National Security Agency: Difference between revisions

In the 1960s, the NSA played a key role in expanding U.S. commitment to the [[Vietnam War]] by providing evidence of a [[North Vietnam]]ese attack on the American destroyer {{USS|Maddox|DD-731|6}} during the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]].<ref>{{cite news |first=Scott |last=Shane |title=Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/31war.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 31, 2005 |quote=The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that during the Tonkin Gulf episode, which helped precipitate the Vietnam War |access-date=June 7, 2024 |archive-date=March 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150328104601/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/31war.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

A secret operation, code-named "[[Project MINARET|MINARET]]", was set up by the NSA to monitor the phone communications of Senators [[Frank Church]] and [[Howard Baker]], as well as key leaders of the [[civil rights movement]], including [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], and prominent U.S. journalists and athletes who criticized the [[Vietnam War]].<ref name=Minaret>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/26/nsa-surveillance-anti-vietnam-muhammad-ali-mlk "Declassified NSA Files Show Agency Spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK Operation Minaret Set Up in the 1960s to Monitor Anti-Vietnam Critics, Branded 'Disreputable If Not Outright Illegal' by NSA Itself"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926154853/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/26/nsa-surveillance-anti-vietnam-muhammad-ali-mlk |date=2013-09-26 }} ''The Guardian'', September 26, 2013</ref> However, the project turned out to be controversial, and an internal review by the NSA concluded that its Minaret program was "disreputable if not outright illegal".<ref name=Minaret />

The NSA mounted a major effort to secure tactical communications among U.S. forces during the war with mixed success. The [[NESTOR (encryption)|NESTOR]] family of compatible [[secure voice]] systems it developed was widely deployed during the [[Vietnam War]], with about 30,000 NESTOR sets produced. However, a variety of technical and operational problems limited their use, allowing the North Vietnamese to exploit and intercept U.S. communications.<ref name=boaklectures>{{Cite book|last=Boak|first=David G.|title=A History of U.S. Communications Security; the David G. Boak Lectures, Vol. 1|orig-year=1966|url=https://www.governmentattic.org/18docs/Hist_US_COMSEC_Boak_NSA_1973u.pdf|access-date=2017-04-23|edition=2015 partial declassification|date=July 1973|publisher=U.S. National Security Agency|location=Ft. George G. Meade, MD|archive-date=2017-05-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525181251/https://www.governmentattic.org/18docs/Hist_US_COMSEC_Boak_NSA_1973u.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>