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ABSTRACT
For over 50 years, America and Germany read much of the world’s communications. With ‘Operation Rubicon’, the CIA and the BND undermined the encryption security of foreign governments by controlling the Swiss technology company, Crypto AG. Puzzlingly, investigative journalists and customers increasingly identified the relationship and the vulnerabilities of their products. Yet, Rubicon continued, producing dividends for over half a century despite repeated revelations. This article asks why? It argues that geopolitical influences on targets, the consumer’s limited resources, and individual brilliance by CIA-BND agents within Crypto AG combined to enable operational longevity – where other sigint operations would have failed.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to extend particular thanks to Richard J. Aldrich, Sarah Mainwaring and Melina Dobson for their comments and advice on earlier drafts of this article. Particular thanks also go to the editors of the Intelligence and National Security involved with this special section. This paper is a result of an Institute of Advanced Studies Early Career Fellowship at the University of Warwick. It would not have been possible without the dedicated team of journalists who worked to bring the knowledge of Operation Rubicon to the public. This includes Peter F. Müller, David Ridd and the ZDF team for its pioneering research. Also Nicole Vögele and Fiona Endres at SRF in Switzerland and Greg Miller in Washington. Thank you to colleagues, friends, and family for their comments on drafts and to Richard Aldrich for bringing this special section together.
Disclosure statement
No conflict of interest was reported by the author
Notes
1. Entry for 6 November 1986, Folder: Daily Activity Log January-June 1986, Box 25, Odom Papers, Library of Congress.
2. Scott Shane & Tom Bowman, “Rigging The Game.” Baltimore Sun, December 10, 1995, 1.
3. CIA, “MINERVA: A History,” 2004: 41; and Greg Miller, “Intelligence Coup of the Century,” Washington Post [online], February 11, 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/
Accessed: 11/02/2020.
4. According to the Crytologic Museum, recently revealed BND documents have confirmed that Mils Electronic was also under the influence of the BND in a similar fashion to Crypto AG and Datotek had its machines ciphers broken by the Dutch Navy at least for 1982. See: Crypto Museum, ‘Operation RUBICON (THESAURUS): The secret purchase of Crypto AG by BND and CIA’, Crypto Museum [online], 25 April 2020, URL: https://www.cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm#ref_9 Accessed: 30/04/2020.
5. CIA, MINERVA, 95.
6. Kahn, “Cryptology Goes Public,” 141–3; and Aid, “All Glory is Fleeting,” 103–4.
7. Andrew, “British Intelligence and the Breach with Russia in 1927,” 957–64.
8. Dymydiuk, “Filling the Information Void.” PhD. Warwick, 2020.
9. Tom Whitehead, “GCHQ leaks have “gifted” terrorists ability to “attack at will”, warns spy chief,” Telegraph [Online], October 9, 2013, URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10,365,026/GCHQ-leaks-have-gifted-terrorists-ability-to-attack-at-will-warns-spy-chief.html Accessed: 30/04/2020; Richard Norton Taylor and Dominic Rusche, “Ex-MI6 deputy chief plays down damage caused by Snowden leaks,” Guardian [online], September 12, 2013, URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/12/mi6-plays-down-damage-edward-snowden-leaks Accessed: 30/04/2020; Simcox, Surveillance after Snowden, 55–60.
10. Kahn, “Crytology Goes Public,” 143.
11. Pozen, “Deep secrecy,” 257. Furthermore, the Soviet Union likely had significant knowledge of US success in breaking the communications of Global South countries prior to Rubicon thanks to Martin and Mitchell, see: Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 190. It was likely reinforced by Kalugin’s unnamed mole in the mid-1960s, See: Kalugin, Spymaster, 90, and the overstated revelations of Perry Fellwock in 1971, see: Horowitz, ‘US Electronic Espionage: A memoir’, 35–50.
12. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 190; Kalugin, Spymaster, 90; and Horowitz, “Electronic Espionage: A Memoir,” 35–50; and Aid, Secret Sentry, 184.
13. Ball and Windrem, “Soviet Signals Intelligence,” 621.
14. Private information.
15. Moran, Classified, 4.
16. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, x; Bamford, Puzzle Palace.
17. Shane and Bowman, “Rigging the Game,” 1.
18. The defection of Martin and Mitchell in 1960 in might also be considered, but they do not seem to have referred to this operation specifically, see Barrett, “Secrecy, Security, and Sex.”
19. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 193 & 196.
20. CIA, MINERVA, 15–16.
21. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 186.
22. CIA, MINERVA, 26–31; Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, 408–10.
23. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 198.
24. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 204.
25. June L. Green (Judge), “Opinion,” American Library Association et al V Lincoln Faurer, Director, National Security Agency, March 27, 1986, URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1958973/american-library-assn-v-faurer/Accessed: 29/8/2019.
26. CIA, MINERVA, 64; and June L. Green (Judge), “Opinion,” American Library Association et al V Lincoln Faurer, Director, National Security Agency, March 27, 1986, URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1958973/american-library-assn-v-faurer/Accessed: 29/8/2019.
