Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (92 page)

So Minihan
and Crowell began locking horns almost immediately. "I was very disruptive
to his definition of what the deputy director [should be]. I took a lot of
things that he had on his plate and moved them to my own plate, because I
wanted those to be the director's authorities." Minihan also opposed
warlordism. "I was asked by Bill, 'Well, who's on your team?' " said
Minihan. "I was not willing to participate in a 'Who's on my team.' . . .
The answer is, 'They all are.' " Minihan added, "It didn't matter to
me a bit who Bill was. It was what I wanted to do."

Nor did
Minihan get along with the various senior officials in the agency—the deputy
directors for operations, information security, and so on. "My first two
or three weeks, maybe a month or so, as I went around, it was pretty clear that
I was not going to hit it off that well with the DDs [deputy directors] who
were in place. . . . And we were having natural tense sessions." On top of
that, according to Minihan, the senior officials didn't even get along with one
another. "The DDs not only were resistant to me," said Minihan,
"which I could handle, but they were resistant to each other. That's not
healthy! And so, part of the grinding was, 'You guys don't even like each
other? How is my institution going to be run if it's clear that you all don't
even get along?' "

To
employees, the result sounded like squabbling parents throwing dishes at each
other. "You could hear the groans even down at our level," said Dr.
David Hatch, the agency historian. Minihan added, "The workers were
telling me the same thing: 'Those guys don't get it. They're always in a
fight.' "

Given the
tension, there was little surprise when Crowell left in September 1997.

Nearly
twenty years earlier, Bobby Inman had arrived at NSA with views similar to
Minihan's concerning the need for a strong director and a weak deputy. Inman
chose a woman for the position: Ann Caracristi. ("Ann knew that I wanted
to be
the
director," he said.) Minihan did the same, choosing
Barbara A. McNamara as only the second woman deputy director. "Part of the
transition from Bill to Barbara McNamara was to make certain that she
understood what, how I thought the two portfolios should be handled," said
Minihan. "I had a full expectation that there wasn't going to be any
'numbing' in what we were doing. And that was part of the interview: to be
certain that that was ... a clear message in that sense."

Short,
with close-cropped blond hair, Barbara A. McNamara— "BAM," as she was
known to many within NSA—was born in Clinton, Massachusetts, and joined the
agency as a linguist after receiving a degree in French from Regis College in
1963. At the time of her appointment to the deputyship, McNamara headed up the
Operations Directorate and had also served as the NSA's ambassador to the
Pentagon: the National Cryptologic Representative, Defense.

"I am
honored to have been sworn in before you today," McNamara told the
audience in NSA's cafeteria after the ceremony. "I would like to think
that years from now, this organization will stand together again on a 'Day of
Celebration' and speak about our successes yet unknown."

The new
pair inherited not only the outgoing team's adjoining eighth-floor offices but
also its quagmire of race and gender issues. McConnell's policies seemed to
please few, if any. The number of NSA employees filing complaints with the
federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission more than doubled, going from
seventeen in 1990 to forty-five in 1995. Some even began to question whether
national security was being imperiled by the promotion of inexperienced
employees to sensitive jobs in order to meet hiring quotas. By 1997, following
Minihan's arrival, at least a dozen lawsuits had been filed related to race or
sex discrimination, and former employees had begun branding senior leadership
the "Irish Mafia" while seeing the Office of Discrimination
Complaints and Counseling "a party organization for blacks."

Under a
new promotion policy, women and minority candidates received at least one round
of extra consideration for promotion, thus allowing a minority woman three
chances to advance where a white male got one. Such policies provoked anger and
frustration from many longtime employees. William J. Sonntag was considered for
promotion to deputy division chief in 1993 but failed to get the job; all three
slots went to women. He sued, claiming, "I was denied consideration of a
management position on the sole basis that white males were not being
considered for three such jobs in my office." Sonntag lost his case but
the government later settled with him when he appealed.

Sonntag
and other employees essentially alleged that NSA used an aggressive brand of
affirmative action to deny staffers promotions or, in some cases, even dismiss
them. Emile J. Renault, Jr., an attorney who worked at the agency for
twenty-seven years, agreed. In the spring of 1997 he received more than twenty
requests from NSA employees thinking about bringing suit: "Suddenly it's
become overwhelming." Calling the personnel office a "paramilitary
group," Renault said that the agency uses information from confidential
employee-counseling sessions to revoke security clearances. And losing a
clearance at NSA means losing a job. "When you say 'national security,'
everybody just wilts," Renault said. "Everybody hides under it."

To resolve
internal problems, NSA has an Office of Inspector General, with a number of
attorneys and investigators, but some employees feel that the main function of
this office is simply to protect the agency and not to redress injustices. Few
have greater reason to believe that than Mary Ann Sheehy, who transferred from
the FBI to NSA in 1988 and was assigned to an extremely sensitive and covert
Pentagon unit in northern Virginia.

In 1994,
while stopped at a red light, a car plowed into the rear of her Toyota Tercel,
leaving her with a permanent 15 percent disability. As a result, she filed suit
against the driver of the other car. In order to establish lost wages as a
result of her injuries, she asked the agency to release copies of her
employment records to the driver's attorney. As defined by NSA,
"employment information" consists simply of verification of an employee's
position, grade, salary, and length of service. She also directed that the
agency have no communication with the driver's attorney.

