Rating: 
Summary: Insightful
Review: As a person who has never served in the military or government, the book greatly informed me on the organization and technical surveillance capabilities our federal government maintains. It was far more informational and intriguing than Kessler's work on the CIA. However, it begins to drag in the last few chapters, and I found the 9-11 afterword to be an obligatory additional probably written at the publisher's behest. Nothing you haven't read or heard elsewhere so I'd skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: Overall Pretty Good...BUT
Review: Buy it, read it, but maintain a healthy dose of critical skepticism. Bamford should be commended for gathering so much info on NSA and presenting it in one place. It does cover the spectrum...history, technology, people, etc. I'm not sure he could have organized it any better than he did. Overall a pretty good primer on NSA. BUT, be prepared for Bamford's several excursions into obviously liberal biased (and often, disturbingly unsubstantiated) tirades that have little to do with the central theme in his book (e.g., he really attacks President Bush's personal response to the 11 Sep 01 attacks). His tendency to do this really compromises the integrity of the entire work, calling into question how objectively he has presented material in other important areas (especially controversial topics such as the USS Liberty incident, Bay of Pigs, or the role of the military leadership in the US in the dawning years of the Cold War).
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book on the NSA
Review: I very much enjoyed and was amazed by Bamford's book.
The first five or six chapters are really excellent.
Most readers would be well advised, however, to skim
the last two or three chapters and then to read the
Afterward in detail.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book revealing the inner workings of the NSA
Review: Bamford has done an excellent job revealing the NSAs inner workings in a very readable way. Each chapter is about another major mission the NSA has embarked on; Vietnam, China, Soviet tapping...etc. He has a very interesting and informative chapter on the USS Liberty and the gruesome war crime that occured on that tragic day. A very interesting part of the book is where he explains how the NSA works on the inside. He discusses the top secret tv station, newsletters, employee manual and all sorts of fascinating details about the most secure agency. The one fault I can find is in the afterword about September 11th. His cynicism is obvious when he points out how President Bush continued meeting with the school children even after the World Trade Center was attacked, despite the fact that he could do nothing. Otherwise this is probably one of the best books I have read about American Intelligence.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but read his first instead
Review: Bramford's first book, The Puzzle Palace, was far more critical of the NSA. I enjoyed Body of Secrets but it was more a collection of spook stories than a critical discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: where's the info on the NSA?
Review: Bamford spends most of the book analyzing the politics of various Cold War events like Bay of Pigs and the Suez Crisis, but most mention of the NSA is in passing. He goes into detail about the NSA campus and buildings, but who cares? There are few good stories of actual NSA activities, people, or how the agency operates. Book is a waste of time for people who actually want to know about the capabilities and responsibilities of the NSA. It might appeal for its political history of various events.
Rating:
Summary: Body of Secrets
Review: Having been involved in some of this stuff in the late 60's and early 70's, I was intrigued with the history of the NSA. Sooner or late this all will come out and then we can tell whether the facts in the book are true...What I can tell from what I know is that the info procured from Navy stuff was secret and top secret when I was in the Navy..
Rating:
Summary: Interesting But Uneven
Review: The NSA is a great subject for an investigative journalist. Bamford unearths some fascinating material, but overall the book is a mess. There are too many abrupt shifts in tone and theme, from outraged polemics on the Liberty and Pueblo incidents to dry accounts of bureaucratic structures and breathless you-are-there reconstructions of Cold War exploits. As a result, the book is often intriguing but rarely satisfying. Bamford has a few obvious axes to grind, but his overall take on the NSA is elusive.
Rating:
Summary: Body of Secrets
Review: Watch TV some time. They had a 2 hour special on this subject. The Israelis knew the Liberty was there because they had been sending msgs to the US Navy telling them to get it out of there. The signals got misrouted and delayed. The program surmises that the Israelis didn't want the US knowing how far they were actually going to go into Syria. There are pictures of the ship with the name clearly marked. There are pictures of the ship with a US flag clearly displayed. Most damming, Israeli gunboats came out and shelled the ship... circling as they did so. They knew exactly whose ship it was. Johnson and McNamara (2 cowards of international stature) held up rescue planes from the fleet because they thought it was the Russians and they were afraid of starting WW3. After the attack Johnson ordered the ship into dry dock and all signs of damage were repaired. All the crew were told if they ever talked they would be court martialed. These events are important to me because the day before I was sitting in a USAF C130, 100 miles off the coast, listening to the Egyptian pilots. We considered ourselves lucky that the Israelis didn't decide to take us out too. I guess it would have been more difficult to explain.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely biased
Review: About what you'd expect from the producer of ABC World News Tonight With Peter Jennings and someone who wrote stories for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times magazines. If you love these news sources you'll probaly love the books' bias. If not, you probably won't finish it once your tolerance level for the following is reached: bashing of Republican presidents; bashing of our country's intelligence and security agencies; apologizing for Democratic presidents' blunders.
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