Chapter IV: Creating A Naval Cryptologic History Program
This fourth article continues my account of the Naval Security Group (NAVSECGRU) history programs that originated half a century ago. They laid a foundation for further research and writing about a largely unknown but vital aspect of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps history: the story of naval codes, ciphers, and radio intelligence. In toto, this brief series spans my tenure from June 1968 through my departure nearly fourteen years later. No one explicitly stated a reason the newly-activated NAVSECGRU Command created the Historian billet when it did. So I have looked back at that time in order to reflect on their expectations and to place them in context.
1960s: Conflicts, Crises, and Technology
Ongoing major world power tensions and erupting regional conflicts during the 1960s brought forward increasing U.S. participation. When the National Command Authority directed Navy presence, the Fleet called upon the Naval Security Group for support, using its technical assets to gain strategic and tactical advantage. In turn, NAVSECGRU elements themselves became targets of hostile action. Several of those events and developments that readers will readily recall were the:
- Development and deployment of the Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA), and then Project CLASSIC OUTBOARD to enhance shipboard Direction Finding capabilities.
- Cuban Missile Crisis under President John F. Kennedy in October 1962 — which followed the Bay of Pigs Invasion 18 months earlier that failed to halt USSR influence.
- Expanding conflict in South East Asia when Lyndon B. Johnson took office.
- Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967 and the consequent attack on USS LIBERTY (AGTR-5) in June.
- Heightening tensions with North Korea and its seizure on 23 January 1968 of USS PUEBLO (AGER-2) steaming in international waters that led to the negotiated release of her crew the following December.
- North Korea’s shoot-down of the Navy EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft 90 miles from hostile shores over the Sea of Japan on 16 April 1969 with the loss of all crew members.
NAVSECGRU Responses in Documenting These Events
In retrospect, I recall that NAVSECGRU Headquarters (HQ) wrote reports and completed studies and analyses and conducted internal investigations into several of these developments and events in the years immediately following.
Soon after reporting onboard I was asked to read an extensive internal account of the land-based CLASSIC BULLSEYE HFDF project. It had been prepared over a period of months by a HQ Engineering Department Commander with a wealth of experience. Those so-called “Elephant Cages” derived from World War II technology that enabled Admiral Karl Doenitz to communicate with his U-Boats and wolf packs, and led to the U.S. Wullenweber CDAA. Our Admiral asked that I comment on the Commander’s report; I assured him that a chapter on the history of Project BULLSEYE served an important purpose and was a vital part of the study! Several years later, the successor Commander, NAVSECGRU Command (COMNAVSECGRU) assigned me to work with the Project OUTBOARD office to ensure that their documents and record keeping adequately reflected and preserved the development of a U.S. Navy seaborne Direction Finding capability.
A senior HQ Department Head produced an analysis of the Israeli attempt to sink our technical research ship, USS LIBERTY. His thorough report was preserved in a large three-inch binder appropriately titled “LIBERTY Lessons Learned”. Later, a badly injured officer who survived the attack was assigned to HQ and used the opportunity to begin preparing a personal account to correct official public statements by the Administration about what allegedly happened. His was the first of a number of such books that have sustained the crew and family members as they organized to obtain a full Congressional inquiry: their quest continues to this day.
North Korea’s seizure of USS PUEBLO involved personnel matters that deserve continued privacy. Studies conducted at the Naval War College and the Naval History and Heritage Command, however, address strategic, tactical, and national security issues. Moreover, the entire world realized that the crew acted with admirable courage under brutal conditions during their captivity. No HQ report came out about the EC-121 shoot-down the following year, either, although the two actions by North Korea were related, in the view of many observers.
One significant point deserving of mention is that RADM Ralph E. Cook, then COMNAVSECGRU, agreed to be interviewed by Trevor Armbrister, author of “A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the PUEBLO Affair”, published only two years later in 1970.
U.S. agencies have examined the Cuban Missile Crisis from a variety of perspectives, but if an internal HQ study or a lessons learned inquiry was conducted of the Missile Crisis, I never found it. I searched for one because the Crisis abruptly changed my personal and professional life, just as it-and all crises-disrupt or end the lives of Service members. Early on the morning after President Kennedy’s speech announcing the blockade of Cuba, I received short-fused PCS orders to Key West, Florida. Our cargo plane arrived in the middle of the night two days later at Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West. We learned decades later that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was then urgently demanding the Soviet Union launch nuclear missiles against the United States from Cuban sites.
