Series V 

Volume 5 

National Security 

Agency 

Central Security 

Service CCH-EOSB-01-01 

The Invisible Cry_ptotOgists.~ 

African-Americans, 111WII to I956 
UNITED STATES CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY

The Invisible Cryptologists:

African-Americans, 

WWII to 1956

by

Jeannette Williams

with

Yolande Dickerson, Researcher

CENTER FOR CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

2001

Series V

The Early Postwar Period, 1945-1952

Volume 5

Page iii

Table of Contents 

Page

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1 – Race Relations on the Home Front at the

Onset of WWII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter 2 – 1939-1946: African-Americans Join the SIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 3 – 1944-1946: The Commercial Code Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 4 – 1947: Changing Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 5 – 1948-1951: The Dark Side of the Golden Age of 

Russian Plain Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 6 – 1948-1951: Wanted – 

Key Punchers and Equipment Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Chapter 7 – 1948: R&D – A Different Kind of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 8 – 1951: Color Barrier Broken in Security Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chapter 9 – 1950-1954: Strides toward Broad Integration;

Breakup of the Plantation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Page v

The origins of this book were in the cryptologic

equivalent of an urban legend and a couple of photographs.

During research on the early days of NSA, historians at the Center for Cryptologic History (CCH)

learned of the employment of African-Americans at

the Agency in the period after World War II.

Occasionally, in informal conversations with former NSA seniors, the subject of minority history

would come up, and CCH historians collected anecdotes about segregated offices in the early days. It

became apparent that the employment of AfricanAmericans came even earlier than previously

thought. No information, however, confirmed any

contribution by African-Americans during the

world war.

In early 1996, the History Center received as a

donation a book of rather monotonous photographs of civilian employees at one of NSA’s predecessors receiving citations for important contributions. Out of several hundred photographs, only

two included African-Americans – an employee

receiving an award from Colonel Preston

Corderman (reproduced on page 14) and the same

employee posing with his family.

Although undated, the matrix of the photograph indicated it had been taken in 1945 or early

1946. This made it likely the person was receiving

an award for wartime contributions.

It therefore became a high priority in the

History Center to investigate the story behind this

photograph and learn the truth behind the unconnected anecdotes about African-Americans in the

early days of the cryptologic organization.

In 1998 it became possible to hire a few additional historians for a year to supplement the

History Center’s permanent staff. Ms. Jeannette

Williams applied to research the early history of

African-Americans in cryptology. 

Assisted by Ms. Yolande Dickerson, Ms.

Williams undertook an exhaustive search of the

cryptologic archives and recovered the basic story

of the segregated cryptologic organizations –

including the previously unknown existence of a

large office of African-Americans in World War II.

The basic facts about this unit preserved in official records, however, shed little light on the social

milieu of the time or the eventual movement of

African-Americans into the cryptologic mainstream.

Compiling – and constantly expanding – a list

of names of African-Americans who worked in the

early days of NSA and its predecessor organizations, they conducted an exceedingly vigorous program of oral history interviews. These interviews

personalized the stark facts found in the documents.

In fact, this monograph rescues an important

historical story that might otherwise have been lost.

It should also be noted that this was a last-minute

rescue. Several important figures had already

passed away by the time the research for this book

began, and several more have passed away between

the time of their interviews and the publication of

this book. 

The story that the author tells is by turns infuriating and inspiring. But it needs to be faced squarely from both these aspects.

I recommend The Invisible Cryptologists:

African-Americans, WWII to 1956 as essential

reading for all who are interested in the early days

of cryptology, all who are interested in the social

history of NSA and its predecessors, and all who are

interested in the history of American race relations.

Foreword
Page vi

For further background on cryptologic activities

during World War II and the early days of NSA,

readers are encouraged to refer to A History of U.S.

Communications Intelligence during World War

II: Policy and Administration by Robert L. Benson

and The Origins of the National Security Agency

by Thomas L. Burns (forthcoming). Both publications are available from the Center for Cryptologic

History.

David A. Hatch

Director, Center for Cryptologic History
Page vii

My friend and assistant, Yolande Dickerson,

must share the credit for whatever is right with this

book. Appointment setter, record keeper, transcriber, and researcher – she did it all, and with

marvelous good cheer. Thank you, Yolande.

For the inspiration that sparked this project and

for critical reviews of many drafts, I am thankful to

Dr. David Hatch of the Center for Cryptologic

History (CCH). Dr. Thomas Johnson, formerly of

the Center, was my early mentor, and I am indebted to him for his professional guidance and quick

friendship. Others at NSA that must be remembered at this time are the Archives Division staff,

particularly Danny Wilson, Mike Scott, John

Hanson, and Tom Lubey, who were so responsive

to my many, many requests; Barry Carleen and

Barbara Vendemia of the CCH Publications team,

for their skillful editing; Lou Benson and Patricia

Brown, Office of Security, for historical information

on security matters; and Patricia Nelson of the

Phoenix Society, for providing critical data that

enabled us to contact numerous Agency retirees.

James Gilbert, INSCOM Historian, deserves

special recognition for directing me to an Army history that named the early African-American cryptologists. John Taylor of the National Archives and

Records Administration also provided important

lead information as well as outstanding file

retrieval support. Thank you, John.

For the support of my husband Walter, daughter Darice, son Erik, and sister Thomasina, I am

and always will be deeply grateful. They understood

that, given the opportunity, I was obligated to write

this history, not only to document the contributions

of the early African-American cryptologists to the

Agency’s mission, but also to help identify for

today’s cryptologists the roots of the racial concerns

that plagued NSA for decades afterwards. If I have,

in any small way, met this obligation, it is due to the

unselfish participation of the many former Agency

employees who told me their stories. To them, my

profoundest thanks. To the African-Americans

among them who served at Arlington Hall, I am

particularly grateful, for though the memories were

sometimes painful, they freely shared their experiences, their disappointments, and their successes.

To them, this book is fondly dedicated. 

Jeannette Williams

Acknowledgments

Page 1

This is the story of African-Americans

employed by the National Security Agency, and its

forerunners at Arlington Hall Station, from 1939 to

1956. It is, in part, an organizational history, since

for most of that period, the overwhelming majority

of African-Americans were segregated in primarily

support elements, consistent with army policies

and U.S. mores. It is also, in part, a cryptologic history, since technology and intelligence requirements factored enormously into African-American

hiring and manpower utilization. For these aspects

of the book, documents held in the NSA Archives as

well as in the National Archives and Records

Administration yielded a wealth of information. 

But at its essence this book is about people who

during WWII and the first decade of the Cold War

were limited primarily to positions in the federal

agency akin to those held in the private sector –

critical, but low-paying, support jobs. Extensive

oral interviews of both blacks and whites who

worked there during the period added the human

dimension to the research data and revealed the

tremendous gulf between America’s promise of

equality and the reality, even within the federal

bureaucracy. 

The exhaustive interviews conducted for this

book also include testimonies to the changes that

occurred within the Agency, reflective of progress

after President Truman’s February 1948 message to

Congress on civil rights and the issuance of

Executive Order 9981 later that year which mandated the integration of the armed services. The

book closes in 1956 as NSA is reorganizing and relocating to Fort Meade, Maryland. As part of the reorganization, a large, predominantly black organization, one of the most visible symbols of racial division within the Agency, was dismantled. Thus

ended a major chapter in the Agency’s social history, but for years afterward, issues of fairness and

equality would continue to be at the forefront of the

consciousness of many African-Americans at the

National Security Agency.

