The National Security Agency is the world’s most powerful, most far-reaching espionage. Now with a new afterword describing the security lapses that preceded the attacks of September 11, 2001, Body of Secrets takes us to the inner sanctum of America’s spy world. In the follow-up to his bestselling Puzzle Palace, James Banford reveals the NSA’s hidden role in the most volatile world events of the past, and its desperate scramble to meet the frightening challenges of today and tomorrow.

Here is a scrupulously documented account–much of which is based on unprecedented access to previously undisclosed documents–of the agency’s tireless hunt for intelligence on enemies and allies alike. Body of secrets is a riveting analysis of this most clandestine of agencies, a major work of history and investigative journalism.

ISBN13: 9780385499088

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The book is well worth reading; it contains a lot of previously unpublished information, and on a few of those items that I can cross-check either from personal knowledge or from other sources, Bamford's statements of specific facts are correct. However, I have three criticisms of the book.

First, although the book is asserted to be about NSA, much of what's in it has little to do with NSA. For example, the discussion of US efforts to unseat the Castro government of Cuba, including the Bay of Pigs episode, has very little to do with NSA, and a great deal to do with the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations and the CIA. And Bamford's account of it is so incomplete that it could easily mislead readers who haven't studied the topic. E.g. if one knows how skeptical Richard Helms of CIA was about Bay of Pigs, and that Allan Dulles chose to ignore Helms, and if one knows how many people knew and said that the change of landing site negated whatever chance Bissell's original plan might have had, it seems clear that nothing NSA might have known, said or done could have affected that operation or its result. Bamford seems to have included this material more because it was sensational than because it had much to do with NSA.

Indeed, the entire book seems to have been written with James Bond-type adventure stories in mind. The vast majority of NSA's work is about as exciting as growing alfalfa; rewarding, and requiring experience and skill, but only exciting on rare occasions. So this book does not give a balanced picture of what NSA does or how it does it.

Worst of all, Bamford fails to understand how much of what he writes about he doesn't know. Being able to realize what you don't know about something is a key difficulty in intelligence work (and in many other sorts of work); the mind plays tricks on one, composing a coherent picture from incomplete evidence. This difficulty applies equally to writing about intelligence work, but Bamford seems not to grasp this fundamental principle. For example, considering the Israeli attack on USS Liberty, I know that I do not know certain key facts, and I'm fairly sure that no other one person knows all the key facts either, and I doubt that anybody ever will. But Bamford writes about it as if he does know all the facts; because he does this, his account contains much interpretation that he seems, unless one reads very carefully, to be presenting as fact. That's why this part of the book has caused so much controversy. It's a serious failing throughout the book.

I'll cite one very minor item of which I have knowledge to show why I react to Bamford's book as I do. On page 161, Bamford mentions discontent in 1957 at the operation in Asmara, Eritrea. I don't know whether his account is precisely correct in what it says; I do know it's incomplete. Athough I have never been in Asmara, I relayed Navy traffic from Asmara for almost three years, so I heard the Asmara crew's complaints. There was discontent in Asmara for at least five years before 1957, and the underlying cause was not arbitrary restrictions imposed by the command. Career people on remote outposts are expert at evading edicts from anybody anywhere; if they weren't, such "orphaned" stations couldn't operate at all. But although Asmara was said to be a pretty town with a nice climate, there was very little to do in Asmara (except work) that most of the guys wanted to do. To make it worse, when they could get leave the only place they could usually get to, as a practical matter, was Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where the climate was awful and there was even less to do than in Asmara. So a lot of the guys in Asmara wound up sort of climbing the walls. This, more than restrictions imposed by the command, explains the 1957 "strike" that Bamford writes about. And this is a good small example, first, of Bamford not noticing that he didn't have all the facts, and, second, that most intelligence work is not exciting, heroic or dangerous, even though it's important.

In short, this book is a good read and worth reading, but should be read with attentive caution.

77 of 88 found the following review helpful:

An eye-opening bookMay 07, 2001

This book is an astonishing volume, and I'm very glad I read it. Particularly amazing is the account of the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War, an appalling slaughter of innocent American servicement of which I was previously unaware.

Perhaps even more appalling is the account of Lyndon Johnson's subsequent handling of the situation and his willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate Israel.

I'm astonished at the reviewers who refer to this book as "revisionist history" and attempt to cast the author as somehow being anti-Semitic. This is WAY out of line -- the comparisons to Mein Kampf in particular are ridiculous.

The author is clearly unbiased and backs up his with fact after fact after fact. Bamford's account of the USS Liberty attack in particular seems extremely balanced and well-documented.

At the very least, in light of the revelations in this book, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty very clearly demonstrates the need for a fair, non-partisan Congressional inquiry that Bamford advocates. Every American should read this book, and I join Bamford in calling for a thorough, fair, unbiased Congressional investigation of this horrific tragedy.

212 of 250 found the following review helpful:

Deeply Researched Facts About the Secret Signals WarMay 12, 2001
By Robert D. Steele

I like this book because it is a deeply researched investigation of the National Security Agency, a part of the U.S. government that is always "in harms way", and because it offers up over 15 genuine journalistic investigative "scoops", shows how much can be learned about secret matters through persistent and professional exploitation of open sources, and paints a compelling dramatic picture of the honorable and courageous NSA employees, the less capable senior officers in the Joint Chiefs of Staff who risk their lives and do not provide them with emergency plans and air cover, and the man in the middle, LtGen Mike Hayden, whom the book portrays as a truly competent person who "gets it." This is the stuff of history and a very well-told tale.

