclear Weapons program, only the Air Force dissented with the CIA — accurately predicting that the Soviets would explode a nuclear device by late 1949 — four years earlier than the CIA prediction.
The CIA experienced early growing pains and in January 1951 the newly formed office of current intelligence began publishing the allsource Current Intelligence Bulletin.
Until September 1947, and the implementation of the National Security Act which created the Department of Defense and sanctioned the United States Air Force, SIGINT matters remained largely a servicespecific operation.
The first vice chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, endorsed the establishment of a separate Air Force cryptologic intelligence organization. Vandenberg, an astute user of cryptologic products as an air commander in World War II, recognized the imperative and clear need to have an independent air force entity to provide the same type support to the still fledgling Strategic Air Command.
U.. S Air Force Security Services' roots began to grow in mid 1948 in a transition agreement worked out between the Army Security Agency and the Air Force. The agreement provided for USAFSS to have only a mobile and tactical role for the new service's cryptologic organization. The agreement established the Air Force Security Group June 23, 1948, to oversee the transfer of ASA resources and personnel to a new and as yet unestablished, Air Force cryptologic organization.
With the Department of Defense structure now in place, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949 moved to consolidate control over the separate services' cryptologic efforts by setting up the Armed Forces Security Agency.
AFSA, announced by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson in the spring of 1949, provided for a unified cryptologic organization intended to conduct intelligence and communications security activities within the fast growing Department of Defense establishment. AFSA survived until 1952, when the organization was redesignated as the National Security Agency. At this time, NSA assumed the responsibilities as the executive agent of the U. S. Government for SIGINT information.
The 1950s Following the Korean conflict, in which USAFSS earned a permanent seat at the table as an Air Force intelligence organization, technology continued to drive command efforts to provide quality intelligence products.
Following the War, USAFSS quickly moved to use the best communications technology available to provide a direct and timely response to the requirements of military commands and other organizations receiving intelligence support.
In June 1954, USAFSS implemented the point of analysis and reporting concept on a test basis at the 6901st Communications Center in Europe and the 6902nd Special Communications Center in the Pacific.
The organization also implemented the new concept of mobile operations when the first mobile unit deployed in late 1956 in response to unrest in the Middle East. During the mid to late 1950s, USAFSS fulfilled the intelligence needs of tactical commanders during contingencies.
The command's first modern airborne operations commenced in 1954, complementing the new mobile concept. By the end of the 1950s, USAFSS had well established airborne, ground and mobile cryptologic operations, providing support for the now firmly established U. S. Air Force.
The 1960s saw USAFSS deeply involved in the Vietnam conflict. In early 1962, USAFSS deployed its first Emergency Reaction Unit to Southeast Asia. Later that year, USAFSS began providing a cryptologic capability from Thailand in support of U. S. operations in the Pacific.
Modern technology in airborne operations also had its beginnings during this time. In 1962, USAFSS crews began flying the first RC 135 missions in the Arctic region. In September 1964, with the Vietnam War now raging in the aftermath of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, USAFSS C 47 and C 130 aircraft began full fledged airborne reconnaissance operations in Southeast Asia.
In 1967, with U. S. military involvement in the Vietnam conflict growing, USAFSS took on the job as the central evaluating agency for U. S. Air Force electronic warfare activities. The new role for USAFSS marked the first major change in the command's mission since its inception two decades earlier.
Transistors now enabled large mainframe computers to make significant differences in the large intelligence picture. New technology also allowed the introduction of systems like STRAWHAT and TEBO at USAFSS ground sites, further automating many labor intensive unit field operations.
The 1970s USAFSS' application of technology during the 1970s began to set the framework for the later application of all source intelligence support to the warfighter. Following the end of the Vietnam conflict, USAFSS, eager to support and apply its experience with technology to new missions, quickly became a main player in the EW arena.
The redesignation of the Air Force Special Communications Center as the Air Force Electronic Warfare Center July 1, 1975, moved USAFSS firmly into playing a central role in the Air Force's now rapidly expanding EW mission. By 1978, the AFEWC's role had expanded involving new and state of the art EW technologies to counter command and control systems of potential enemies. The AFEWC also realized significant strides in the analysis of defense suppression techniques for the F 4G and EF 111 aircraft.
The Department of Defense restructuring of the late 1970s initially envisaged several of the main mission functions of USAFSS being divvied up and the disestablishment of USAFSS as a major command.