Introduction
Page 2

Though thirteen million American

Negroes have more often than not been

denied democracy, they are American citizens and will as in every war give unqualified support to the protection of their

country. At the same time we shall not

abate one iota our struggle for full citizenship rights here in the United States. We

will fight but we demand the right to fight

as equals in every branch of military, naval

and aviation service. – From minutes of

NAACP Board of Directors meeting, 8 December

19411

The African-American experience at Arlington

Hall Station (AHS), home of the National Security

Agency and its Army predecessor organizations

from 1942 to the mid-fifties, was shaped by a complex set of forces. In the simplest terms, AfricanAmerican employment, as was that of individuals in

any other group, was dictated by the intelligence

needs of the nation’s political and military leaders.

The volume of target communications to be exploited that would provide the needed information and

the systems available to process the data translated

into manpower requirements. The nature of that

employment, however, and the surrounding cultural environment reflected broader issues – the racial

policies of the U.S. Army and the state of racial integration in America at large.

Although, to its credit, the racially integrated

U.S. Army of the mid-fifties was a decade ahead of

most civilian institutions on civil rights issues, the

army of the early forties was viciously Jim Crow:

. . . The policy of the War department is not

to intermingle colored and white personnel in the same regimental organizations.

This policy has been proven satisfactory

over a long period of years and to make

changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the

preparations for national defense. – Memo

from Robert P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary of

War, to President Roosevelt, 27 September 19402

In December 1941, nearly 100,000 AfricanAmericans were serving in the racially segregated

U.S. Army, the vast majority in infantry, engineering, and quartermaster units. Less than 2 percent of

enlistees were in the Signal Corps, and over the next

seven months that percentage declined to less than

1 percent.3 The basis for the Army position on

African-American integration4 was threefold. The

two most commonly cited reasons were that the

Army reflected the desires of the American people

and was not an instrument for social change, and

that it was efficient to use personnel according to

their skills and capabilities. General George C.

Marshall, Army chief of staff, articulated these

arguments in a 1 December 1941 memorandum to

Secretary of War Henry Stimson:

The problems presented with reference

to utilizing Negro personnel in the army

should be faced squarely. In doing so, the

following facts must be recognized: first

that the War Department cannot ignore

the social relationship between Negroes

and whites which has been established by

the American people through custom and

habit; second, that either through lack of

educational opportunities or other causes

the level of intelligence and occupational

skill of the Negro population is considerably below that of the white; third, that the

army will attain its maximum strength

only if its personnel is [sic] properly

placed in accordance with the capabilities

of individuals; and fourth, that experiments within the army in the solution of

Chapter 1 – Race Relations on the Home Front at the Onset of WWII
Page 3

social problems are fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and

morale.5

Twelve years later, a similar “study” purported

to present the Negro personality characteristics

that commanders were likely to meet: “As an individual the negro is docile, tractable, lighthearted,

care free and good-natured. If unjustly treated he is

likely to become surly and stubborn, though this is

usually a temporary phase. He is careless, shiftless,

irresponsible and secretive. He resents censure and

is best handled with praise and by ridicule. He is

unmoral, untruthful and his sense of right doing is

relatively inferior.” 7

The significance of these and other AWC studies cannot be underestimated. Historian Alan Osur

concluded that the 1925 study “establishes the

impact of racism upon the minds of these field

grade officers of the 1920s who, generally speaking,

would become the commanders in World War II.

The importance of their early learning cannot be

overstated in understanding their subsequent

behavior.” 8

Clarence Toomer, an African-American NSA

retiree, was a young Army enlistee in 1942.

Interviewed in January 2000, he recalled his personal experience with army mandated segregation

during World War II:

I grew up and went to school in

Fayetteville, North Carolina. After the

third year of high school, I decided that I

wanted to see the world and I went off and

joined the army. This was in 1942. 

I was in the Quartermaster Corps. It’s

transportation now. We moved trucks and

supplies or anything that had to be moved.

It was an all-black regiment except for the

officers. We first went to the West Coast,

then we were shipped to Australia. In fact,

I was on the maiden voyage of the Queen

Elizabeth. They brought the ship to San

Francisco to protect it from being damaged by the Germans while it was still

under construction. Then they converted it

to a troop ship. We had 10,000 troops on

that ship, stacked four high in elaborate

cabins which had forty people in them. It

took thirty-nine days to zigzag across the

Pacific.

You hear all kinds of stories about

Australians not liking blacks, but the citizens were cordial. They received us with

open arms. The people in Melbourne had

Sunday teas in their homes and churches

and would invite the black troops, and we

went. They also had skating rinks in the

city, but the white Americans identified a

recreation area for black troops only. The

American government, the American military did that – not the Australians. 

Of course, the Army was right about one thing;

it did largely reflect civilian attitudes. Schools,

housing, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, and

recreational facilities were legally segregated by

race in much of the country. Carl Dodd, the grandson of slaves, was a War Department messenger

and clerk for approximately six years before joining

the Army Security Agency, an NSA forerunner, in

“. . . the level of intelligence and occupational

skill of the Negro population is considerably below

that of the white.” The third plank underpinning

the Army’s rigid segregationist policies was the

belief that African-Americans were inferior. An

Army War College (AWC) study published in

October 1925 concluded that “the black man was

physically unqualified for combat duty; was by

nature subservient, mentally inferior, and believed

himself to be inferior to the white man; was susceptible to the influence of crowd psychology; could

not control himself in the face of danger; and did

not have the initiative and resourcefulness of the

white man.” 6
Page 4

1948. He vividly remembers the discrimination and

intimidation endured by blacks in rural North

Carolina during the Depression:

I grew up poor in Smithville. I went to

school many days in coveralls and bare

feet, and my parents couldn’t afford to buy

books. In North Carolina, they didn’t furnish [blacks with] books until somewhere

around 1936 or 1937. Of course, the

schools were segregated. Some black kids

could buy books, but many couldn’t. I used

to borrow books from my classmates during activity periods and read in the library.

There was a large family of us and we just

couldn’t do things. We owned our land and

home. That’s it. My daddy sold a tremendous amount of land during the ‘30s trying

to survive. Nobody worked much but my

dad, and he was born of a slave parent.

When I speak about him, it hurts me. He

couldn’t read or write, but he wanted his

kids to get an education. We got what we

could.

I came to Washington in 1941, because

the Ku Klux Klan activity was terrible, and

I had many, many fights with white people.

My uncle was hit by a car, and I still don’t

understand it. An automobile at that time,

mostly an A-model Ford or a T-model

Ford, came by maybe every thirty minutes.

So he had to have been put in front of a car

and then hit. Many blacks were killed, and

nobody ever knew and nobody ever cared.

My mother and father thought it best that I

leave. I was seventeen years old.9

The African-American press and civil rights

organizations pressed the Roosevelt administration, the military, and the nation’s political parties

for change. The contradiction between an America

at war against fascism abroad while inflicting racial

injustices on its citizens at home was inescapable.

This national struggle over equality became the

impetus for a sea change in the employment of

African-Americans at AHS.
Page 5

German Army Attacks Poland; 

Cities Bombed

Havas, French news agency, announced

that a German declaration of war against

Poland probably will lead France and

Great Britain to take new military measures. Britain and France are committed to

aid Poland in any fight to save her independence. – New York Times, September 1,

1939

At the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939,

the Signals Intelligence Service (SIS),10 the fledgling U.S. cryptologic organization, had been in existence less than ten years. Created in 1930 in the

Army’s Office of the Chief Signal Officer (OCSigO),

it represented the consolidation of the missions of

two post-WWI organizations. First, the SIS was to

develop secure codes for U.S. military communications (communications security or COMSEC), formerly the responsibility of the Code and Cipher

Section in the OCSigO. During wartime, it was also

to intercept and solve enemy code and cipher messages (communications intelligence or COMINT), a

role that had been assigned to the Cipher Bureau

(MI-8) of the General Staff during WWI and continued primarily as a training mission after demobilization. At its formation, William F. Friedman,

the Army’s foremost cryptologist in the Code and

Cipher Section, was named to lead the new organization. After hiring a secretary, Miss Louise

Newkirk, he acquired four “junior cryptanalysts” –

three mathematicians – Frank Rowlett, Abe

Sinkov, and Solomon Kullback, and a Japanese linguist, John Hurt. Added to this small contingent

during that first year were an Army officer, Captain

Norman Lee Baldwin, whose job would be to establish the Second Signal Service Company, the intercept division of SIS; Lieutenant Mark Rhodes, a

Signal Corps officer; and Larry Clark, a chemistry

major who would analyze secret inks. These few

individuals comprised the SIS in December 1930.11

In his account of the history of the SIS, William

Friedman was unequivocal about the initial basis of

the small organization’s cryptanalytic activities.

