The day of David Paeterus’ resignation, FOIA requests were
submitted to various intelligence agencies seeking their records regarding his
decision.The National Security Agency
was the first to response with a “no records response. In addition to claiming
to have zero records regarding the matter, the National Security Agency went on record to explain
that having such records is not within the scope of their mission which “are
set at the highest level of government”.
I came upon this list of possible candidates to be the first Director of the National Security Agency compiled by Huntington Sheldon then Assistant Director of the Office of Current Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency. While going through the list, I was struck by the absence of the man who became the first DIRNSA- Ralph Canine- and by those recommended by Sheldon who Canine beat out. Among the more notable names on the list are Omar Bradley, Mark Clark, Matthew Ridgway, and Anthony McAuliffe made famous for service during the Second World War. Canine beat out former DCI Hoyt Vandenberg and SAC founder Curtis E. LeMay to list a few. I doubt this was accidental; I suspect this slight was intentional given CIA displeasure over how the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) had supported it during the agencies' mutual early years. Canine had been the last director the AFSA.
Recently, I acquired this a 7/7/1976 letter from newly appointed Deputy Director of Central Intelligence E.H. Knoche to Deputy Director of the National Security Agency Benson K. Buffham in which Knoche expresses how much "appreciate[s]" having the assistance of "first-rate officers" such as Buffham and that he "look[ed] forward to a continuing close association, and I know that our two agencies can accomplish much working together in a spirit of harmony and cooperation."
In little over a year after this letter was sent, the National Security Agency, backed by Congress, would aggressively seize control over most of the SIGINT effort of the United States. This rather swift change of affairs was brought about by younger, more aggressive, domain building NSA staffers, a budget conscious House Appropriations Committee headed by Charles Snodgrass and their supporters in the Defense Department. The CIA's case was not helped by the decision of the Carter administration to replace George H.W. Bush as head of the CIA, an act that forced Knoche to square off against the DOD with limited standing during a good portion of the year in question.(1)
(1) Thomas R. Johnson, American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945-1989, (U) Book III: Retrenchment and Reform, 1972-1980, 224-231