27. CIA, MINERVA, 64.
28. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, x; and Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 408–10; MINERVA, 64–5.
29. In fact, US intelligence was focused on a simultaneous event in Hungary and failed to spot the massive pre-Suez mobilisation, Aldrich, GCHQ, 2nd edition, 149.
30. Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, 188–90.
31. CIA, MINERVA, 65; Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, x.
32. Author Interview: James Bamford, 17 May 2017, Washington DC; Judge June Green, ‘Opinion’, American Library Association et al V Lincoln Faurer, Director, National Security Agency, 27 March 1986, URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1958973/american-library-assn-v-faurer/Accessed: 29/8/2019.
33. Bamford, The Puzzle Palace; Bamford, “The NSA and Me,” The Intercept [Online], October 2, 2014, URL: https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/Accessed: 12/09/16.
34. ‘The Puzzle Palace: Archives and National Security’, July 1983, General CIA Records, CREST, NARA; and June L. Green (Judge), “Opinion,” American Library Association et al V Lincoln Faurer, Director, National Security Agency, March 27, 1986, URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1958973/american-library-assn-v-faurer/Accessed: 29/8/2019.
35. Author Interview: James Bamford, 17 May 2017, Washington DC; ‘The NSA and Me’, The Intercept [Online], 2 October 2014, URL: https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/Accessed: 12/09/16; MINERVA.
36. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 406.
37. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 409.
38. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 410.
39. CIA, MINERVA, 65–6.
40. Author Interview: James Bamford, May 17, 2017, Washington DC; “The NSA and Me,” The Intercept [Online], October 2, 2014, URL: https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/Accessed: 12/09/16.
41. ‘Letter: Admiral B. R. Inman to Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti’, 20 August 1979, General CIA Records, CREST; ‘Letter: General Lincoln Faurer to Attorney General William French Smith’, 3 April 1981, General CIA Records, CREST.
42. June L. Green (Judge), “Opinion,” American Library Association et al V Lincoln Faurer, Director, National Security Agency, March 27, 1986, URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1958973/american-library-assn-v-faurer/Accessed: 29/8/2019.
43. Ibid.2019.
44. ‘Letter from William J. Casey (Director CIA) to David A. Stockman’, 19 February 1982, Folder: ND006(Intelligence)[2of5], Box ND006(028182–069838), WHORM Files, RRPL; “William H. Taft IV to David A. Stockman,” March 8, 1982, Folder: ND006(Intelligence)[2of5], Box ND006(028182–069838), WHORM Files, RRPL.
45. Philip Taubman, “Security Agency Bars Access to Nonsecret Material, library records show,” New York Times, April 28, 1983, 18; Philip Taubman, “Sons of the Black Chamber,” New York Times: Book Review, September 19, 1982, 9; “The Puzzle Palace: Archives and national Security,” July 1983, General CIA Records, CREST; “He Wrote about the Puzzle Palace and the US would rather he Hadn’t, Boston Globe,” March 15, 1982, General CIA Records, CREST; and Judith Miller, “Agency Demand Documents Back,” New York Times, March 14, 1982, 19; and Los Angeles Times, “A Distrust of Freedom,” LA Times, May 9, 1983, 6.
46. CIA, MINERVA, 70.
47. CIA, MINERVA, 71.
48. Kahn, “Cryptology Goes Public,” 143; Bauer, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology, 414–21. Bauer includes documentation between the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the NSA regarding academic work and the export controls on cryptographic research.
49. Bauer, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology, 404; MINERVA, 60.
50. Greg Miller, “The Intelligence Coup of the Century,” Washington Post, February 11, 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/Accessed: 11/02/2020.
51. Greg Miller, ‘Uncovering The CIA’s Audacious Operation that Gave Them Access to State Secrets: Interviewed by Dave Davis ’, National Public Radio, 5 March 2020, Accessed: 05/03/2020; Priess, The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents from Kennedy to Obama, 81–3. & 107.
52. CIA, MINERVA, 54.
53. See note 52 above.
54. Reynolds, Summits, 315.
55. CIA, MINERVA, 57.
56. See note 52 above.
57. See: CIA, ‘President Carter and the Role of Intelligence I the Camp David Accords’, CREST, November 2013, URL: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/carter-camp-david-accords Accessed: 20/03/2020; Lauren Harper, ‘Unredacted: President Carter Reflects on the Camp David Accords’, National Security Archive, November 15, 2013, URL: https://unredacted.com/2013/11/15/president-carter-reflects-on-the-camp-david-accords/Accessed: 20/03/2020; and Ian Black, “CIA Spills Camp David Secrets on 1978 Egytian-Israeli agreement,” The Guardian [Online], URL https://www.theguardian.com/world/on-the-middle-east/2013/nov/15/egypt-israel-carter-cia Accessed: 20/03/2020.
58. See note 14 above .
59. Ed Stocker, “Top-secret files shed new light on Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’,” Independent [Online]. URL: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/top-secret-files-shed-new-light-on-argentina-s-dirty-war-8,923,307.html Accessed: 05/04/2020.