Later, to
her horror, Sheehy learned that NSA's Office of Personnel not only telephoned
the defense attorney but then sent her virtually every paper in her file,
including copies of her pre-polygraph psychological records, pre-employment
psychological and psychiatric evaluations, personality profiles, and all her
agency medical records. It was a clear violation of both the federal Privacy
Act as well as NSA's own internal guidelines. Also shocked by the release was
NSA psychologist Dr. Michael J. Wigglesworth, who attempted to get the material
back from the attorney. "I am quite concerned about this," he wrote
to the lawyer. "It is the policy of this office [Psychological Services
Division] to release this kind of information only to the employee, their
therapist, or their representative. ... As the material is still protected
information under the Privacy Act, I would appreciate your returning all of the
psychological information to me." But the attorney never returned the
materials.

On
November 7, 1994, Sheehy protested the actions of the personnel office to NSA's
Office of Inspector General, requesting a formal internal investigation. Three
weeks later the opposing attorney used the very private documents, including
the polygraph-related documents, in open court. "The files released by NSA
were utilized by the defense attorney to embarrass, humiliate, and intimidate
me during judicial proceedings," Sheehy said, "as well as jeopardize
my future opportunities for employment as a covert intelligence officer."

Undeterred,
Sheehy continued to fight within the secret bureaucracy. "I requested an
appointment with the IG, Frank Newton, but was denied," she said. "My
telephone calls to him were never returned. I followed the chain of command all
the way to Ralph Adams, the executive director of NSA. [In October 1995] he
told me to sue the agency. I wanted to speak to the director [then Lieutenant
General Mike McConnell], but was told that was impossible." Six months
later, in April 1996, the Inspector General's Office finally issued its report.
Despite the gross violation of her privacy, the IG simply sided with the
agency, concluding that "no evidence of improper or illegal activity on
the part of Agency officials was found with respect to the release of your
records under the Privacy Act."

After
years of frustration and lack of promotion, Sheehy sent a scathing letter to
Attorney General Janet Reno in 1999. "NSA believes it is above the law,
can police itself and is accountable to no one," she wrote. "Instead
of helping me, they lied to cover their illegal conduct." Once again she
was brushed off with a stock response: "While we sympathize with your
circumstances, there is not sufficient evidence of a criminal violation of the
Privacy Act for us to take any further action."

Finally,
in the spring of 2000, Sheehy asked the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore to look into
NSA's treatment of her. The U.S. Attorney's Office responded on April 13,
saying it had received her letter. That very day, in what Sheehy considers
retaliation, NSA dispatched two officials from the Office of Security to
Virginia to strip her of her special agent badge and identification card. Only
after two months and the intervention of a high-ranking Pentagon intelligence
official did NSA relent and return Sheehy's credentials to her. The U.S.
Attorney's Office eventually dismissed her complaint, finding that no federal laws
were broken. "You should look for another job," an attorney once
warned her, "because they are going to retaliate—they're going to put you
in a closet and give you a terrible supervisor and force you out."

By 2000,
according to several employees, the IG's office had become more responsive,
under the direction of Ethan L. Bauman, an outsider who had previously served
as a federal prosecutor.

General
Minihan could easily have served as the model for William H. Whyte, Jr.'s,
Organization Man. Almost weekly he announced a new program or theme. He came up
with "Future Day" and
The Futuregram
to bring "all parts
of the Agency together with ideas, concerns, and solutions." ("I
think it's magnificent," he later said. "And I thought of it
myself!") He created an internal Internet web page outlining his goals and
priorities for the next 30, 100, 365, and 1,000 days.

He would
throw out slogans, such as "One Team, One Mission," and ask employees
to take pledges ("No one will work harder . . . ," "No one will
stand watch longer . . . ," etc.).

Minihan
also pushed the NSA's normally cenobite senior managers to broaden their
experience by seeking an assignment or two with other intelligence agencies.
And he would hand out small medallions, "The Director's Coin," when
he saw an on-the-spot need to recognize someone's special contribution to the
agency. He even started an annual week-long festival to bring together agency
staff from diverse cultural backgrounds.

To help
break out of the bureaucratic mind-set, Minihan announced, "Out-of-the-box
thinking is not only authorized, it is encouraged." He then set up his own
personal "secret team," a sort of antibureaucracy commando force
designed to carry out his orders in the most expeditious manner possible, regardless
of the organizational chart.

Named the
Skunk Works, after the famous Lockheed team that built the spectacular U-2 and
SR-71 spy planes ahead of schedule, under budget, and in total secrecy, the
five-member team worked directly for Minihan. He would turn to them when he
needed quick action on a project in order to cut through the agency's red tape.
The motto of the Skunk Works was "anytime, anywhere, on time, and right
the first time."

It was as
though Minihan had taken over a losing football team and was determined to snap
it back into shape. "Now is the time for Team NSA to step forward and lead
America's entry into the 21st century," he said in his first announcement
to the workforce. "We are no longer a world-class organization; NSA is the
class of the world."

But some
saw Minihan's efforts as a crass attempt to bludgeon workers with tacky slogans
and heavy-handed propaganda. "Where are my hip boots?" wrote one
employee upset and embarrassed over Minihan's gushing enthusiasm over his
"Future Day."

The
propaganda about Future Day just will not end! . .. The truth is that
participation in Future Day was mandatory and, worse yet, the
word
came
down through management that all responses to Future Day should be positive,
or
else.
In my many years at the Agency, I have never seen such widespread and
blatantly coercive pressure used on employees as was the case with Future Day.
All negative or dissenting opinion was quashed, except that of a few people
willing to risk their careers by expressing their opinions on ENLIGHTEN [the
NSA internal e-mail system].

The fact
that NSA's management is resorting to this level of coercion and propaganda is
not merely embarrassing or irritating—it is a sure sign that the Agency has
lost its corporate integrity and suffers from a deplorable lack of qualified
leadership. A first step toward reversing this downward trend would be an
official, public acknowledgment by NSA seniors that employees were pressured to
provide only positive feedback regarding Future Day and that the proclaimed
benefits of Future Day have been grossly overhyped.