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Summary: great reading on history and impacts of the NSA activities
Review: really enjoyed reading this book because it is well documented and nicely put together. It gives a good point on the geopolitical effects of the NSA since WWII. Something that I liked is that the author just doesn't drop a couple of notes or new stuff on know historical events, it goes thru them and put them in perspective with the impact the NSA has had. good stuff.
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Summary: As Good As Zinn's "People's History of the United States"
Review: I have to wonder about the intention of the two harsh critics of this book sited here. I just read the section about the attack on the Liberty and Bamford doesn't identify who on the Israeli side ordered the attack.Isn't the whole art of war to deceive? Who is to say that the critics of this book aren't doing their little part to discredit the author. Sure, he doesn't have all the details...but look who he is writing about....duhhhhhhhh! Read between the lines, at the bigger picture of what the author is revealing and you will be in for a stark re-assessment of what our "Intelligence" agencies do to maintain our status quo in the world. Most Americans would like to live in La La land pretending that all that WE do is right and just while the actions of other nations are evil. This book just helps bring a bit more reality to the process of examining our US place in the world of nations. I recommend anyone who has pulled their head out of the sand to read it and think about the kind of world we want to live in.
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Summary: Great read
Review: This book reads like a Tom Clancy novel, except it's all true! Very enjoyable.
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Summary: Of necessity an historical (science) fiction novel
Review: By the very nature of this type of book the author collect scraps of information of varying truth and importance and uses his imagination to fill in the gaps to form a coherent whole. The author seems to not have any background in technology, espionage, or military service.... Another fundamental problem is that the collected information is incomplete and of varying importance and truthfulness. The reader and author do not have any clue if additional information would completely change the readers' concept of what happened. This is sort of like the seven blind men who examined the elephant. Only we have the report of just one of them. The third fundamental limitation is the human information sources. The author and reader have no way to determine if they are intentional pranksters, under delusions of their imagined past accomplishments, or people who heard, and possibly misunderstood, flawed rumors and passes them on as the absolute truth. Most of the technical information is totally wrong. For instance it is reported that short wave receiving stations in Cuba can intercept point-to-point microwave links 1000 miles away. Another is that chemicals released in outer space over the ocean drifted in the air over a town. The author seems to think that the Umbra security compartment covers all collection methods, targets, and time periods. Compartments are very finely divided.... Activities are either praiseworthy or despicable depending upon which nation does them. The author also attributes activities of agencies that were ordered by presidents Kennedy and Johnson to the autonomous volition of the leaders of those agencies.... He claims that an Israeli Army officer ordered the attack on the US spy ship during the Arab-Israeli war. It is highly unlikely that a middle level Army officer would have knowledge of foreign naval vessels, their positions and activities. It is highly unlikely that this middle level officer would have the authority to order an air force attack on the ship. It was reported in military trade journals of the time that Israel had warned the US that there was a spy in NSA who was sending the information collected by this ship to the Soviets. This warning was ignored. About ten years later, the spy was publicly prosecuted. It is more likely that the ship was given notice to leave and then attacked when it did not leave. This was done to prevent the Soviets from gaining information about Israel.
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Summary: A good and worthwhile read, but read with caution.
Review: "Body of Secrets" has been reviewed by so many that another review may seem superfluous, but perhaps I have something to add. The book is well worth reading; it contains a lot of previously unpublished information, and on a few of those items that I can cross-check either from personal knowledge or from other sources, Bamford's statements of specific facts are correct. However, I have three criticisms of the book. First, although the book is asserted to be about NSA, much of what's in it has little to do with NSA. For example, the discussion of US efforts to unseat the Castro government of Cuba, including the Bay of Pigs episode, has very little to do with NSA, and a great deal to do with the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations and the CIA. And Bamford's account of it is so incomplete that it could easily mislead readers who haven't studied the topic. E.g. if one knows how skeptical Richard Helms of CIA was about Bay of Pigs, and that Allan Dulles chose to ignore Helms, and if one knows how many people knew and said that the change of landing site negated whatever chance Bissell's original plan might have had, it seems clear that nothing NSA might have known, said or done could have affected that operation or its result. Bamford seems to have included this material more because it was sensational than because it had much to do with NSA. Indeed, the entire book seems to have been written with James Bond-type adventure stories in mind. The vast majority of NSA's work is about as exciting as growing alfalfa; rewarding, and requiring experience and skill, but only exciting on rare occasions. So this book does not give a balanced picture of what NSA does or how it does it. Worst of all, Bamford fails to understand how much of what he writes about he doesn't know. Being able to realize what you don't know about something is a key difficulty in intelligence work (and in many other sorts of work); the mind plays tricks on one, composing a coherent picture from incomplete evidence. This difficulty applies equally to writing about intelligence work, but Bamford seems not to grasp this fundamental principle. For example, considering the Israeli attack on USS Liberty, I know that I do not know certain key facts, and I'm fairly sure that no other one person knows all the key facts either, and I doubt that anybody ever will. But Bamford writes about it as if he does know all the facts; because he does this, his account contains much interpretation that he seems, unless one reads very carefully, to be presenting as fact. That's why this part of the book has caused so much controversy. It's a serious failing throughout the book. I'll cite one very minor item of which I have knowledge to show why I react to Bamford's book as I do. On page 161, Bamford mentions discontent in 1957 at the operation in Asmara, Eritrea. I don't know whether his account is precisely correct in what it says; I do know it's incomplete. Athough I have never been in Asmara, I relayed Navy traffic from Asmara for almost three years, so I heard the Asmara crew's complaints. There was discontent in Asmara for at least five years before 1957, and the underlying cause was not arbitrary restrictions imposed by the command. Career people on remote outposts are expert at evading edicts from anybody anywhere; if they weren't, such "orphaned" stations couldn't operate at all. But although Asmara was said to be a pretty town with a nice climate, there was very little to do in Asmara (except work) that most of the guys wanted to do. To make it worse, when they could get leave the only place they could usually get to, as a practical matter, was Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where the climate was awful and there was even less to do than in Asmara. So a lot of the guys in Asmara wound up sort of climbing the walls. This, more than restrictions imposed by the command, explains the 1957 "strike" that Bamford writes about. And this is a good small example, first, of Bamford not noticing that he didn't have all the facts, and, second, that most intelligence work is not exciting, heroic or dangerous, even though it's important. In short, this book is a good read and worth reading, but should be read with attentive caution.