Interception and decoding of foreign communications were to be undertaken as training in preparation for the execution of its wartime mission, not as

peacetime activities. Particularly interesting information uncovered as a by-product of this training

would be shown to the Army Assistant Chief of

Staff, G2, but there was not a functioning peacetime

mission to actively collect and exploit the communications of targeted foreign governments.12 It was

in the execution of this training mission during the

mid-1930s, however, that SIS made an indelible

impression on senior War Department officials and

paved the way for its future expansion. By 1933, the

monitoring stations in Fort Monmouth, New

Jersey, and at the Presidio in San Francisco were

regularly providing intercepts of Japanese diplomatic communications (commonly referred to as

“traffic”), the War Department’s highest priority

intelligence target. In 1936, the SIS, chiefly Frank

Rowlett, broke the Japanese diplomatic code generated by the “Red” machine and used for their

most sensitive communications. The recovered

plaintext messages gave the nation’s policy makers

and military leaders unprecedented insight into the

developing political ties between Japan, Germany,

and Italy.

Thus, although fewer than twenty people comprised the SIS in mid-1939, it had established its

value to the national leadership and plans existed

for both gradual, modest, peacetime growth and

contingency expansion during a national emergency. Eleven days after Hitler’s army goosestepped into Poland, the Chief Signal Officer recommended that funds be released for the acquisiChapter 2 – 1939-1946: African-Americans Join the SIS
Page 6

tion of twenty-five additional civilians and more

equipment in preparation for implementing its

wartime mission. This was soon revised to reflect a

request for funds for expansion, to include funds

for twenty-six (rather than twenty-five) additional

civilians. The final recommendation was approved,

and by the end of the year expansion of the SIS professional force of cryptologists and linguists had

begun.13

Although neither reflected in the War

Department authorization letter nor noted in the

histories, the tiny secret agency was increased by at

least one other employee in late 1939.

On 13 November,

Bernard W. Pryor, a

thirty-nine-yearold former

motorcycle

messenger for

the Navy

Department,

entered on

duty as the

SIS messenger. Almost

certainly he

was the first

African

American to be

hired at the

agency.14

* * * *

SIS personnel authorizations, by July 1942, had

increased to 364 civilians and 121 officers.16 Already

desperately short of space at the Munitions

Building, but still expanding to support the war

effort, the Army purchased a women’s junior college at 4000 Lee Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia, for

the burgeoning agency. The new location had an

added advantage. The now vital SIS would be

removed from downtown Washington where it was

believed it was more vulnerable to enemy bombing

or agent activity.17 By the end of the summer, most

of the agency had relocated to what came to be

called Arlington Hall Station (AHS).

Frequently described as a beautiful, campuslike facility, AHS experienced rapid wartime

growth. By mid-July 1943, 1,713 civilians, 157 officers, and 240 enlisted personnel18 were distributed

across six sections, most under the direction of a

military officer:

Chief, Signal Security Agency

Colonel W. Preston Corderman

Director of Communications Research

Mr. William F. Friedman

A Branch/Protective Security

Major J.C. Sheetz

Bernard Pryor 

(later photo)

“In 1938, of the 9,717 Negroes regularly

employed by the federal government in

Washington, 90 percent held custodial jobs for

which the top annual pay rate was $1,260; only

9.5 percent had clerical jobs, and only 47 men

had subprofessional rank.” 15

“The population of the metropolitan

[Washington, D.C.] area mushroomed from

621,000 in 1930 to well over a million by the

end of 1941. Seventy thousand new people

arrived in the first year after Pearl Harbor

alone. Government employment had more

than doubled since the beginning of 1940, and

more than five thousand new federal workers

were pouring into Washington every month,

often bringing their families with them.”

David Brinkley, Washington Goes To War (New

York, NY, 1988), 107
Page 7

B Branch/Cryptanalytic

(solution of codes and ciphers) 

Lt. Colonel Earle F. Cooke

C Branch/Cryptographic

(communications security)

Colonel Clinton B. Allsopp

D Branch/Laboratory 

(secret inks) 

Lt. Colonel A.J. McGrail

E Branch/Communications

Lt. Colonel H. McD. Brown

F Branch/Development

Major Leo Rosen

(From Organizational Chart, Signal Security

Service, 15 April 1943-1 March 1944 (NSA Archives,

Accession No. 18675)).

The larger population of linguists, cryptanalysts, engineers, and mathematicians was reflected

in the increased hiring of messengers, probably all

of whom were Afro-American. By mid-1943, Bernie

Pryor was the senior messenger of fifteen, but one

SIS researcher’s comments suggest they were

stereotyped as “colored” servants of limited intelligence: 

It often happens that translators in distant wings are too remote and hot to bring

questions personally. An attempt has been

made to improve the situation by utilizing

North Carolina messengers. They come,

but either have not understood the message or have forgotten it on the way.19

* * * *

The nation’s capital that drew the new civil servants, both black and white, was a boom town.

Seventeen-year-old Carl Dodd was a construction

worker in the District of Columbia before becoming

a messenger in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer

during WWII. In his oral interview, he vividly

described the living conditions for many AfricanAmerican residents during this period of rapid

expansion and provided a telling glimpse of the

state of civil rights in the capital city as the country

entered WWII.

Washington was very, very poor at that

time. Where the Pentagon building is,

there used to be a Hot Shoppe and an airfield. There was a ‘colored’ area right near

there called Queen City. The Pentagon

took all the property these people had.

Then they built houses for the people that

they had thrown out. That is when I saw

the first low income housing – off of

Columbia Pike, near Arlington – right near

the Navy Department. It was called

Johnson Hill. The people had to have some

place to live; however, some of these buildings were like shanties, and they had

cesspools – no plumbing. But it was their

homes. You can’t pay somebody $200 or

$250 for a house and replace it for that

amount of money, but that’s what the government did. Just like they did in southwest [District of Columbia]. Many of those

houses in southwest had no plumbing.

They had a big truck to come around and

pick up the sewage from the houses in big

buckets. They used to call it the ‘honey

wagon’, and you could smell it for blocks.

People lived wherever they could get low

rent. When I first came to Washington [in

1941], I lived in a room on Fairfax Drive,

and I got a job doing construction work. I

paid $3.50 a week for my room, and I got

$7.00 a week as a salary. When I went into

the government in 1942, I was hired as a

CU [custodial] 3 [$1,200 per year]. After

taxes, I took home $42 every two weeks. So

I had clothes, rent, food – everything to

take care of. I had nothing left. Things

weren’t good, but a lot of black people
Page 8

came to Washington thinking things were

much better than they really were.

