Using Ultra to research the Luftwaffe

[Bruce Dennis]

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[quote=Larry deZeng;93267]
Was this an alibi they were given by the security people and ordered to repeat if asked sensitive questions? Perhaps, ...[/quote 


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I agree exactly with your assesment. ULTRA was not the only intelligence asset that was being protected: the sophistication of Allied SIGINT as a whole, including the contribution of ULTRA material, was immensely sensitive and the UK/US collaboration in the early post-war period was balanced on a knife-edge as the differing priorities were emerging. Mainly due to the pressure to hold together the Empire, Britain’s intelligence community was making the most of her position as a base for US involvement in the coming confrontation with the USSR, and SIGINT was still growing as an industry. There was quite a bit of ‘political football’ on the subject and Britain, wrongly, thought that her strength in SIGINT was going to keep her place at the top table. It was of course too late, due to the actions of the Soviet moles in British Intelligence, but it took until the Suez Crisis for this to be accepted.

The card indexes were greatly detailed accounts of a defeated enemy, and evidence of the methods used to achieve that victory. The separate card system created and maintained by the Admiralty Submarine Tracking Rooms contained even more insights into the sources used, and apparently was cross-referenced to the GC&CS cards on many subjects. We would all do backflips now to get even a piece of that gold, but in the early ‘50s they must have been seen only as liability.

Bruce

[Larry deZeng]

Bruce wrote in part:

ULTRA was not the only intelligence asset that was being protected: the sophistication of Allied SIGINT as a whole, including the contribution of ULTRA material, was immensely sensitive and the UK/US collaboration in the early post-war period was balanced on a knife-edge as the differing priorities were emerging.

Nice analysis, Bruce, and right on the mark. I know. I was an insider. I graduated from the U.S. Army Southeast Signal School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, in April 1960 with MOS 722.10 (Cryptographer), was assigned to the White House Army Signal Agency (WHASA), then to the Department of the Army Cryptographic Branch in the Pentagon and for the next 4 years I worked with both on-line and off-line cryptographic systems. I continued in that and related fields until I left the service in late 1968. While at the Pentagon in particular, I was exposed almost daily to the operations of the ASA, USAFSS and the NSG, which were all mission-tasked by the NSA. The UKUSA signals intelligence relationship was a most sensitive one that we were constantly aware of, especially in the context of what could be shared and what could not. It was in the mid-1950's, I believe, that this relationship began to fray a bit around the edges, perhaps at the time of the Suez Crisis. Some things were withheld from us and, possibly in retaliation, the U.S. developed the NOFORN (No Foreign Dissemination) handling instructions for classified material at about that time. So it could well be that the Air Index tale I was told was just that: a tale.

Larry