Willow was just starting to take on the energy of the post-work Happy Hour Crowd. Liz-with-an-S was behind the bar, and working some of the questions for admission to the Virginia Bar. She is already admitted to New York and New Jersey- but that wasn’t quite good enough to crash the protective gates of the Lawyers Lobby here. We were pulling for her to get out of Food and Beverage and get back to being an officer of the Court the way she had intended- and maybe whittle down some of the student debt that she had amassed getting through Law School.
I had given her a set of flash cards I found on the web to drill on likely questions she would encounter in the exam- and take a new direction in her professional life. In between tulip glasses of happy Hour White, of course.
Old Jim was seated in his usual place at the apex of the Amen Corner. He was a constant fixture at Willow, at least when he was not involved in a boycott resulting from overfamiliarity, since he lived with his bride Chanteuse Mary just down Utah Street and with his bum leg, it was just about the right distance for him to travel. Even Uncle Julio’s up the block was a little far to hike. Anything else- The First Down or The Front Page, for example- were a cab ride away, much less the bright lights of Clarendon, the next stop on the Orange Line route into town.
Mac was prompt and nicely turned out in a jacket and sport shirt. I had no idea what I wanted to cover in this chat. When we had talked about his time at Fort Meade with the Naval Field Operational Intelligence Office we had got to the point of talking about one of the first major controversies at the national level of the Intelligence Community- the amount of money we spend to do things like miss the collapse of the Soviet Union. That sort of thing.
But this was before the trauma of the Vietnam conflict, which I hoped to get to in the next few weeks. I picked up my pen, now that Liz-S had me set up with a full glass of wine and a ready supply of cocktail napkins. “OK,” I said. “You were just getting to the first of the big Blue Ribbon Panels in which you participated. I remember you mentioning the Schlesinger Panel, the Church and Pike Commissions and all the rest. What was this one called again?”
“It is a recurring phenomenon in the Government. Something happens, everyone agrees it looks bad, then they call in some smart people and make recommendation that may or may not be helpful. Early in my tour at NFOIO, our Director Admiral Frost became involved with what became known as the Robertson Committee,” said Mac. “Mr . Robertson was an Assistant Secretary of Defense — and was charged by the Secretary of Defense to find out what communications intelligence was costing the United States government.”
“That has got to be a huge amount,” I said. “The whole NSA and all the activities the Services had embedded in their structures. I doubt if anyone could track it all down.”
“Robertson tried. This was the beginning of serious budget concerns in the intelligence and the COMINT business. So the Robertson Commit.tee was formed of Army, Navy, Air Force — the intelligence agencies and the cryptologic agencies of Army, Navy, Air Force — and NSA, and it was monitored by State Department and CIA and other people in the government who used COMINT. It became a large committee that worked for several months to price out costs of COMINT, to find out where there might be duplication, where there might be wasted effort, where there might be gaps. Their ultimate outcome was to come up with the first consolidated cryptologic program and
in fact, still exists.”
“But this was before Vietnam. Before the major expansion of everything and they already were wondering what they got for their money?”
“!958, I think things really got rolling, or late in 1957. Shortly after reporting as chief of Yl in March 1957, Admiral Frost called me in to his office in the Pentagon to ask me to Bak-stop him as a member of the Robertson Committee. As Assistant Secretary of Defense, he had been charged by SECDEF to convene a group of authorities and over time to examine and price-out the total cost to the Defense Department of all the cryptologic activities then ongoing. Admiral Frost was a member of the group as the DNI, and I was his backup. He probably had backup from the Naval Security Group as well, since that is where the equities were located. It was a large committee: Army, Navy, Air Force, various elements of the Defense Department, the budget people, of course, and the Armed Forces Security Agency, or National Security Agency, which it probably was called by then. We even had State with at least observer status, the CIA, and the other elements of the government who were users of· the cryptologic product. It was a large committee, and it consisted of the committee of Principals and then there was a working group for those of us who were the backup would meet to do our spade work.”
“Sounds like the Deputy’s Committee where real work gets done. You never get anything effective with just the grownups there.”
“Well, we sat for several months, certainly the better part of a year. I don’t recall the full extent of it. but the result was the creation of the Consolidated Cryptologic Program (the CCP), which since then is still the cryptologic program that carries the budget program for all cryptologic activities in the Defense Department. In those days, it was managed then by the Director, Defense Research and Engineering within the Pentagon. DDR&E was the Pentagon point of contact for all cryptologic activities under the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense, and DDR&E was, in effect, the office of the SECDEF which was designated as being responsible for the activities of the National Security Agency. I mention this because it was the birth of the CCP and the first time that anyone had attempted to put the cryptologic budgets together into one package, which happened then and has continued since and has also been applied to other types of activities and programs in government.
I do recall that the total bill the magnitude of the program and it turned out to be an astounding figure. This surprised everybody. I don’t recall what it was at that time, but, when it was all put together and added up, it was an amazing number. That effort took a good deal of my time because this committee or the working group met in lengthy sessions at least weekly, if not more often, in the Pentagon. I was at Arlington Hall for the first nine months of that tour, so that was not too much of a dislocation, but, after we moved to Fort Meade in December 1957, this increased the commuting time and the commuting activities. I, however, lived in Arlington at that time so, if there were meetings to be attended in the Pentagon that were going to go all day or a good portion of the day, I could go from home to the Pentagon or I could go from Fort Meade to the Pentagon and then come home from there. So it wasn’t too inconvenient for me. That’s all I’m going to say on the Robertson Committee, since there were things that I still can’t talk about.”
Was there anything else you wanted to know about my time at NFOIO? I think we’ve talked about the rest of my tenure as Yl, or more formally OP-922Yl. I wrote about it for the Naval Intelligence Professionals, but that was probably before your time as editor.”
“I will track it down, Sir. Should be interesting reading with a little perspective.”
“The article I wrote pretty much covered the tour of duty there, including the organization and functions of the office, some of the things we did, and our relationships with the National Security Agency. I didn’t go into those relationships in detail because they might include some subjects that would still be classified. In fact, I know they would. In a classified session, there may be some things that would be worth reporting as a result of that - particularly our role in working with the National Security Agency.”
“Let me see what I can find regarding the article. If I have questions, I am sure we can sort it out over an Anchor Steam Ale and some Hapy Hour White.”
“I would be delighted. I just have to get the Doctors on the same sheet of music as Willow.”
Liz-S came down the bar with a flash-card. “Does Atkins v. Virginia strike any chords?” she asked. “The defense apparently relied on a single exculpatory witness for a capital murder case.”
Mac pursed his lips. “I think I actually remember that one,” he said. “No Blue Ribbon Panels, though.”
“No,” said Liz-S. “The question is about the execution of mentally retarded persons and whether it is “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.”
“It may be cruel,” said Mac. “But in my experience, it is hardly unusual.”
Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
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