My first government job in 1942 was as a

messenger for the Office of the Chief

Signal Officer, and I was at the Munitions

Building at 2nd and T Street, Southwest

[District of Columbia]. At that time, the

cafeteria was segregated. I think it was

desegregated about the same time as the

Pentagon was completed. Roosevelt

ordered that there would be no more segregation in the cafeteria. Prior to then, we

could not go into it. They had little cubby

holes in the back where you could go and

get food, if you wanted, but I didn’t go

there. I went to a place on the wharf called

Benny Bordnick’s. We couldn’t go in there

and sit down either, but we could buy their

fish sandwiches, crabcakes, or whatever

we wanted and take it back. We got a good

buy, and we got good food. There was

another place called Cadillac, a black

place, but we always went to Benny

Bordnick’s and brought our food back.

* * * *

In early 1944, Colonel W. Preston Corderman,

a 1926 West Point graduate from Hagerstown,

Maryland, was chief of what was then being

called the Signal Security Agency. Earle F.

Cooke, who once headed the COMSEC side

of the agency (C Branch), was chief of the

cryptanalysis effort (B Branch).

Interviewed years later, General Cooke

described a pivotal conversation between

the two that led to the creation of a segregated unit of black cryptologists at AHS.

Eleanor Roosevelt, through her 

channels . . . had the Signal Corps 

advise that . . . twelve percent or 

fifteen percent of our personnel had to

be black and gainfully employed. A

problem. We had one who was a messenger. I can’t remember his name.

Racked my brain and I can’t remember it.

Anyway, the problem was, what do we do

now, because here we have a directive and

we’re going to have to put a lot of black

people to work. We decided, I guess I did,

because Corderman said to me,‘Your job.

I’m not going to have them on any other

staff. I’m going to have them on your staff,

okay?’ The problem [was] what to do and I

decided I’m going to keep this bunch as a

unit and find something which they can do

worthwhile. The only help I had in selecting black personnel was this messenger.

Well, I liked the guy. He was a good guy,

and he was a hard-working guy and I told

him I got this problem. I got to have about

a hundred and some odd people of your

race (‘niggers’ in that day), and I says,

you’re my personnel officer to see that I get

the right ones. Did a marvelous job. Where

the hell he got them and how he got them,

I knew not. I put him in touch with the personnel people and said, that guy is my representative in hiring these people. Your

job is to hire them when he says so. And he

did. I haven’t the slightest idea

[what criteria he used], but

we gave them some stuff

working on some Allied

system. I don’t know

what system we had

them on. . . . It

doesn’t matter.

The output, of

course, was more

or less negative

. . . but so what?

We had the unit,

had no problem.20

Lt. Col. Earle Cooke
Page 9

[Editor’s Note: There is no actual documentation that Mrs. Roosevelt ordered the hiring of

African-Americans either in the Signal Corps or at

AHS. Given the nature of the social picture at the

time, however, such actions needed the intervention of “someone in a high place.”]

The messenger whose name General Cooke

could no longer recall was William (Bill) Coffee,

once a houseman and waiter at the Arlington Hall

School for Girls, who was then working for Bernie

Pryor. Born in Abingdon, Virginia, in 1917, Mr.

Coffee studied English at Knoxville College,

Tennessee, in 1936 after attending the Kings

Mountain Training School in Abingdon. During the

closing years of the Depression, from 1937 to 1940,

he was enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Thereafter followed a series of jobs as a waiter,

before he was hired in September 1941 by the 

Arlington Hall School for Girls. When the Army

acquired the property, Mr. Coffee applied for a federal position and was hired as a junior janitor for

the SIS in June 1942, eventually being promoted to

messenger. In January 1944, after Earle F. Cooke

tapped him to satisfy Mrs. Roosevelt’s concerns, he

set about building a unit that would be “gainfully

employed.” His job title was officially changed to

cryptographic clerk in June of that year, and an

organizational chart dated 15 November 1944 identified him as Assistant Civilian In Charge of B-3-b,

with nineteen subordinate civilians.21 Their mission was not the analysis of Allied codes, as General

Cooke recalled, but the exploitation of commercial

coded messages. Several military officers very

briefly served as chief of the unit before the position

was assumed by Benson K. Buffham in mid-1944,

who held it first as a young military officer, then as

a civilian, until February 1947. 
Page 10

yeqyx ipeoa ipeco caozr ivmzi oatab

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

(Pineapple must be packed very carefully.

Mark outside of packages plainly, with

gross and net weights. Customers will pay

for cost of transshipment. Telegraph us at

time shipment is made.)

orutl yeqyx oczom

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

(In accordance with your telegram,

pineapple will be shipped immediately.) –

English texts and commercial code equivalents

from Acme Commodity and Phrase Code, New

York, 1923

Very quickly after the introduction of the

American Morse code for telegraphic messages, it

was recognized that this new mode of communicating seriously threatened privacy. Inserted between

the originator and intended recipient of the information were persons who would translate it into

the Morse symbols and key the message and other

individuals to receive the message and render it

readable for the recipient. The most sensitive data

would, therefore, be accessible to these middlemen.

Thus, in 1845 an associate of Samuel Morse published a code for Morse communications, “The

Secret Corresponding Vocabulary; Adapted for Use

to Morse’s Electro-Magnetic Telegraph,” to provide

the message originator with a means of securing

correspondence. 

As telegraph usage grew in the late 1840s and

1850s, other codes for Morse communications

appeared, but it was the laying of the first transatlantic cable in 1866 that sparked an explosion of

codes for Morse communications. The driver for

this creativity was not secrecy, but economy, for the

telegraph companies charged by the word, as well

as according to the distance between the sender and

the receiver. Consequently, the economies offered

by the shorthand codes, which became known as

“commercial codes,” were extremely attractive.

Scores of industries developed lexicons that could,

with a simple group of letters, convey multiple

phrases or sentences.22 During WWII, the information transmitted by foreign companies by this

means was of interest to U.S. officials, since it could

provide trade and travel data and some insight into

the economic conditions of the companies’ host

nations.

An SIS unit of four people, all Caucasians, was

actively exploiting foreign commercial coded messages as early as February 1943. By May there were

six, and in September 1943 eight people comprised

B-2a-8, the Commercial Unit in the Code Recovery

Section of the Cryptanalytic Branch. The unit was

headed by a succession of junior Army officers in

the fall of 1943, but gradually the personnel were

transferred to other higher priority tasks, and by

December 1943 the mission was completely abandoned.23 It was a situation tailor-made for the

moment. No Caucasians were working the problem, obviating the need to address the issue of an

integrated work unit. Clearly the work was meaningful, but if no results were produced, it would

only be a continuation of the status quo for the customers. On the other hand, if the unit proved productive, the results could be useful. Mrs.

Roosevelt’s requirements could be met.

In January 1944, Bill Coffee started his new

assignment as a cryptographic clerk. Undoubtedly

he underwent some cryptanalytic training, but a

record of courses that he might have taken at the

time is no longer available. Initially he worked

alone; then in February 1944 Annie Briggs, who

had worked with him in the messenger unit, joined

him as his assistant.24 The unit grew in size and,

though clearly an operational unit with core misChapter 3 – 1944-1946: The Commercial Code Unit
Page 11

sion responsibilities, for several months it was

retained as a staff element reporting to the chief of

the Cryptanalytic Branch, consistent with

Corderman’s direction to Cooke. A memorandum

announcing one of the many Signal Security Agency

reorganizations alluded to this inconsistency: 

Effective 21 August [1944], the

Intelligence Division [formerly the

Cryptanalytic Branch or B Branch] was

organized to consist of an Office of the

Division Chief and five operating branches. . . . The Commercial Traffic Section has,

for reasons of policy, been retained under

the control of the Division Chief instead of

being absorbed into the General

Cryptanalytic Branch [one of the five subordinate branches of the Intelligence

Division], which might normally appear to

be its proper location.25

Eventually, however, logic prevailed. By midNovember 1944, the unit became part of the

General Cryptanalytic Branch, which was headed

by Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Rowlett, one of the

four original cryptanalysts hired by William

Friedman. Its designator became B-3-b. The organizational chart reflects Lieutenant Benson K.