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Summary: Tip of the iceberg
Review: This is a good book but not as good as Puzzle Palace in that it is not as comprehensive. Just the mention that NSA contracted with the Educational Testing Service has been overlooked because ETS is the basis of our education system with its standardized tests. One way NSA may decide on candidates also is by having teachers or college professors vote by the grade given to a student for potential NSA recruitment where majority grades of a certain level form the vote itself. How do we know the whole MCSE certification and other computer industry certs are not actually NSA qualified and rigged because social security numbers are used to identify exam takers?
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Summary: A Far More Readable Book!
Review: As a former federal employee who's worked with intelligence of this caliber, even I was stifling yawns with "The Puzzle Palace," Bamford's 1981 tranquilizer which professed to blow the lid off of the "world's most secret agency." Thankfully, "Body of Secrets" is nothing like its predecessor. Bamford, by his own admission, was afforded far more access to NSA's vaults than he could have hoped for, particularly after the acrimonious lawsuits following his first book. The access is easily visible in this book, which reads like a series of tautly written espionage short stories. The reality soon sets in, however, that the events spelled out are all too real, and a tingle races up your spine. Most poignant in this book is the re-telling of the occurrences surrounding the USS Liberty. This story, for too long ignored for political reasons, shows how Israel took one of our surveillance vessels and used it for target practice during the Israeli-Egyptian 6-Day War. 23 military linguists were killed in the attack, and scores more were wounded. Through documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as a number of interviews with survivors and former NSA employees, Bamford tells the tale of a government impeded by its own politics to protect her own people. Very sad. Another chapter speaks of Operation NORTHWOODS, a Joint Chiefs of Staff campaign to overtly overthrow Castro. The best way to attempt this, it was obvious to all involved, would be to provide misinformation and planted "documentation" spelling out Castro's intentions to sabotage and conduct terrorism throughout the US. Of course, this wasn't the case, so certain events would have to be staged. The declassified documents point to the inevitability of American casualties (people would be shot on the street), but it was more or less agreed upon as an ugly necessity for the overall good. This sort of information is staggeringly incredible, but all too believable. Bamford should be applauded for this effort. In a way, NSA provided their own form of appreciation by allowing him a book signing in their own once-mysterious halls. Hopefully we won't have to wait another 20 years for a book of this sort to hit the pike.
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Summary: Body of Secrets
Review: I just purchased the book "Body of Secrets" by James Bamford and haven't been able to put it down. As a person who has been stationed at the National Security Agency (including assisting in the move from Arlington Hall, Va. to Ft. Meade, Md) and having survived the very intentional attack and murder of US service men (including some great young men that worked for me and some very good friends)on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces, I can only say not is the book accurate but also most interesting as I learned new information about the NSA on every page. CONGRATS MR BAMFORD
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Summary: Review for "Body of Secrets"
Review: I found "Body of Secrets" to be quite an interesting book about the NSA but there was one error that really, really bugs me. On page 402, the author states that DSD is headquartered at Victoria Barracks; on St. Kilda Rd in Melbourne. This is wrong: DSD moved to the western side of the Department of Defence complex at Russell Offices in Canberra during 1991 - 1992. It's new $A100 million building was opened in May 1992. The move completed the consolidation of the Australian Intelligence Community to Canberra. I was disappointed that the author didn't check his information. Other than that, I quite enjoyed the book.
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Summary: Makes you Think
Review: This is a well written, and at times surprising book. Bamford illustrates how not only NSA conducts itself but also nations. I saw two major lessons in his book. First lesson was that nations act in their own self-interest, until blocked by someone else. The second is that we require safeguards on our own very powerful systems to protect us from them. The darker sides of both US and Israeli policies are well covered. What Bamford does not explore is the complete reasons for these actions. Sometimes senior policy makers must make difficult decisions, and it's easy to point out their mistakes with such hindsight. Israel was willing to sacrifice a US Naval ship in 1967 to achieve it's goals, and the US was willing to sacrifice it's own soldiers in Vietnam. Actions both nations took until stopped by an outside influence, be it incoming American aircraft, or an intelligent successful foe. Those who attack Bamford's analysis of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty might check history. I think they will quickly adjust their views when faced with the well-documented facts, including books written by the surviving crewmembers. I can sympathize with these people, as I was also shocked by some of my own country's actions in the book. Bamford shows when safeguards are not in place; some senior people do what's in their own self-interest instead of the Nation's. The more powerful tools they control when they become selfish, the more dangerous they are to all of us. Bamford illustrates to us how powerful a tool the NSA is. Thank heaven's it's a tool of the Americans. For it's problems, the US has some of the strongest safeguards in the world. On of the safeguards is a free press, which allows wonderful books such as this. This is a must read.
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