ABSTRACT
In May 1945, four months before the end of World War II, William F. Friedman, the 'father of American cryptology', wrote a Top Secret memorandum which stated, in part, 'Events in the past few years have also demonstrated that war in the future, if it comes, will come with devastating suddenness - unless the signal intelligence service is sufficiently competent to give adequate warning of impending disaster, for only by signal intelligence conducted in peacetime will we be in a position to know of the secret thoughts, actions, and machinations of a predatory and ruthless enemy." However, Friedman's prescient admonition was ignored or obscured by partisan internecine fighting within the US intelligence community following the end of World War II. Five years later, on 25 June 1950, the United States paid the consequences in a then obscure country in the Far East called South Korea.