Buffham as the chief and William D. Coffee, assistant civilian in charge.26

* * * *

B-3-b, under Lieutenant Buffham and Bill

Coffee, exploited nongovernmental commercial

code messages originating from Australia, Great

Britain, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Portugal,

Bulgaria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Russia, China,

Indochina, Thailand, Japan, Egypt, South Africa,

Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, and

Argentina.27

Conventional intercept sources and the Office of

Censorship, which under the War Powers Act

received copies of all cable traffic from the U.S. carriers, supplied the raw material (messages) for the

unit. Communications using both private codes and

codes available on the open market were decoded.

Messages that were found to be written in an

unknown commercial code or in an enciphered

commercial code, i.e., individual letters of the code

phrase were substituted or transposed, were analyzed to identify the underlying codebook and ultimately to recover the plain text. Additionally, the

unit sorted and routed nongovernmental Spanish,

French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and English

plaintext messages, a task that formerly had been

accomplished by the Traffic Unit.28

This work was accomplished by three sections.

The largest, Production, led by Annie Briggs, identified codes, decoded messages, and provided clerical support. Ethel Just headed a small group of

translators in the Language

unit. Herman Phynes

directed the last section, the B-3-b

technical element charged

with solving

encipherments.

Twentyeight years

into the

future,

Herman

Phynes would

be a GG-16,

army flag officer

equivalent, and

NSA’s first

AfricanAmerican office

chief in the

Operations Directorate. In March 1944, however,

he was a subprofessional (SP)-5 cryptanalytic aide

returning to government work after brief stints as

an insurance salesman and a real estate agent. A

Washington, D.C., native, he was a graduate of

Dunbar High School and had a B.A. degree (1941)

from Howard University. His earlier government

Herman Phynes

(later photo)
Page 12

service was as a clerk for the Internal Revenue

Service and as a messenger and clerk in the War

Department, but dissatisfied with both the pay and

levels of responsibility, he left the civil service to

seek work more consistent with his academic background.29

One other significant personnel change

occurred in 1944. Bernie Pryor, the messenger for

the Signals Intelligence Service, was reassigned in

April 1944 to the Personnel Branch as a clerk.

Undoubtedly, with the anticipation of increased

hiring of African-Americans came the realization

that this segment of the workforce would require

support services. He thus became a human

resources unit for black employees, providing a

variety of employee services, including orientation

briefings, information on housing and recreational

facilities, and counseling on work, family, and personal financial matters.30

* * * *

Benson K. Buffham, the administrative chief of

B-3-b, had entered the Signal Corps in 1942, one

year after graduating from

Wesleyan University

(Connecticut). In

June 1999, he

looked back

nearly sixty

years and

recounted

his first

days at

Arlington

Hall and

his early

assignment

as head of the

first group of

AfricanAmerican

cryptologists.

When I first went to Arlington Hall, I

worked as a cryptanalyst (or cryppie) for

about six months, working Japanese diplomatic communications. Then, a very good

friend of mine at the time, Captain Mike

Maloney, who was Frank Rowlett’s plans

and priorities officer,31 was assigned overseas, and he recommended to Colonel

Rowlett that I replace him. So I became the

plans and priorities officer on the staff of

B3. It was then that I was also assigned, as

one of my duties, the job with the just

emerging black unit. Maloney had that job

before me, and when I replaced him I took

that job as well. I was introduced to Bill

Coffee and became the head of the unit;

however, Coffee was really the operating

head of the unit. I had other jobs to do at

the same time. He was full-time in that job,

and he was really the expert. I was the

reporting chain for them, so Coffee reported to me, and I got all of his reports and

reviewed them. I wouldn’t say that I

reviewed them all before they went out,

but if they thought they had anything really significant, Coffee would show it to me

first. 

I was located maybe a hundred yards

away from Coffee’s area at a desk outside

Colonel Rowlett’s office. There were

maybe fifteen or so people on the staff,

including his secretary and personnel people. I didn’t have an office. The B-3-b unit

was in a separate room. Colonel Rowlett

was very interested in the unit and would

visit them from time to time. Bill Coffee sat

right at the head and was really in charge

of that area. At the time, we had a large

number of black Americans working in

what I would call custodial type jobs at

Arlington Hall, but Mr. Coffee’s unit was

the only professional unit that I’m aware

of.

Benson K. Buffham
Page 13

We had the Office of Censorship in

World War II, and one of my jobs was to go

down to Censorship every day and collect

the international material which was flowing through them, but which they weren’t

processing. They were only interested in

things originating in or destined for the

United States. Everything had to be filed

with them, and they would examine material that was coming in or out of the U.S.,

but they wouldn’t be able to examine material that was going from Tokyo, for example, to a number of foreign cities. That

[international] material all fell within the

realm of responsibility of the SIS. All that

material had to be examined by our commercial code unit.

They [B-3-b analysts] were responsible

for detecting anything that would be transpiring which wasn’t routine trade. Of

course there was a great deal of traffic,

because we were monitoring all the international communications, particularly

from Tokyo and Berlin – all the enemy

traffic. But, it all had to be gone through,

because you had to be sure that we weren’t

missing something that would be a violation of the international embargoes.

Although item for item, it wasn’t as important as diplomatic traffic, they performed

an invaluable service by going through all

that material and making sure there wasn’t anything in it that would have been useful for us in the wartime effort.32

* * * *

For several months, B-3-b continued to expand

in mission and resources under Bill Coffee. In April

1945, it was assigned responsibility for exploiting

the diplomatic systems of Belgium, Haiti, Liberia,

and Luxembourg, though there is no evidence that

this mission developed past the research stage. By

June, Bill Coffee was directing the efforts of thirty

people distributed over six sections, plus a secretary. Most were engaged in the major activities of

code identification and decoding; researching and

analyzing unknown codes; and translating.33

Major international trade activity resumed following the end of WWII with a concomitant substantial rise in the volume of commercial coded

messages, but agency postwar personnel losses

were reflected in the sharply reduced manning of B3-b (renamed WDGAS-93K when the Signals

Security Division became the Army Security Agency

in September 1945). In July 1946, it was composed

of fewer than a dozen people. 

In February 1946, Bill Coffee was transferred to

the Intercept Control Branch as the supervisor of a

new typing unit which had been formed to augment

the automatic morse transcription section of nearby Vint Hill Farms in Warrenton, Virginia. In the

two years that he was associated with the

Commercial Code unit, he had advanced from a

CAF-3 ($1,620/year) to a CAF-5 ($2,430/year).34

Replacing him as assistant O.I.C. (officer in charge)

of the African-American commercial code cryptologists was his principal assistant, Herman Phynes. 

On 3 April 1946, General W. Preston

Corderman, chief, Army Security Agency, presented William D. Coffee with the prestigious

Commendation for Meritorious Civilian Service.

In February 1947, the practice of having a

Caucasian as the nominal head of the Commercial

Code unit ended with the appointment of Herman

Phynes to the position of O.I.C. He was a P-2

(Professional Level -2) with an annual salary of

$3,522.60.35
Page 14

Although B-3-b was a unique and unprecedented organization, these early African-American

cryptanalysts and translators appear to have been

virtually invisible. Few former Agency employees

who were interviewed and who worked at AHS during WWII had any knowledge of African-Americans

in professional positions; most did not even recall

seeing African-Americans on the campus. 