Commercial books and articles about those weeks of peril are plentiful, of course, starting in 1968 with Bobby Kennedy’s posthumously-published “Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis” and up to but not ending in 2018 with Hourly History’s “The Cuban Missile Crisis: A History from Beginning to End”. One of the most comprehensive recent accounts is by Michael Dobbs in “One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War” (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). These books will certainly not be the final interpretation of this sobering crisis that changed the direction of the Cold War, and possibly came very close to world-wide nuclear exchanges.
Primary Initial Assignment
The National Security Agency (NSA) initiated its joint lessons-learned study of cryptologic support to, and communications security of, the U.S. and our allies in the Vietnam conflict earlier during the 1960s. HQ initially detailed a mid-grade officer from the Operations Department to represent the Navy, taking him away from regularly assigned duties. Thus, replacing him became my basic and primary assignment for the next several years.
Among the highlights of that experience was an interview at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps (HQMC) with Colonel David E. Lownds, veteran of three wars—wounded during World War II in combat on Saipan and again on Iwo Jima; fought in the Korean Conflict; and commanded the U.S. 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. For Lownds’ valorous service at Khe Sanh, the Secretary of the Navy awarded him the Navy Cross. Another memorable interview with a battle-seasoned Navy LCDR communications security specialist proved particularly instructive.
His unpleasant task in Vietnam involved briefing a combat-hardened Marine general and his staff how their lax radio discipline made them vulnerable to successful Viet Cong attacks. NSA’s two-part report was completed in 1970 at the TOP SECRET level, and initially bore a security CODEWORD, further restricting access. Thus, it amazed me decades later (about 2004) to see Part I officially declassified and posted on the Internet: It is easily available online today by searching for Working Against the Tide (COMSEC Monitoring and Access). In 1970, I suggested preparing a version at the Secret level to be used for training purposes within the Department of Defense—that study was made available widely, but remains classified as far as I am aware.
Several years later, my participation in that Vietnam project diverted me into a different use of operational information and data. RADM Chester G. Phillips, our second COMNAVSECGRU, sent me to assist the Center for Naval Analysis prepare an operational analysis of our units in providing tactical support to the Fleet. An account of that study by CAN’s Operations Evaluation Group and my quick visit to Corregidor was published in CRYPTOLOG in its Summer 2016, Fall 2016, and Winter 2017 issues. RADM Phillips also tapped me to participate in HQ panels exploring the roles of Naval cryptology in future Fleet and national operations — great learning experiences!
“Additional Duties as Assigned”
In traditional Navy fashion, other responsibilities surfaced that required immediate attention, popping up like multiple echoes on a radar scope. They all presented complex challenges leading to long-term as well as short-term commitments. I list them separately below as neatly logical in sequence, but they actually developed in parallel.
The second major assignment involved taking charge of the facility holding our oldest records, which I addressed in previous articles. Several months after I reported for duty, the senior civilian in the NAVSECGRUHQ Plans and Policy Department accompanied me to the NAVSECGRU records storage facility. We and the OIC (Officer in Charge) of our facility agreed on ways to gain better physical and intellectual control of its holdings. The OIC and his two-man crew fully appreciated the unique nature of their records that covered a critical aspect of Naval history. Henceforth, they proved vital in implementing our aggressive plan to protect their holdings and make them usable for research. Later, thanks to the initiative of the OIC, we successfully had the facility designated as our Command Central Records Depository, formally authorized to hold temporary records as well as archival materials destined for the National Archives. The Historian position was thereafter assigned Central Depository management responsibility.
NAVSECGRU Annual History Reports and Navy Records Management
The third major undertaking arose logically from being Historian—Prepare and submit the HQ annual history report (now called the Command Operations Report) as required by the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV). Every year thereafter I gained a better appreciation of the intended mutual support between SECNAV history and records management programs for preserving a corporate Navy memory. As might be expected, this led to two more separate tasks.
