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Abstract
For decades, espionage during the Cold War was often presented as a competition between East and West. The extent to which the Global South constituted the main battleground for this conflict is now being appreciated, together with the way coups and covert regime change represented a continuation of colonialism by other means. Recent revelations about the nature of technical surveillance and signals intelligence during this period paint an even more alarming picture. New research materials released in Germany show the ways in which Washington, London and even Moscow conspired to systematically attack the secure communications of the Global South. For almost half a century, less advanced countries were persuaded to invest significant sums in encryption machines that were adapted to perform poorly. This was a deceptive system of non-secrecy that opened the sensitive communications of the Global South to an elite group of nations, that included former colonial rulers, and emergent neo-imperial powers. Moreover, the nature of this technical espionage, which involved commercial communications providers, is an early and instructive example of digital global information inequality.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge support from the Leverhulme Trust and the assistance of the dedicated ZDF research team P. F. Müller, David Ridd, Erich Schmidt-Eenboom and Ulrich Stoll. We also thank Nicole Vögele and Fiona Enderes from Swiss television SRF, together with Huub Jaspers from the Dutch radio programme Argos. The authors were fortunate to serve as academic advisers on these projects.
Disclosure statement
This is to acknowledge that neither author has any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of this research.
Notes
1 Herrington, “Debatable Land”; Willmetts, “CIA and the Invention of Tradition.”
2 Richterova and Telepnava, “Secret Struggle for the Third World.”
3 Andrew and Dilks, The Missing Dimension.
4 Important contributions include: Shiraz, “Drugs and Dirty Wars”; McGarr, “Quiet Americans in India”; Goodman, Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee; Lockhart, Chile, the CIA and the Cold War; Rezk, “Egypt’s Spy Chiefs: Servants or Leaders?”; Walton, Empire of Secrets.
5 Davies and Gustafson, Intelligence Elsewhere.
6 Cormac, Disrupt and Deny; Maguire, Intelligence–Propaganda Nexus.
7 Berger, “Real Cold War Was Hot.”
8 Westad, Global Cold War, 396.
9 Rosenberg, “‘Philosophical Premises’ of Uneven and Combined Development,” 569–97; Matin, “Uneven and Combined Development”; van der Pijl, Global Rivalries; Krasner, Structural Conflict; Kolko, Confronting the Third World; Halliday, Cold War, Third World; Karabell, Architects of Intervention; Rabe, Most Dangerous Area.
10 Kothari and Wilkinson, “Colonial Imaginaries and Postcolonial Transformations.”
11 Müller et al., “Operation Rubicon.”
12 Smith, Secrets of Station X.
13 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance,” 1.
14 Smidt, BND Oral History, 3.
15 Boone, “Trade, Taxes and Tribute,” 463–7; Smidt, BND Oral History.
16 Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century.”
17 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance,” 6.
18 Annan, “Speech at the ITU Opening Ceremony.”
19 Castells, Rise of the Networked Society, 248.
20 Maddrell, "What We Have Discovered.”
21 Andrew and Dilks, The Missing Dimension.
22 Davies, “Spies as Informants.”
23 Riek, “Minerva.”
24 These were completed in 2011–2012.
25 One might also claim that the antecedents of Rubicon were quickly blown by East–West defectors as early as 1960; see Barrett, “Secrecy, Security, and Sex.”
26 Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 391–425.
27 Maguire, Intelligence–Propaganda Nexus.
28 Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 185–9.
29 Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 408.
30 Some of them were recently released; for an excellent analysis see Corera, Intercept: The Secret History.
31 Bamford, Puzzle Palace.
32 Sherman, “National Security Agency,” 236.
33 Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century.”
34 Budiansky, Code Warriors, 251.
35 Stockton, Flawed Patriot, 71–82.
36 CIA, Minerva: A History, 17–25.
37 Personal for Friedman from Canine, July 22, 1954; Personal Messages Concerning Hagelin Machines, Friedman Documents, NSAD.
38 NSA, “Draft Report of Visit to Crypto AG.”
39 Melman, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War.
40 Sherman, “National Security Agency,” 216.
41 Smidt, BND Oral History, 10.
42 Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 201; Sherman, “National Security Agency,” 210.
43 CIA, Minerva: A History, 10, 46, 48.
44 Shane and Bowman, “Rigging the Game: Spy Sting.”
45 Report of Visit to Crypto AG (Hagelin) by William F. Friedman, February 21–28, 1955; Memorandum of Colonel Davis, Subject: 16 June Comments of Mr Friedman, June 17, 1955.
46 Budiansky, Code Warriors, 56.
47 Ibid, 326.
48 Ibid.
49 Borger, “CIA Controlled Global Encryption.”
50 CIA, Minerva: A History, 33, 42. Andre Mueller, head of the French codebreakers, was also repeatedly rebuffed.
51 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance.”
52 SM-2721-52, Memo of the Reps. of the British COS.
53 Aldrich, GCHQ, 207–15.
54 T225/2074, “Provision of On-Line Cryptographic Equipment for NATO,” Note of a Meeting in Mr Trend’s Room at the Treasury.
55 T225/2074, Stephenson to Trend.”
56 T225/2074, “Provision of On-Line cryptographic Equipment for NATO,” Note of a Meeting July 10,1962. TNA.
57 Foulkes, “Swiss Crypto AG Spying Scandal.”
58 Smidt, BND Oral History, 12–3.
59 Riek, “Minerva,” 20.
60 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance,” 37.
61 Audio Recording of the Press Conference, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, Moscow, September 6, 1960, NSA60.
62 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance,” 1.
63 Ibid., 1, 11; CIA, Minerva: A History.
64 Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century.”
65 CIA, Minerva: A History, 66–7.
66 Ibid., 56.
67 Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century”; private information.
68 Document 02, Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Argentine Foreign Minister Adm. Cesar Guzzetti, Secret, June 10, 1976, National Security Archive, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/southern-cone/2016-05-27/operation-condor-verdict-guilty
69 Phythian, Politics of British Arms Sales.
70 CIA, Minerva: A History, 76.
71 Cole, “Operation Just Cause,” 59.
72 Aid, Secret Sentry; Budiansky, Code Warriors, 59–77.
73 Audio Recording of the Press Conference, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, Moscow, September 6, 1960, NSA60.
74 Ibid.
75 Aid, Secret Sentry, 185.
76 Private information.
77 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance.”
78 CIA, Minerva: A History, 83–7.
79 Ibid., 88.
80 Private information.
81 Bauman et al., 121–44.
82 Voegele and Fiona, Cryptoleaks.
83 Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century.”
84 Heuser, “Head of Division for Technical Reconnaissance,” 11.
85 Ibid., 2.
86 CIA, Minerva: A History, 54.
87 Smidt, BND Oral History, 11–2.
88 Theveßen, Müller and Stoll, “#Cryptoleaks.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Robert Dover
Robert Dover is an Associate Professor of Intelligence and International Security at the University of Leicester. He is a previous winner of the Political Studies Association’s Wilfrid Harrison Prize for the Best Article in Political Studies. He has written more than 60 papers on the governmental use of intelligence, the impact of intelligence and surveillance upon social relations, horizon scanning and crisis communications.
Richard J. Aldrich
Richard J. Aldrich is a Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick. In 2019 he completed a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to investigate the ‘Future of Secrecy’ in a world characterised by increasing access, exposure and transparency. Together with his colleague Chris Moran, he is currently involved in an ERC project on security TV series called Demoseries. His main research interests lie in the area of intelligence and security communities.