* * * *

W illiam Coffee receiving the Meritorious Service

Award from General W. Preston Corderman, Chief,

ASA, 

3 April 1946
Page 15

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the

Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended

across the Continent. Behind that line lie

all the capitals of the ancient states of

Central and Eastern Europe. – Winston

Churchill at Westminster College, Fulton,

Missouri, 5 March 1946

The Soviet Union – the military intentions of its

leaders, the success of its espionage efforts, the status of its advanced weapons and nuclear programs,

and the globalization of its political ideology – dominated the American national psyche in the decades

after WWII. The intelligence needs of the U.S. and

its closest allies translated into manpower requirements which, in the late 1940s to mid-1950s, were

particularly acute at the GG-2/GG-3 level. Hiring of

African-Americans rose dramatically, and by the

early 1950s large concentrations existed in two

areas of the Operations organization: machine processing (specifically, equipment operations and

keypunch) and Russian plaintext processing.

Among people of color, these areas came to be

known as “Little Africa,” “the hole,” “the plantation,” and “the snakepit.”

* * * *

William Friedman is credited with introducing

IBM equipment to the Signals Intelligence Service

in 1935 for the compilation of War Department

codes. The initial acquisition consisted of a key

punch (to record the plain text that was to be

encoded and the corresponding code groups); a

sorter (to randomize the punched cards); and a

printing tabulator. Not long after the machines

were acquired, however, their utility to cryptanalysis was recognized. They became the tools to

manipulate intercepted code groups and to perform

exhaustive searches, frequency counts, comparisons, and statistical computations in the effort to

uncover the underlying plain text. Initially

Friedman’s cryptanalysts operated the equipment,

but this proved inefficient as additional equipment

and personnel were acquired. In October 1939, two

full-time experienced key punchers were hired, and

the policy of training cryptanalysts on IBM equipment was discontinued. In December 1939, Ulrich

Kropfl, a tabulating equipment operator from the

new Social Security Administration, joined SIS and

became the first chief of the machine section.36

One of the early members of the new section

was Norm Willis, a 1942 graduate of McKinley High

School in Washington, D.C., who entered on duty as

a tabulating equipment operator. Interviewed in

1999, Mr. Willis described his early assignment

sorting Japanese army traffic and the section’s

racial composition during the war years:

There were intercept operators in the

field, in Europe and in the Pacific, and they

would intercept messages and would write

them by hand. They then would somehow

ship them back to the States, so you know

by the time they arrived here, it was not

time sensitive. The messages would come

in, and we had a group of key punch operators, mostly girls, but some military men

as well, who would put them in card form.

Then they would be edited, and once they

were accurate they might be listed or

batched in certain ways, according to the

needs of the intelligence analyst. I was an

operator on the midnight shift. We handled Japanese traffic, and I was responsible for making sure that the cards were

accurately punched from the traffic. For

most of WWII, that is what I did, and the

only black was a man named Bill Williams.

He was custodial, but he also worked in

Chapter 4 – 1947: Changing Demographics
Page 16

supply. In other words, to punch cards,

you had to buy these sixty-pound cartons

of cards, five boxes of two thousand cards

each. IBM would ship them in, and Bill

Williams handled the unloading and loading, but there were no blacks at all in the

machine section during WWII.37

Delores Schommer, one of the Agency’s first key

punch operators, was initially hired in 1936 for the

new Social Security Administration. It was there

that she met Ulrich Kropfl, whom William

Friedman selected in 1939 to head up the machine

section. Upon his recommendation, in July 1940

Mrs. Schommer transferred to SIS as a key punch

operator. Although wartime requirements necessitated additional personnel, she too indicated the

machine section was not integrated until later in

the 1940s.

Before the war, we had huge tabulators,

and men like Sam Snyder, Larry Clark,

and Dr. Kullback, testing out this new

equipment to see what it could do.38 It was

all very new. I know Ulrich wanted to get

another tabulator, and he talked with

General Akin about this. General Akin

kinda huffed and finally ordered it, but it

took quite a while to get it. Soon, I had

three girls working with me. We decided to

hire some more, so we hired five or six

more who came to work at night. We were

in a little room, probably not much bigger

than 16 feet x 18 feet. Then the war came,

and we needed to expand. They bought

Arlington Hall, and built two buildings – A

Building and B Building – and we moved

on Thanksgiving Day of ‘42. I’m not sure

when the first blacks came, but Geneva

Arthur was one of the early ones.39

The year that the machine section first

employed African-Americans cannot be pinpointed. Though both Norm Willis and Delores

Schommer claim there were no blacks in the unit

during WWII, Mr. Willis recalls seeing, “sometime

early on,” Alton B. Dunkinson, a technician who

would “help in the development of special hardware that you connected to the IBM equipment.”

According to David Shepard, who arrived at SIS in

1944, “Tony” Dunkinson, once a signal man for the

New York City subway system, was already there.

His career with the agency, however, lasted only

into the early fifties when he left to become an engineer at a systems development company formed by

Mr. Shepard.40

The major influx of African-Americans into the

machine section seems to have begun in 1947.

Geneva Arthur, remembered by Delores Schommer

as “one of the early ones,” entered on duty, with

several others, in December of that year.

Geneva Arthur entered on duty at the Army

Security Agency in December 1947 and spent her

entire career in the key punch unit, retiring in 1973

as a section head. According to her, the key punch

unit was always integrated, whites and AfricanAmericans holding both supervisory and nonsupervisory positions.41 Documentation on the changes

in the demographics of the machine section is

unavailable, but most retirees formerly assigned

there supported this view only with qualification.

They claim that while in the mid- to late 1940s the

organization was integrated, by the mid-fifties civilian African-Americans overwhelmingly dominated

“Most of the civilians that were hired during

World War II were from North Carolina,

Virginia, and the South. These were white, a lot

of them young girls right out of high school.

They did not have a history of eating with people of color. I don’t know when it was, but one

day, in the cafeteria there was one of the other

white workers eating lunch with [a black man].

That took nerve in that time. It took courage for

the guy who was doing that because of the

social environment.” 

Norm Willis, 11 January 1999
Page 17

in nonsupervisory positions in the key punch and

tabulating equipment units. Repeatedly, the perception was voiced that the relatively few white

civilians who were assigned to entry-level positions

in the organization eventually were either promoted to successively higher supervisory positions or

transferred to other parts of the Agency. 

* * * *

The ASA effort to exploit Russian plaintext traffic began in 1946 with the part-time assignment of

several linguists to the target. At that time, however, the Agency’s emphasis was on the translation of

encrypted messages, and the employment of scarce

Russian linguists on plain text was judged to be

unwarranted. Later, in May 1947, the effort was

revised at the Pentagon. Individuals without security clearances or with partial clearances would sift

through volumes of messages and translate all or

parts of those determined to have intelligence

value. Placed in charge of this group was Jacob

Gurin, an ASA Russian linguist who had immigrated to the U.S. with his parents at the age of three. A

graduate of New York University, “Jack” grew up in

a Russian-speaking household and spoke the

language fluently.

During the war,

he served as a

Japanese linguist for the

U.S. Army,

and after

discharge,

applied to

the Army

Security

Agency. In

1946, nativespeaking

Russian language ability

was a valuable

and rare commodity. Security

concerns arising from his birthplace were resolved,

and he joined the organization as a Russian linguist. Within months of his entry on duty, he engineered a revolutionary approach to the exploitation

and reporting of Russian plaintext communications.42

From the Agency’s inception under William

Friedman, its business was the breaking of codes

and ciphers. Once the underlying text was revealed,

individual messages were translated, and, after a

reporting mission was established, selected ones

were published on 3” x 5” cards. While individual

decrypted messages could be extremely valuable,

plaintext messages were most often preformatted

status reports that were insignificant when considered singly. Jack Gurin was convinced that if these

messages were assembled and analyzed in the

aggregate, they could yield valuable information on

Soviet defense capabilities. Initially, three linguists

were assigned to him plus a writer/editor. Their

task was to select messages that qualified for immediate translation and publication or which could be

used in a research report on a subject of interest.

