Code Warriors

March 7, 2016
The dysfunctions and overreach of the total surveillance state were present at its birth, according to this engrossing history of the National Security Administration. Journalist Budiansky (Blackett’s War) traces the development of American signals intelligence—the collecting and deciphering of radio messages and other electromagnetic communications—from wartime triumphs against German and Japanese codes through the Cold War standoff with the Soviets, whose high-level codes mainly resisted cryptanalysts’ efforts. Budiansky is lucid in describing the science and art of breaking complex ciphers, which helped drive advances in electronics and computing. He also analyzes the flaws in the NSA’s mission of collecting everything it can: paralyzing bureaucratic turf battles among military and intelligence agencies over access to intelligence; self-defeating secrecy obsessions; floods of data too massive to be analyzed coherently; outright malfeasance (Budiansky argues that the agency covered up intelligence disproving the government’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident during the Vietnam War); and encroachments on privacy and civil liberties (for decades the NSA read all international telegrams from America, and it spied on dissidents for the Nixon Administration). Budiansky leavens the history and technology with colorful profiles of cryptographers and spies; the result is a lively account of how today’s information controversies emerged. Photos.

April 1, 2016
A skillful history of America's World War II code-breaking and the rise of the National Security Agency. Having written the definitive account of the great Allied triumph in the decrypting of Nazi codes in Battle of Wits (2000), military journalist Budiansky (Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare, 2013, etc.) continues the story here, with equal flare. He begins even before the war ended, in 1943, when American eavesdroppers decided to intercept Soviet communications. This was less dastardly than it sounds because all nations spy on allies, and, as we later learned, Soviet agents were busily at work at the highest levels of Western governments. In 1952, President Harry Truman united communication intelligence into the top-secret (at first) NSA, now our largest spy organization, whose budget remains secret and whose massive supercomputers, satellites, and worldwide listening stations suck up massive quantities of information. The traditional goal of American spying--preventing another Pearl Harbor--has never been accomplished. Surprises continue to occur, including the Vietnam Tet Offensive, the Yom Kippur War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and 9/11. On the plus side, we achieved a detailed picture of the Soviet Union's internal affairs, which revealed that its leaders had their hands full and gave low priority to world conquest. On the minus side, the NSA's unlimited budget and lack of oversight have produced a swollen, woefully inefficient organization. Its eagerness to smite our enemies at any cost has "left in [its] wake an often sordid trail of transgressions against law, morality, decency, and basic American values." In a book that is more nuanced and far more entertaining that the revelations of Edward Snowden, Budiansky does not ignore the NSA's accomplishments but reveals plenty of unsettling behavior that has so far persuaded Congress and the president, always anxious to demonstrate their patriotism, to enact mild reforms.

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Starred review from April 1, 2016

In the time since Edward Snowden leaked National Security Agency (NSA) documents in 2014, the American public has scrutinized the organization. Critics portray the NSA as a bloated bureaucracy that tramples on freedoms. Budiansky (former national security correspondent, U.S. News & World Report; Blackett's War) dives into the NSA's Cold War history to absorbingly reveal that although the NSA had successes, its foundation is partly based upon bureaucratic and questionable behaviors. Though the title suggests a portrait of the NSA's codebreakers, the arch is primarily on the agency in the 1940s through the 1960s. One cannot blame the author for this because he had to deal with access restrictions. As a result, the full story has not been written, and who knows if it can ever be. Despite these limitations, this well-written work may be likened to Matthew Aid's The Secret Sentry or Jonathan Haslam's Near and Distant Neighbors. VERDICT Recommended for Cold War spy enthusiasts and those seeking to broaden their knowledge of the NSA.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2016
This history of the National Security Agency, filled with the intricacies of cryptology, reads like a thriller. Budiansky, a cryptologist and former national correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, is able to fill his story with suspense because he focuses on the actual men and women who struggled to break enemy codes. The scope here extends from the NSA growing out of Allied efforts to crack Nazi and Japanese codes during WWII through the Cold War (the book's last section is titled Last Hurrahs of the Codebreakers, 1979 ). The struggles grow murkier in the Cold War, with intelligence expanding not only to suspected spies but also to U.S. citizens (Budiansky begins his work with a reflection on Edward Snowden). Cryptology is a complex subject in all its incarnationsespecially in the context of the NSAbut Budiansky makes his material remarkably accessible for general readers. His appendixes focus on advanced problems, like Russian Teleprinter Ciphers and The Index of Coincidence, which, like the rest of the book, will prove intriguing for expert and novice alike.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)