Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (70 page)

Since
taking office in January 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon had waged a two-front war,
one in Southeast Asia against North Vietnam and the other at home against a
growing army of antiwar activists. Convinced that foreign interests were
financing the antiwar movement, on June 5, 1970, he met in the Oval Office with
Vice Admiral Noel Gayler, who was then the director of NSA, and the chiefs of
the CIA, DIA, and FBI. Also present was Tom Charles Huston, a thirty-year-old
Hoosier who had been on Pat Buchanan's research and speechwriting staff. A
lawyer and recently discharged Army intelligence officer, the young White House
counsel had been appointed the point man on the issue.

"Based
on my review of the information which we have been receiving at the White
House," Nixon told his spy chiefs that Friday afternoon, "I am
convinced that we are not currently allocating sufficient resources within the
intelligence community to the collection of intelligence data on the activities
of these revolutionary groups." According to the DIA's Lieutenant General
Donald V. Bennett, "The president chewed our butts."

At Fort
Meade, Tordella regarded the change of policy as "nothing less than a
heaven-sent opportunity for NSA." At last, he would be able to turn his
massive parabolic antennas inward on the unwitting American public. Following
submission of an "Eyes Only" memorandum entitled "NSA Contribution
to Domestic Intelligence" and signed by Gayler, Huston drew up a proposal
for Nixon's signature. It authorized NSA "to program for coverage the
communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities." No
warrant or probable cause would be required; anyone's international telephone
calls or telegrams could be intercepted and distributed. "The FBI does not
have the capability to monitor international communications," said the
document, which became known as the Huston Plan. "NSA is currently doing so
on a restricted basis and the information it has provided has been most
helpful. Much of this information is particularly useful to the White
House." Restrictions were also lifted on other spy agencies.

But if
there was jubilation in Tordella's office, there was outrage at the FBI. J.
Edgar Hoover "went through the ceiling" after reading the report.
Tordella had earlier warned Gayler: on matters relating to domestic
intelligence, no one challenged Hoover. The old lawman saw the move by NSA and
the other intelligence agencies into his territory as a direct threat to his
exclusive domain.

Out of
character as a champion for civil liberties, Hoover stormed into the office of
Attorney General John Mitchell and demanded the order be withdrawn. Mitchell
agreed. The illegalities spelled out in the memorandum, he said, could not be
presidential policy. Mitchell eventually convinced Nixon to drop the program;
five days after authorizing it, the president withdrew his approval.

At NSA,
Tordella and Gayler were angry over Hoover's protest and the cancellation of
the Huston Plan. Nevertheless, they had been conducting domestic intelligence
targeting without authorization for many years, and they saw no reason to stop
just because the president had formally withdrawn his approval. In fact, the
watch lists of American names flowed into NSA faster than ever.

Huston was
informed that a new White House aide would be taking over responsibility for
internal security matters and that from now on he would be on the new aide's
staff. He was then introduced to his new boss, a young lawyer who had worked
under Mitchell at the Justice Department and had been transferred to the White
House only a few days earlier: John Wesley Dean III. Dean tossed the Huston
Plan in his office safe and spun the dial.

Three
years later, like a body discovered in the woods, the Huston Plan came back to
haunt Nixon. By then the Watergate scandal had brought his presidency to
disaster and the Oval Office resembled a shell-torn bunker. Every day, new
revelations sent cracks down the cream-colored walls. Among the most serious
problems was the recent defection of John Dean. He had given the Huston Plan to
the prosecution as a bargaining chip in his plea for immunity. Because few in
the White House recalled the plan's contents, there was a scramble to grasp the
document's importance.

On May 16,
1973, a worried Richard Nixon met in the Oval Office with his lawyer, J. Fred
Buzhardt, Jr., to discuss the new development. "Well, what the hell is
this?" said Nixon.

"What
he has, Mr. President," Buzhardt explained, "there was a plan for
intelligence gathering, primarily in the domestic area."

Nixon
smelled blackmail. "Oh—it's in the domestic area, so he thinks that's
gonna scare us," he said. "What in the name of God is this? Why do
you think he's played this game?"

"I
have no idea, Mr. President," replied Buzhardt. "But we have managed
to identify from his remarks—I have found a copy of this thing, at NSA—I just
talked to Lou Tordella."

That late
Wednesday afternoon, Buzhardt was particularly worried because the document
clearly showed that Nixon had ordered NSA to begin illegally targeting American
citizens. But even after more than four years in the White House, Nixon had no
idea even what NSA was— despite the fact that he had signed the order.

"Now,
I'm fairly sure NSA . . . ," Buzhardt began, but then Nixon cut in.
"What is the NSA?" he asked. "What kind of action do they
do?"

"I
don't know the specifics," replied Buzhardt. "They pick up
communications stuff, they don't actually tap."

"Anything
the NSA did is totally defensible," Nixon instinctively shot back.

"I
think it's defensible," said Buzhardt, "but I think that they move
into a broader category with respect to domestic affairs."

Nixon was
again confused. "Right, meaning, picking up by—what do you mean,
electronic surveillance?"

"Targeting—yes
sir—targeting U.S. citizens' conversations that were on international
circuits," explained Buzhardt.

"Doing
so because of their concern about their being involved in violence?" Nixon
asked.

"Yes,
sir," agreed Buzhardt.

Not only
had Nixon forgotten signing the document, he had also forgotten canceling it
five days later. But the Defense Intelligence Agency had earlier reminded
Buzhardt of the fact.

"DIA
says that—thinks it was terminated?" asked Nixon.

"They
think it was terminated," said Buzhardt. "And they told me
independently from Huston that they think the approval was recalled, and that's
what Huston said. Now we're going to check this thoroughly with NSA, and the
reason it's important is because if you remember, they [NSA] were the most
aggressive group to go forward."