Much of the intercept data was passed to the linguists by a group of processing personnel who

would provide page print-outs of material that had

been sent to the agency on tape. The tape conversion process involved running a paper tape of

radioprinter signals through a machine (the CXCO

tape printer) which read coded perforations and

printed the corresponding Cyrillic characters. It

was a repetitive, manual task requiring minimal

cognitive skills and initially was accomplished by a

small number of whites, who gradually transferred

out of the positions. According to Agency retiree

Dave Bryant, he and fourteen other AfricanAmericans transferred to ASA from the Census

Bureau in 1947. They were assigned to this traffic

processing unit, and from this small cadre of black

communications clerks grew a large, essentially allblack division in the Operations Directorate of

NSA.43

Jacob Gurin 

(later photo)
Page 18

David Bryant, one of the original

African-American employees in the

Russian plaintext traffic processing unit.

(later photo)

CXCO tape printer
Page 19

The development and expansion of the traffic

processing unit are inextricably linked to the

tremendous dependence on the exploitation of

Russian communications for intelligence following

Black Friday. That day, 25 August 1948, the chief of

the Soviet General Staff declared that “the transmission of . . . messages is permitted only by landline.” Within weeks, Soviet communications systems that had been successfully exploited since

1945 went off the air. The series of communications

changes that began in November 1947 and culminated on Black Friday were catastrophic. Out of this

devastation, Russian plaintext communications

emerged as the critical provider of intelligence on

our primary Cold War adversary.44

Eighteen months after Black Friday, in March

1950, the chairman of the United States

Communication Intelligence Board (USCIB)

Intelligence Committee wrote that Soviet plaintext

traffic could, at least partially, fulfill two vital intelligence requirements: (a) Soviet intentions to make

war and (b) Soviet capabilities to make war.

Accordingly, the Armed Forces Security Agency

(AFSA), as the agency was then named, was

requested to accomplish complete processing of

traffic.45 By July 1950, over a million messages a

month were being forwarded to AFSA for processing and exploitation. The plaintext exploitation unit

stood at 170, and it was projected that by April

1952, the volume of messages requiring processing

would nearly double, requiring an additional 350

people.46 During the 1950/1951 time frame,

Russian plain text was nearing its zenith in terms of

intelligence priorities, collection resources, and

personnel; and AFSA-213,47 the all-black traffic

processing branch (later a division) that came to be

known as “the snakepit,” “the plantation,” and “the

black hole of Calcutta,” was in full operation.

All Russian plaintext traffic forwarded to

Arlington Hall Station from U.S. sources was

received in AFSA-213. In mid-1950, a paper delivered to Captain Mason (AFSA-02, Chief of

Operations), entitled the “Russian Plain Text

Problem,” placed the AFSA-213 manning at 98 and

projected the 1952 personnel requirement at 218.

The paper also supplied a concise, descriptive

account of the work performed in the traffic processing branch:

The incoming material is of two types,

printed messages and perforated radio

printer tapes. The printed messages result

from the collection of either . . . radio

printer communications that were intercepted using standard teletype equipment

or . . . morse transmissions that were transcribed from undulator tape recordings.

. . . radio printer communications are

recorded and printed on perforated teletype tapes in the field, and the tapes are

forwarded to AFSA for processing.

Once the material arrives in the Traffic

Division, the employees scan it for key

words, addresses, and signatures.

Messages that meet the selection criteria

are assigned a two-digit routing number

that separates them into homogenous

groupings. Messages that are on tape are

sent to the tape printing section for conversion to hard-copy. The selected, printed

messages are then stamped with a one-up

serial number and microfilmed. In the

final step, they are sent to the sections of

the plain text branch, according to the twodigit routing number assigned during the

initial scanning process.48

Chapter 5 – 1948-1951: The Dark Side of the Golden Age of 

Russian Plain Text
Page 20

William Jones worked in AFSA-213 from

November 1951 until mid-1955. In an oral interview

thirty years later, he provided a remarkably similar

account of the process, but added the human

dimension.

After I was hired and cleared, I was

marched down to the first wing, first floor

of A Building and escorted into what was a

huge wing, and in there was nothing but

black people, except there was an Air

Force major in charge of that operation.

When you walked in the door, there were

long tables, at least twenty feet long, perhaps three and a half/four feet wide, lined

up against the wall on both sides of the

wing with an aisle down the middle. On

each of those tables there must have been

eight, possibly ten machines that were like

typewriters, except they were printers.

They had a little device on the side of them

that would read a tape; this was five-level

punch paper tape. You put the tape in the

reader, start the machine, and the

machine would type what was on the tape

in hard copy. We only had to type a heading on the page which consisted of basic

data like the TO and FROM, the intercept

station designator, and the date and time

of intercept.

Well, it didn’t take long to pick that operation up. I knew that somewhere people

were selecting messages, and I began to

wonder how did they pick some messages

and throw some away. So as a result, I

enrolled in a Russian course at the

Department of Agriculture. Soon, I was off

the machines and pulling tapes, based on

keywords. Once we pulled the tapes, we

bundled them in categories and put numbers on them that designated subject

areas. But it was a little more complicated

than that. Many times the print on the tape

was not clear, so we had to read the

punched holes. I think what we did was

critical because we threw away what we

thought wasn’t any good. If there was anything good in there, it was lost – it went in

the burn bag. We were called ‘scanners’. 

We heard nothing about career choices

or moving to any other place. I went to the

Department of Agriculture to take Russian

because I didn’t know they would teach it

here. There were people in that place

[AFSA-213] who had degrees, had teaching

experience, and a bunch of them had

advanced degrees. It was kind of revealing,

I think, to ultimately find out that most of

the black people who came to the Agency,

no matter the kind of experience they had,

wound up there.49

* * * *

The grade range in AFSA-213 was low. Many,

including Dick Hill, who retired as a GG-15 division

chief, attested to the fact that new employees

entered as a GG-2 or GG-3, despite having a college

degree or work experience. 

I was working at the Bureau of Engraving

and Printing and had a master’s degree in

psychology from Howard University. I was

looking for better employment, and I submitted an application to the agency. They

were hiring, and I was told that I was qualified to come in as a GS-7; however, they

didn’t have any GS-7 openings at the time.

I called back; they still didn’t have any

openings at a 7 level, but they had some

GS-5 openings. I could come in as a 5. I

decided that if I was qualified for a GS-7,

there was no sense coming in as a 5, and I

would wait a little longer. Well, I called

and called, and I finally got to the point

where I really wanted to get away from the

bureau. When I called again, they didn’t

have any GS-5 openings; they offered me a

GS-3, and I accepted. I was hired and sent

to whatever that number was – 294 or
Page 21

what not. It was entirely black with the

exception of the division chief. The deputy

division chief was a black named Jenkins

Johnson. The division chief was an army

captain. Not long after I arrived, my section was audited, and all of the jobs were

downgraded to GS-2.50

Interviewees who worked in AFSA-213 singled

out the tape to hard-copy conversion process as

mind-numbing and document stamping as both

boring and dirty. Further, they revealed that they

worked under a production quota system. Scanners

were required to review a minimum of 300 messages per day, and page printers were required to

print a minimum number of messages. If an

employee met the daily quota, his/her name was

posted on a board with a star. Monthly statistics

were kept, and employees who regularly failed to

meet their quotas were counseled.51 This system of

recognition/discipline was taken quite seriously by

the subordinates, occasionally with most interesting consequences:

Boxes of tapes would come in [to AFSA213], and the only whites you would see

were service guys that would bring them

in. It was sort of funny, because some of

the people that had been scanning for

years knew the best tapes, the best links.