Because each Navy command was required to submit annual reports, NAVSECGRU Activities also sent their histories to the Director of Naval History. Our other elements (e.g., shipboard divisions and shore-based departments of Naval Communications Stations) provided information through their parent commands. None of those annual reports could include classified mission information that needed special handling, of course.
Therefore, firmly adhering to equal sharing of burdens, my fourth major (unpleasant) task was to draft and follow through on a command instruction directing that a compartmented history supplement be sent annually to HQ. I reviewed each of them for classification, content, and clarity. They were then transferred to the Central Depository for storage and future reference. Long-term members of the Operations staff in the Washington Navy Yard Naval Historical Center were pleased to receive annual NAVSECGRU non-compartmented, classified reports for their files. Director of Naval History RADM Ernest M. Eller respected cryptology based on his six decades of service, including combat during World War II. It also helped that I had served the summer of 1967 on active duty with the Naval History Division, when it was still located in the old Main Navy Building along Constitution Avenue and 18th Street. Constructive relations with the Director and key personnel worked to our benefit several years later when we created the museum.
Predictably, a fifth task soon followed: Prepare and coordinate a parallel command instruction requiring that NAVSECGRU compartmented records to be retired directly to our Central Depository in lieu of sending them for storage in Federal Records Centers or for permanent retention in the National Archives. Details were included in my previous two articles.
Birth Date of U.S. Naval Cryptology
One important decision shaping our history had been made before I arrived in June 1968: the senior civilian in Plans and Policy had just selected 11 March 1935 as the official birth date of Navy Cryptology. His selection was based on the first appearance on an organization chart of the term “Communications Security Group” to identify units of OP-20 (Naval Communications) in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations that handled Radio Security and Radio Intelligence. Later changed to “Naval Security Group”, this name was adopted as the official organizational title in 1950, about a decade and a half after the chosen birth date. Although the Naval cryptologic organization was renamed in 2005 and again in 2010, the overall mission is essentially unchanged: to protect U.S. communications and exploit weaknesses of opposing forces. The NAVSECGRU name symbolizes an honored memory in U.S. Naval history.
The Code-Breakers
David Kahn began working in 1961 on his history of cryptography and cryptanalysis from the dawn of secret writing in Egypt up to about 1960, covering very lightly the period following World War II. Its publication challenged government, academic, and private practitioners because of the broad scope and open discussion of what previously had been kept out of the public domain. Books on this and related subjects were already available, of course, but varied widely in clarity and practical value. The same might be said of publications since 1967, but they are much more numerous. Cryptography assumed greater importance when wireline and wireless (radio) communications systems came into widespread use in the late 19th/early 20th century, and received even greater prominence with general use of computers and common storage of information and data on our global network of servers-the cloud.
NAVSECGRU HQ: 3801 Nebraska Avenue
The NAVSECGRU homeport for over half a century embodied the history of naval cryptology. The Navy had purchased the site from Mount Vernon Seminary and College for young women in late 1942 and rapidly prepared it for occupation by OP-20-G in February 1943. All the critical World War II equipment had long since been removed, leaving office space for our operations and administrative departments. Employees of sister organizations who worked at “sterile” sites in the greater Washington-Baltimore metropolitan areas envied those of us who worked among trees and shrubs. They also noted we had public transportation and were close to restaurants as well as other commercial facilities. In reality, most of us drove miles through heavy traffic and often brought in our own lunch, but the bucolic ambiance was definitely a plus.
PCF: Navy Patrol Craft FAST
Newly-designed Navy “Swift Boats” comprised one of several small craft used for various operations to oppose North Vietnam and Viet Cong attacks in South Vietnam. The Naval History Division/Historical Center (NHD/NHC) documented small craft engagements in riverine and coastal warfare conducted during Operation GAME WARDEN and Operation MARKET TIME. NHD/NHC historians first studied the role of riverine warfare and amphibious operations in Indochina over the centuries. They published two volumes titled: “The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict” – the first in 1976 and the second in 1986. Decades later, historians of the successor Naval History and Heritage Command completed a nine-volume series under a slightly different title, “The United States Navy and the Vietnam War” – the last one published in 2017. The Director of Naval History and his staff provided valuable guidance and information to NAVSECGRU personnel in completing the joint study of cryptology. NHD/NHC historians helped us maintain our focus on tactical cryptologic support provided to allied naval forces.