Codebreaking and Signals Intelligence

This article focuses on M15 organization and Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist and Soviet “Atom Spy” who was arrested in 1950 and served fourteen years for offences related to atomic espionage. It examines how Fuchs was identified as an “Atom Spy” in 1949 and describes the MI5's investigation, which ended in the early 1950 with the successful arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of this highly significant Cold War figure. Key issues discussed in this article include the difficulties encountered by MI5 and the budding British atomic program in the sphere of security. It also discusses the role of Signals intelligence (SIGINT) in the investigation of Fuchs, and the high-risk but ultimately successful approach taken by MI5's key interrogator, William Skardon. This case study highlights both the unparalleled level of international intelligence cooperation between the British agencies and their American counterparts, which made the resolution of this case possible, and some of the frailties in the Anglo-American alliance that were brought to the fore by the exposure of Fuchs as an Atom Spy.

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The Troubled Inheritance: The National Security Agency and the Obama Administration

The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195375886.003.0015 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 241-256

Author(s):

Matthew M. Aid

Keyword(s):

Data Processing ◽

National Security ◽

Bush Administration ◽

Intelligence Community ◽

National Security Agency ◽

Obama Administration ◽

Policy Issues ◽

The U.S ◽

The Coordinator ◽

Signals Intelligence

This article discusses the National Security Agency under the Obama Administration. Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2009, Obama inherited from the Bush administration an intelligence community embroiled in political controversies. Of the sixteen agencies of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) faced the greatest scrutiny from the new Obama administration and the Congress. NSA was the largest and the most powerful member of the U.S. intelligence community. Since its formation in 1952, NSA has managed and directed all U.S. government signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. It is the collector and processor of communications intelligence (COMINT) and the primary processor of foreign instrumentation signals intelligence (FISINT). And since 1958, NSA has been the coordinator of the U.S. government's national electronics intelligence (ELINT) program. It has also the task of overseeing the security of the U.S. government's communications and data processing systems, and since the 1980s, NSA has managed the U.S. government's national operation security (OPSEC) program. In this article, the focus is on the challenges faced by the NSA during the Bush administration; the role played by the NSA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the challenges faced by the Obama administration in confronting a series of thorny legal and policy issues relating to NSA's eavesdropping program.

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Codebreaking in World Wars I and II: the major successes and failures, their causes and their effects

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x00024912 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 617-639 ◽

Cited By ~ 62

Author(s):

David Kahn

Keyword(s):

The World ◽

Successes And Failures ◽

Signals Intelligence

The story of signals intelligence begins in the days of the pharaohs. A letter records the intention of a foreigner to determine the meaning of fires raised by the Egyptians. (No one knows if he succeeded.) Several centuries later, in 207 B.C., the Romans intercepted a letter from Hasdrubal to his brother Hannibal, further south in Italy. It enabled the Romans to concentrate their forces at the Metaurus River to defeat the Carthaginians. This was the only battle in Edward S. Creasy's The fifteen decisive battles of the world: from Marathon to Waterloo that depended upon intelligence for its victory.

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