Among the "scoops" that I as a professional intelligence officer will list for the sake of showing how wide and deep the book goes, are:

#1. Extremely big scoop. Israel attacked U.S. military personnel aboard the USS Liberty with the intent of simulating an Egyptian attack on US forces that would permit a joint US and Israeli retaliation. Even after the ship was destroyed, with very clear evidence from NSA tapes that the Israeli's deliberately attacked a US ship while the ship was flying US colors, President Johnson is reported to have betrayed his military and his Nation by covering this up, intimidating all survivors, and saying he would "not embarrass our allies." In consultation with my naval colleagues, I am satisfied that the author has it right.

#2. US SIGINT failed as North Korea invaded South Korea. Our lack of preparedness, in both systems and linguists, was dereliction of duty at the highest levels. Fast forward to Sudan, East Timor, Burundi, Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Haiti.

#3. US "Operations Security" (OPSEC) is terrible! Bad in World War II, bad in Korea, bad in Viet-Nam, bad in Somalia and bad today. This book is a stark and compelling indictment of the incompetence of U.S. military and political leaders who refuse to recognize that the rest of the world is smart enough to collect our signals and predict our intentions with sufficient effectiveness to neutralize our otherwise substantial power.

#4. Eisenhower, as President, controlled the U-2 operations over Russia and lied to the world and the people about his individual responsibility for those missions.

#5. US SIGINT failed in Arabia and against Israel. "The agency had few Arabic or Hebrew linguists and it was not equipped to eavesdrop on British, French, or Israeli military communications." We are often unable to sort out the truth in conflicts between Arabs and Israel, and this allows Israel to deceive and manipulate American policy makers.

#6. In the early years of the Cold War, the US was the aggressor, and ran incredibly prevocational full bombing runs into northern Russia, simply to test for defenses and to see if it could be done. Young American military personnel were sent as expendable cannon fodder, with the ultimate result that Russia spent billions more on its defenses than it might have if America have been a "good neighbor."

#7. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was "out of control" during our confrontations with Cuba, and proposed to the President of the United States that U.S. military capabilities be used to murder Americans in order to provide a false cover for declaring war on Cuba.

#8. The most senior military officers serving under Kennedy did not have the moral courage to tell him that the Bay of Pigs was a doomed operation. They allowed hundreds to die and be captured rather than "speak truth to power." NSA provided ample SIGINT.

#9. Imagery intelligence beat signals intelligence in answering the ultimate question about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Those who practice "OPSEC" can defeat our SIGINT capabilities.

#10. US telecommunications companies have for years been giving NSA copies of all telegrams sent by foreign embassies and corporations, compromsing their private sector integrity.

#11. US military power is hollow. For both the USS Liberty and the USS Pueblo, a combination of screw-ups put military personnel in harms' way and a combination of incapacities helped get them killed and captured. In all of Korea only six U.S. aircraft were available to help protect the USS Pueblo, and they required several hours to get ready. The South Koreans, ready to launch defense forces instantly, were forbidden to do so, US leaders being more concerned about avoiding provocation of the North Koreans than about protecting U.S. military personnel.

#12. US successes against the Russians and other targets were completely offset by the combination of the John Walker betrayal (turning over the key lists, this has been known) and the Soviet receipt from the Vietnamese (this has not been known) of a complete warehouse of NSA code machines left behind in Saigon. The Soviets have been reading our mail since 1975, and NSA did not want the President or Congress or the people to know this fact.

#13. The North Vietnamese beat us on SIGINT, with 5000 trained SIGINT personnel and a system that stretched from Guam (where the B-52's were launched and the ground crew radios were in the clear) to the day-to-day operational orders going out to helicopters and fighters "in the clear". The book paints an extraordinarily stark contrast between North Vietnamese competence and US incompetence across all areas of SIGINT and OPSEC.

#14. There are others, but the final scoop is summed up in the author's concluding chapter on NSA's race to build the largest fastest computer at a time when relevant signals are growing exponentially: "Eventually NSA may secretly achieve the ultimate in quickness, compatibility, and efficiency-a computer with petaflop and higher speeds shrunk into a container about a liter in size, and powered by only about ten watts of power: the human brain."

25 of 27 found the following review helpful:

InsightfulNov 23, 2002
By Bradley K. Stilwell
As a person who has never served in the military or government, the book greatly informed me on the organization and technical surveillance capabilities our federal government maintains. It was far more informational and intriguing than Kessler's work on the CIA. However, it begins to drag in the last few chapters, and I found the 9-11 afterword to be an obligatory addition probably written at the publisher's behest. Nothing you haven't read or heard elsewhere so I'd skip it.

63 of 76 found the following review helpful:

USS LIBERTY HonoredMay 10, 2001
By R. Larry Weaver
Finally, Truth is told to the public, as to what really happened that horriable day. It's a shame so many things like this are kept secret because, politicians in plan words, are "Job Scared" I am a Surivor of the Delibert ATTACK of the USS LIBERTY, by Isarelie Air and Sea forces, I was not expected to live, due to the wounds I recevied. I appreciate the accuracy of the book and the way it was not a censored, watered down version. We need our Gov. to look out for the AMERICANS who preserve our Freedom, and not worry about an Ally being embarrassed!! Congress wants that wonderful pension, they have provided for theirselves so much, they will waste American lives to receive it. How SAD!

R. Larry Weaver DAV

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