ABSTRACT
Allen, Thomas B. and Norman Polmar. Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale. New York: Delacorte Press, 1988.
A convenient compendium of some of the major recent spy cases (the Walkers, Morison, Pelton, et al). Marred by a somewhat breathless and hyperbolic journalistic prose.
Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
The major book on the National Security Agency (NSA), the largest intelligence component. Stronger on organizational history than on the actual work of signals intelligence. Well-researched, albeit with some inevitable errors owing to classification.
Barron, John. Breaking the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.
Story of the Walker family spy ring, told largely from the viewpoint of the agents who broke the case. (See Item 133.)
Brownell, George A. The Origin and Development of the National Security Agency. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1981.
A reprint of the 1952 Brownell Committee report, recommending centralization of communications intelligence activities, which led to the creation of NSA that same year.
Burrows, William E. Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security. New York: Random House, 1986.
Competent journalistic account of the entire panoply of "overhead collection" systems. Tends to emphasize bureaucratics of controlling these systems rather than their role and limits in policy making.
Earley, Pete. Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
Story of one of the most damaging spy rings in U.S. history. Based on extensive paid interviews with the convicted spies and other family members. (See Item 130.)
Kahn, David. "The Annotated The American Black Chamber." Cryptologia, 9 (January 1985), 1-37.
Important corrective to Yardley (see Item 151), based on notations by another founding father of U.S. cryptology, William F. Friedman.
Klass, Philip. Secret Sentries in Space. New York: Random House, 1971.
Although now dated in terms of current technology, this remains a useful and pioneering history of the development of "overhead collection platforms," (See Item 140.)
Kruh, Louis. "Stimson, the Black Chamber and the 'Gentlemen's Mail' Quote." Cryptologia, 12 (April 1988), 65-89.
Fresh, well-researched look at one of the most famous incidents (and the most famous quote: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail.") in U.S. intelligence history, Stimson's closing of Yardley's Black Chamber. (See Items 134, 151.)
Lamphere, Robert J, and Tom Shachtman. The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent's Story. New York: Random House, 1986.
Memoirs of an FBI counterintelligence agent who was involved in some of the major Soviet cases of the 1950s (Fuchs, Rosenbergs, Abel). Zealous in tone, it offers a good feel for this aspect of intelligence during the heyday of the Cold War. Also, despite his stated respect for Hoover, Lamphere reveals the debilitating effects of Hoover's prolonged and idiosyncratic control of the FBI.
Mescall, Patrick. "The Birth of the Defense Intelligence Agency," in Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones and Andrew Lownie, eds. North American Spies: New Revisionist Essays. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1991.
Fills in a historiographical gap on the creation of DIA in 1961, giving longer term reasons within military intelligence and Pentagon policy process leading up to McNamara's decision.
President's Special Review Board. Report of the President's Special Review Board. Washington: February 26, 1987.
The Special Review Board (John Tower, Edmund Muskie, Brent Scowcroft; also known as the Tower Commission) reviewed NSC operations in the wake of Iran-Contra revelations. A useful analysis of the NSC process and of the specifics of Iran-Contra.
Richelson, Jeffrey T. America's Secret Eyes in Space: The U.S. Keyhole Spy Satellite Program. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
A useful history of one of the U.S.'s main reconnaissance programs, although heavily dependent on earlier authors' works. Tends to overemphasize technical capabilities without assessing the role and limits of "photint" (photo intelligence) in the policy process. Very good bibliography. (See also Item 135.)
Richelson, Jeffrey T., and Desmond Ball. The Ties That Bind. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 2nd edition.
Describes U.S. intelligence cooperation with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Stronger on the structure of the various agencies involved and the types of activities on which they collaborate. Marred by an evident hostility to some of these activities and occasional analysis by innuendo.
Sullivan, William C., with Bill Brown. The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI. New York: W.W, Norton and Company, 1979.
Sullivan rose to the No. 3 FBI position before running afoul of Hoover. Mostly an attack on the FBI Director, this offers some insights into the FBI's shortcomings in countering foreign espionage.
Ungar, Sanford J. FBI. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.
Written with senior FBI official cooperation, but still a critical examination of the FBI's role and operations. Predates many of the revelations made during the investigations of the mid-1970s.
U.S. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence [Pike Committee], Hearings, Part 3: U.S. Intelligence Agencies and Activities: Domestic Intelligence Programs. 94th Congress, 1st session, 1975.
Various aspects of domestic intelligence collection, including DEA and FBI.
U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Intelligence Successes and Failures in Operations Desert Shield/Storm. 103rd Congress, 1st session. August 1993.
This staff study offers an incisive account of the role of intelligence in the Gulf War, assessing both strengths (handling and producing usable data, detailed intelligence on Iraqi forces, new collection systems) and weaknesses (assessing battlefield damage, systems that could not communicate with one another, distribution problems).
U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee], Final Report, Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. (and) Final Report, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. 94th Congress, 2nd session, 1976 (Senate Rept. No. 94-755).
Structured like Book I (see Item 68), detailing the history and practice of domestic intelligence, with special emphasis on the FBI's COINTELPRO (COunterINTELligence PROgram) and NSA activities, along with findings and recommendations. Again, a key document in the history of U.S. intelligence.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee], Hearings, Vol. 6: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 94th Congress, 1st session, 1975.
Longest of the Church Committee hearings, dealing largely with the FBI's COINTELPRO effort to disrupt and discredit various domestic political groups, across a wide spectrum of views.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee], Hearings, Vol. 3: Internal Revenue Service. 94th Congress, 1st session, 1975.
Examines the degree to which IRS investigated various groups based on their political views or activities.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee], Hearings, Vol. 4: The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights. 94th Congress, 1st session, 1975.
Examination of NSA's Project MINARET (1967-73), involving intercepting communications derived from a "watch list" of U.S. persons or groups based on political activity or possible narcotics involvement.
U.S. Library of Congress. The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment, [by] Richard A. Best, Jr., and Mark M. Lowenthal. Washington: Congressional Research Service (Report No. 93-517F), May 12, 1993.*
The NSC is the body that theoretically controls the CIA. This report assesses the changing role played by the NSC in policy coordination under each President from Truman to Bush.
Yardley, Herbert O. The American Black Chamber, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931.
Crucial memoir by one of the founders of early U.S. cryptologic efforts, dating from World War I. As with all memoirs, some caution is suggested. (See Items 134, 136.)
