A Short History of the NSA

National Security Agency

The largest and most secret of the intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, the National Security Agency (NSA), with headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, has two main functions: to protect U.S. government communications and to intercept foreign communications. It protects government communications by enciphering messages and taking other measures to ensure their secrecy. In its foreign intelligence function the NSA marshals a vast corps of intelligence analysts who use sensitive electronic equipment to monitor, decipher, and translate the communications of foreign governments. It is able to follow space rocket launchings in the USSR and to overhear conversations between aircraft pilots and ground-control personnel in remote areas of the globe. The NSA was established in 1952 as a separately organized agency within the Department of Defense. It replaced the Armed Forces Security Agency. In 1979 the NSA had more than 20,000 employees and a budget of about $1.5 billion.

Bibliography

Collins, John M., Grand Strategy(1973);

Trager, Frank N., National Security and American Society (1973).