The Air Force reorganization plans announced April 12, 1978, called for a new Separate Operating Agency and for the Air Force Intelligence Center to take over some of USAFSS' missions. Additionally, the AFIC would assume responsibility for the Air Force Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
The reorganization plans quickly changed as U. S. security interests shifted focus to the Persian Gulf. With USAFSS now playing an expanding EW role, the command was redesignated the Electronic Security Command Aug. 1, 1979.
This decade saw the introduction of the simple integrated circuit which would later foreshadow even more significant technological breakthroughs.
The rate at which communications electronics technology progressed during the 1970s, essentially drove the need for the U. S. Air Force to have a dedicated SIGINT/ EW organization in place as the 1980s began.
ESC thrived in a decade where growing defense budgets allowed the command to take advantage of several technological break throughs. This enabled ESC to begin to focus its attention on furnishing vital all source intelligence support to warfighters and theater commanders.
During the 1980s, ESC and its subordinate centers stepped forward in providing Air Force combat operators with unbroken command, control and countermeasures (C3CM) support. By the middle of the decade, the AFEWC became the primary source of EW/ C3CM analysis and advice for the Air Force. EW and C3CM support and program management activities for the Constant Web Data Base program migrated from the ESC Directorate of Operations to the AFEWC in 1988.
By this time, AFEWC personnel using microprocessor driven high speed computers provided senior battle commanders with analytical reports on major exercises and on EW systems effectiveness throughout the world.
ESC started its venture into the realm of space operations during this decade. In 1986, ESC began an association with the U. S. Air Force Space Command with the activation of the Headquarters Space Electronic Security Division at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.
During this time, ESC provided invaluable support to a number of significant military operations and contingencies including Urgent Fury, El Dorado Canyon and Just Cause. ESC operations reaped the benefit of the capabilities of modern computer microprocessor based systems. The introduction of the Conventional Signals Upgrade and other systems profoundly changed the mechanics of ESC's intelligence operations. Clearly, the 1980s portended the arrival of the information age. In the area of global security, matters changed faster and more profoundly than technology. Perestroika, alive and well in the Soviet Union, provided the impetus for the Soviet people to question openly their system of government as Communism began to wane at the end of the decade.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 saw many of the Soviet Satellite states of Eastern Europe quickly wilt.
As 1990 began, ESC stood poised to make an unprecedented contribution affecting the future of both the command and the U. S. military.
ESC units served at the forefront during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Personnel from several command organizations played key roles in helping to orchestrate the concept of Information Dominance during the Persian Gulf conflict. ESC helped to provide all source intelligence to warfighters in Desert Storm with high tech microprocessorbased systems like the Tactical Information Broadcast Service and Constant Source. Iraq's command and control system, annihilated by airpower several weeks before the start of the ground war, became a prime example of how Information Dominance was used in warfare. For the first time during a conflict, as retired Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell aptly stated: "Personal computers were force multipliers."
As quickly as Desert Storm unfolded, ushering in the age of Information Warfare, unparalleled tremors occurred in the global security environment as the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991. New security issues quickly arose as America's super power rival faded into the relative obscurity afforded to many third world nations. The clear need to restructure Air Force intelligence encouraged the creation of a streamlined Air Force Intelligence Command to succeed ESC Oct. 1, 1991.
AFIC, moving towards becoming a truly all source intelligence organization, was formed by merging the personnel and missions of the Air Force Foreign Technology Division and elements of the Air Intelligence Agency into a single command. After 1991, the bi polar security landscape of the Cold War gave way to a global economy oriented multipolar world.
Information technology now expanded exponentially, merging and interrelating with all aspects of the global economy. At the same time, the U. S. Air Force also changed. It experienced an unprecedented drawdown.
The objective Air Force pointed to the need to restructure intelligence further and the Air Force Intelligence Command found itself redesignated as a Field Operating Agency — the Air Intelligence Agency on Oct. 1, 1993.
Emphasizing increased support to the warfighter, AIA wasted no time moving to exploit the fastdeveloping information technologies of the 1990s.
During the course of the past few years, military forces have operated in an "infosphere," where the need for precise, instantaneous intelligence is increasing over the entire spectrum of military operations.
Now on AIA's horizon is an age where the Agency plays a key role in not only helping the U. S. Air Force achieve information superiority in the 21st century, but helping all U. S. armed forces shape the battlespace.
In today's world nearly all actions depend on some link to a facet of
information technology. More often than not that link is to the microprocessor
and its related hardware, software and network communication infrastructures.
Indeed, it is not an understatement to say that AIA's ability to deal with
and exploit information technologies will determine its destiny in the next
millennium.
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