"NSA,"
said Nixon.

Buzhardt
agreed, "NSA."

"NSA
probably did something," added Nixon, finally catching on. "The
electronic work."

They also
began discussing NSA's long battle with the FBI over embassy break-ins in
Washington. Tordella had long pressured Hoover to send his black-bag
specialists into various embassies in Washington in order to steal codes and
bug cipher machines. This was far less time-consuming than attempting to break
the codes at NSA using computers, a method known as brute force. For many years
Hoover had approved such operations, but in 1967, worried about the scandal
that might result if one of his teams was discovered, he stopped the practice.

In an
effort to force Hoover to begin cooperating again, Gayler met with him and
Attorney General John Mitchell on March 29, 1971. NSA, he said, was "most
desirous" of having the black-bag coverage resumed. Hoover erupted, saying
he "was not at all enthusiastic" about such an extension of
operations, in view of the hazards to the FBI. Despite the meeting, the feud continued
and it was only after L. Patrick Gray took over as acting FBI director,
following Hoover's death on May 2, 1972, that the Bureau once again began
embassy break-ins on behalf of NSA.

During the
May 1973 Oval Office meeting with Buzhardt, Nixon brought up the embassy black-bag
jobs, adding them to his growing list of problems that might surface as a
result of Dean's defection.

"They
never quite got a handle on it until Pat Gray was appointed," said
Buzhardt.

"Shit,"
exclaimed Nixon.

"Pat
went out to visit NSA, and took four of his assistants with him, and he told
Lou Tordella, 'I understand we used to do things with you that were very
helpful.' Pat was putting back together the assets."

"[Who]
told you this?" asked Nixon.

"Tordella
told me this," said Buzhardt.

Nixon
later made a cryptic remark to his top aide, H. R. Haldeman, that seems to
indicate that black-bag jobs at the embassies of India and Pakistan may have
led to the breaking of their ciphers.

"In
fact, the India-Pakistan one," said Nixon, "that's the way it was broken.
. . . Although that's one we've got to bury forever."

Nixon's
meeting with Buzhardt went late into the night and then continued the next
morning. The two were worried not just about the documents but also about
whether NSA might have secretly recorded any of its officials' conversations
with White House officials concerning the targeting of Americans and the
black-bag jobs.

"I
don't know," said Buzhardt. "I wouldn't be surprised if they [NSA]
tape the conversations going in and out of there. I don't think they would
admit it."

"No,
they shouldn't," said Nixon, apparently supporting NSA's secret taping of
all calls to and from the agency.

"Even
to me," replied Buzhardt. "But I had the definite impression."

"They're
a (starry-eyed?) bunch," said Nixon. (The parenthesis is in the original.)

Buzhardt
added, "There are (75,000?) people there." (Parenthesis in original.)

"I
think Hoover taped all his conversations," said Nixon.

During his
May 16 and 17, 1975, discussion with Nixon, Buzhardt also brought up another of
NSA's enormously secret and illegal operations, one codenamed Shamrock. It
involved an agreement whereby the major U.S. telegraph companies, such as
Western Union, secretly turned over to NSA, every day, copies of all messages
sent to or from the United States. (Indeed, by the 1970s, NSA had developed a
watch list consisting of the names of more than 600 American citizens. These
names had been placed in NSA's computers and any communications containing one
of those names—such as the telegrams obtained through Shamrock—would be kicked
out, analyzed, and sent to whoever in the federal government wanted the
information thus obtained.) "Well, Mr. President," Buzhardt said,
"the way the collection operation works—on some in and out line, this
foreign collection—what some of the communication companies here use to pick
those communications up, that go to the foreign country and back."

Nixon had
little interest in this, because it did not directly relate to his Watergate
problems. "But at least that's one Watergate story that's—"

Buzhardt
completed the sentence. "That's going to be a dud," he said.
"NSA participation in anything domestic—they define it as foreign
politics."

Luckily
for NSA, Buzhardt and Nixon said no more about Shamrock. But in 1975, two years
after Nixon resigned, another investigation began picking up clues to the
operation. This time it was a probe by Idaho's Senator Frank Church into
possible illegal actions by the U.S. intelligence community.

One of the
investigators assigned to the committee was L. Britt Snider, a thirty-year-old
lawyer. "I was given the task," he said, "of trying to crack
what was perceived to be the most secretive of U.S. intelligence agencies, the
National Security Agency." His boss warned him, "They call it 'No
Such Agency.' "

Snider
began by asking the Congressional Research Service for everything on the public
record that referred to NSA. "The CRS soon supplied us with a
one-paragraph description from the
Government Organization Manual,"
he
said, "and a patently erroneous piece from
Rolling Stone
magazine.
... In 1975, NSA was an agency that had never before had an oversight
relationship with Congress."

Early
clues to NSA's darkest secrets came from comments in the final report of an
earlier investigation into the intelligence community, this one led by then
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. "The first was a reference to an office
in New York that CIA had provided NSA for the purpose of copying
telegrams," said Snider. "The other disclosed that CIA had asked NSA
to monitor the communications of certain U.S. citizens active in the antiwar
movement. At last we had something to sink our teeth into."

For weeks,
NSA stonewalled all questions and requests for documents on the two areas.
Finally, the Church Committee sent formal interrogatories to NSA, but the
agency claimed that the subject was so sensitive that only Church and John
Tower, the ranking minority member, would be permitted to be briefed. But then
a story appeared in the
New York Times
alleging that NSA had
eavesdropped on the international communications of U.S. citizens. "With
the allegations now a matter of public record," said Snider, "NSA
wanted to explain its side of the story." At NSA, Snider was briefed on Operation
Shamrock, which was so secret that only a few even within the agency knew of
its existence.