When I was an 18-year-old sailor serving aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, we called the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA) "No Such Agency."
Later, while overseeing security programs as a civilian administrative officer for a Defense Department command in Philadelphia, I worked with some good NSA people. I also attended NSA briefings at Washington D.C. conferences and I attended training sessions at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland.
In my time in the Navy and at DoD, I know that NSA helped maintained our freedom and security during the Cold War and later in the ongoing war on terrorism.
Amaani Lyle at the American Forces Press Service offers an interesting piece on NSA's 60th anniversary:
FORT MEADE, Md., Nov. 8, 2012 - Many intelligence analysts and historians
contend the SIGABA cipher device is one of the most important encryption systems
the U.S. military has ever known.
Yesterday, it was also a time machine.
The unusual contraption first brought two young cryptologists together during
World War II, and nearly 60 years later it has reunited them, sparking memories
of their critical work.
The National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade,
Md., recognized Helen Nibouar and Marion Johnson during a ribbon cutting
ceremony unveiling a new exhibit entitled, "60 Years of Cryptologic
Excellence."
"We not only break codes, but we make codes ... and we stand on the shoulders
of giants," NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis said of Nibouar and Johnson. "When
we celebrate Marion and Helen's return to the scene of their early work, we're
actually celebrating a long legacy of the history of the National Security
Agency."
As the United States stepped up its search to fill non-combat positions in
support of World War II, Nibouar and Johnson initially interviewed for
typist-clerk positions. On the day of her interview in the Signal Corps
building, Nibouar, while at a water fountain, met a woman who encouraged her to
give cryptology a try.
She did, but confessed to having no prior familiarity with the field. Johnson
said she took a similar path to cryptology, although she was more outspoken
during her interview.
"The [hiring officials] asked me if I liked to do crossword puzzles and I
said, 'No, I hate them!'" Johnson said. "But they hired me anyway."
Nibouar trained at Morrison Field in West Palm Beach, Fla., where she met
Johnson, and the two became fast friends, with no idea they were forging their
place in history by obscuring troop movements and other classified material.
"What was really, really difficult was all the messages came in five random
letter groups separated by spaces," Nibouar said. And though she typed about 100
words per minute, putting code to tape was considerably more painstaking.
"You couldn't type very fast because you couldn't make a mistake or it would
mess up the message," Nibouar said.
After Florida, Nibouar's cryptology journey took her to California, Hawaii
and even Japan. And though Johnson worked in different locations, the women
wrote letters to keep in touch.
All the while, a shrouded, arduous work life and extended time apart from
family became the norm for the two women. A single message could take hours to
process. They often received messages so secret that even they were excluded
from seeing them.
"The first thing the message would say is 'eyes only,' and we had to stop,
not hit another key, get up and go somewhere," Nibouar said. "And an officer in
charge came and decoded the message, taking it by hand straight to Gen.
[Douglas] MacArthur."
When asked what she thought the messages might have said, Nibouar quipped,
"It might have been to have a party."
Transition back into normal life couldn't come too soon for the women, they
said.
"I just wanted to go home and get married," Johnson said.
Nibouar also wed, had three children, became a teacher and spent a great deal
of time volunteering -- which, at age 91, she continues to this day.
She marvels at modern intelligence technology, but describes SIGABA developer
Frank Rowlett as a genius for the machine's simple design and complex
capabilities.
National Cryptologic Museum Curator Patrick Weadon said the SIGABA derives
from an earlier randomizing system, Enigma, developed by the U.S. Army's Signals
Intelligence Service Director William Friedman.
During World War II, people frequently used electro-mechanical devices to
communicate securely, Weadon said.
"Enigma was thought to be utterly secure by the Germans because it produced
permutations and possibilities of 3x10114 which made it theoretically impossible
to crack," he said.
But the Allies did crack Enigma -- as early as 1940 -- prompting the Signals
Intelligence Service to develop SIGABA, Weadon said.
SIGABA designers looked at the shortcomings and the frailties of Enigma and
designed a machine that had the power of Enigma without its shortcomings, Weadon
said.
SIGABA's distinctive ability to advance rotors with another set of rotors
made it impenetrable, Weadon explained.
"It was never cracked, it was a perfect machine from the moment it was put on
line and it was perfect the day that they took it off," he said. "You're talking
about a perfect encryption machine, which many people even today believe is
practically impossible [to crack]," he added.
Weadon said he's sure the courage and bravery of U.S. and Allied troops won
the war, but the ability to communicate securely on a more consistent basis than
the Axis powers ultimately cinched victory.
"When you're reading the other guys traffic and they can't read yours -- you
got 'em," he said.