60. Human Rights Watch, Truth and Partial Justice in Argentina: an update, April 1991, URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/argen914full.pdf Accessed: 01/05/2020 p. 6; BBC, “Grim Account of Argentine Deaths,” BBC News Online, January 20, 2005, URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4193341.stm Accessed: 01/05/2020; and Calvin Sims, “Argentine Tells of Dumping “Dirty War” Captives Into Sea,” New York Times, March 13, 1995, 1.
61. CIA, MINERVA, 61.
62. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 137–9; MINERVA, 55.
63. Ted Rowlands, “Falkland Islands,” April 3, 1982, Volume 21, Column 650, URL: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/03/falkland-islands Accessed: 09/08/2019.
64. Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War, 131.
65. Ibid. 131.
66. CIA, MINERVA, 43.
67. Jacobs, ‘Maximator’, 5; Crypto Museum, ‘Operation RUBICON (THESAURUS): The secret purchase of Crypto AG by BND and CIA’, Crypto Museum [oniline], 25 April 2020, URL: https://www.cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm#ref_9 Accessed: 30/04/2020.
68. Jacobs, 5.
69. See note 43 above.
70. Jacobs, 8; Greg Miller, “The Intelligence Coup of the Century,” Washington Post, February 11, 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/Accessed: 11/02/2020.
71. See note 50 above, 2020.
72. CIA, MINERVA, 69.
73. New York Times, “Transcript of Address by Reagan on Libya,” New York Times, April 15, 1986, 10.
74. Bob Woodward and Patrick Tyler, “Libyan Cables Intercepted and Decoded,” Washington Post, April 15, 1986, 1.
75. Keefe, Chatter, 211.
76. ’15 April 1986ʹ, Folder: Daily Activity Log January-June 1986, Box 25, Odom Papers, Library of Congress.
77. Douglas Hurd, meeting with Admiral Poindexter, 28 May 1986, HO HO325/757, UK TNA.
78. CIA, MINERVA, 62, 69, 75; and Greg Miller, “The Intelligence Coup of the Century,” Washington Post, February 11, 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/Accessed: 11/02/2020.
79. Entry for 28 January 1986, Folder: Daily Activity Log 1986 January-June, Box 25, Odom Papers, Library of Congress.
80. See note 72 above.
81. Crypto Museum, ‘RUBICON (THESAURUS)’.
82. Dymydiuk, “Filling the Information Void,” PhD, Warwick, 2020.
83. “Letter: General Lincoln Faurer to Attorney General William French Smith”, April 3, 1981, General CIA Records, CREST, NARA.
84. Welchman, “How I came to write The Hut Six story,” 139–44.
85. “Memorandum for the record: Staff meeting minutes of 7 September 1983,” September 7, 1982, General CIA Records, CREST, NARA.
86. Entry for 5 December 1985, Folder: Daily Activity Log 1985 September-December, Box 25, Odom Papers, Library of Congress; Woodward, Veil, 253.
87. Entry for 6 May 1986, Folder: Daily Activity Log 1986 January-June, Box 25, Odom Papers, Library of Congress.
88. Bradlee, A Good Life, 273.
89. “NSA Chief takes aim at leakers,” September 3, 1987, General CIA Records, CREST, NARA; and ‘Aaron Epstein, ‘Reagan moves war on in war against leaks’, Miami Herald, 25 May 1986ʹ, General CIA Records, CREST, NARA; Woodward, Veil, 469.
90. Scott Shane, and Tom Bowman, ‘”No Such Agency”; Secretive NSA: Obscure, global eavesdropper at Fort Meade is largest state employer,” Baltimore Sun, December 3, 1995, 1.
91. Shane and Bowman, “Rigging the Game.”
92. Bauer, Secret History, 356.
93. CIA, MINERVA, 93; for more information on the divorce see M. Dobson in this issue.
94. CIA, MINERVA, 80.
95. See note 50 above, 2020.
96. See note 91 above.
97. Greg Miller, “The Intelligence Coup of the Century,” Washington Post, February 11, 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/Accessed: 11/02/2020.; MINERVA.
98. CIA, MINERVA, 84.
99. CIA, MINERVA, 84–85.
100. CIA, MINERVA, 85.
101. See note 91 above.
102. CIA, MINERVA, 85.
103. Shane and Bowman, ‘Rigging the Game’; Greg Miller, ‘The Intelligence Coup of the Century’, Washington Post, 11 February 2020, URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/Accessed: 11/02/2020.
104. See note 91 above.
105. CIA, MINERVA, 87.
106. CIA, MINERVA, 89; Shane and Bowman, ‘Rigging the Game’.
107. See note 91 above.
108. See note 92 above, 356.
109. Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, “Busy Signals at NSA: Agency of Spies Keeps Code of Silence with Few Clear Lines,” Baltimore Sun, December 24, 1995, 1.
110. Shane, “No Such Agency,” in Hill and Broening (eds), The Life Of Kings, 236.
Additional information
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Jason Dymydiuk
Jason Dymydiuk is currently an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Warwick. He has recently completed his ESRC funded PhD in collaboration the International Spy Museum focused on GCHQ, NSA, and investigative journalism.