We were working on quotas, and you

wouldn’t want to get tapes from the bad

links because you wouldn’t get anything

from them. One lady almost fell in the box

of tapes trying to get the best ones.52

The monotony of the tasks in AFSA-213 and the

underutilization of people were recognized as early

as 1948. According to Jack Gurin, founder of the

Russian plaintext exploitation branch, it was he

who initiated the scanning task in the traffic processing branch. Overwhelmed by the monthly traffic volumes, he sought to reduce the workload on

his translators and use them more efficiently.

There was this outfit that took these

paper tapes where you couldn’t read them

unless you could read these little holes.

You put them into this machine. You make

sure it’s all lined up properly, and you

press the ‘on’ button. It starts typing and

sheets of printed paper would come out.

The equipment was called ‘Cxco’. I don’t

remember what that stands for. These people, as I remembered, were all college

graduates; all black and all college graduates. Their job was to sit there and watch

the machine and make sure it didn’t jam. If

it jammed, you stopped the machine and

pulled out the keys or fixed the paper.

Then you started it again and waited for

the next jam. That was their job. I looked at

them and said this is ridiculous. They were

college graduates. They all have some kind

of brains. Since the traffic consisted of official messages, they always had the

address. I took all the people in this outfit

and taught them the elements of Russian,

at least the alphabet. I gave them a sheet

that said, this [unit] is number 27, this

[unit] is number 29, and so forth. So what

they did, as the stuff was coming off, they

looked at it and looked at the address and

put down the correct number. It wasn’t

terribly challenging, but it was a lot better

than what they were doing before.53

Low salaries, monotonous, routine tasks, and

limited opportunities for advancement made for

poor morale. In the summer of 1953, the Agency’s

managers sought to mitigate the situation by piping

in music.

Equipment for the reception of music is

being installed in the rear of wing 2, first

floor, A Building. Since this is considered

an area of low personnel morale as a result

of recent downgrading and the monotonous work, it is believed the music will be

well received.54
Page 22

The music system was never installed. The documentation contains no explanation, but the proposal may have been abandoned because it was

impractical. The audio would have had to have been

at an ear-piercing level to be heard over the din of a

hundred teletype machines. 

* * * *

Despite uncomfortable working conditions and

dim prospects for change, AFSA-213 employees

delivered large quantities of messages to the

Russian plaintext exploitation branch every month.

Undoubtedly, most were

motivated by the

simple need to

keep their

employment.

Iris Carr,

however,

expressed

other contributors to

her work

ethic – pride

of accomplishment

and, despite

the racial discrimination she

experienced,

patriotism. At

the age of thirty-three, she

was older than most of the employees in AFSA-213

and was cited by many as being an unheralded hero

of the period – one who worked diligently and

sought to motivate others. 

When I graduated from Prairie View

College [Prairie View, Texas] in 1932, I

received a Bachelor of Science degree with

a double major, English and math. I

taught school, first in a little town, Horton, 

Texas, and then in Austin. In Texas at that

time, the highest level of education you

could get was a B.S. or a B.A. degree. There

were no other provisions for minorities.

You could not go to the University of Texas

or to any of the other white colleges. The

state of Texas would pay your transportation to go to another school because teachers were required to go to school every

three years, but I went every year because

I wanted to get another degree. So, several

summers I drove from Texas to New York

to take courses at Columbia University.

In 1944, I left Austin for Washington

because they would not allow blacks to pay

into the teacher’s retirement fund. I could

see myself as a little old lady of sixty or

seventy with no income and not able to

work. I knew I had to get someplace where

I could earn retirement benefits. I also

wanted to do something to help out in the

war.

My first job was at the Office of the

Recorder of Deeds. Then, after the war,

schools were opened for veterans and a

black electronics school [Hilltop Radio

Electronics Institute] on U Street needed

teachers. I graded math papers and taught

business English in this school for

radiomen and electricians. While I was

working there I met Bernice Mills, who

was working at the agency. She took my

application in and shortly after that I was

called for an interview.

The work [in AFSA-213] was rather boring, because it was the same thing every

day. But if you knew what you were doing

and what you were looking for, it was more

interesting. We learned to read a Russian

dictionary, and we could pick up bits of

information on different tapes. From that, 

Iris Carr
Page 23

you would get an idea of what was going

on. If something was completely irrelevant, we would throw it away, but I

explained to people that they had to be

very careful to give the analysts all the

messages we possibly can, because the

work was important. . . . Most of the people

I worked with were younger than I, and I

felt an obligation to be as good as I could be

to help them to be good.55

Leaders of AFSA-213, ca. 1951. 

(Photo courtesy of Clarence Pearson)
Page 24

The AFSA mission . . . is to provide

authentic information for planners and

policy makers within the National Military

Establishment and other Governmental

Agencies having membership on the

United States Communication Intelligence

Board to apprise them of the realities of

the international situation, war-making

capabilities, vulnerabilities and intentions

of foreign countries, and to eliminate the

element of surprise from an act of aggression by another country. – Requirements for

Conduct of an Optimum Communication

Intelligence Program, 14 July 195056

When armed conflict began in Korea in June

1950, 390 employees (military and civilian) were

assigned to the Machine Division.57 Driven by the

Agency’s operating philosophy that exhaustive collection and processing of Russian communications

and extensive coverage of the communications of

Communist China were required to execute its mission, that number rose to 573 in March 1951.58

Cryptanalysis could be accomplished only through

machine manipulation of the data, and as interception capabilities expanded, appropriate increases in

processing personnel were required. Hiring of

African-Americans to become tabulating equipment operators or key punchers exploded in the

early 1950s.

Local recruitment of operators and card punchers was intensive. In October 1951, the Agency’s

personnel office reported that it had placed

recruiters in the U.S. Employment Service and in

the Department of the Army Office of Employee

Coordination, which allowed them to interview a

steady flow of applicants.59 They had contacts at the

Civil Service Commission, and recruiters worked to

acquire applicants from other government agencies, such as the Veterans Administration, Census

Bureau, and Government Accounting Office, that

announced reductions in force (RIFs). Usually

hired as GG-2s, the lowest pay scale, operators and

card punchers frequently requested transfers out of

the machine division soon after they reported for

duty. Considering the physical demands of the jobs,

a significant level of dissatisfaction is not surprising:

– Tabulating machine operators will be

required to stand for long periods and to

lift and carry trays of cards weighing

approximately 20 pounds.

– Keypunch machine operators will be

required to sit at assigned machines for

long periods.

– Both tabulating and keypunch machine

operators, GS-5 and below, will be

required to work rotating shifts in a noisy

atmosphere due to the machines.

In most instances the skills and knowledge acquired in NSA-222 [IBM Branch]

are not easily adapted to work in other

branches, therefore time and money are

Chapter 6 – 1948-1951: Wanted – Key Punchers and Equipment

Operators

“I detested one thing about MPRO. The

women had to do what we did and that was

handle those boxes of cards and paper. I never

liked that. The boxes were delivered to the

area and were put in a corner. You had to pick

them up, and it was heavy and hard lifting.

Most of the time the fellows would help the

girls.” 

Maurice Bush, 12 April 1999
Page 25

expended unnecessarily when personnel

request a transfer.60

Transfers were rare, and opportunities for

advancement within the organization were limited,

according to Maebelle Holmes, a college graduate

who entered the Agency in 1949: 

I had just graduated from A&T and

applied for a job. It seems that they were

only accepting applications for key punch

operator. I took the [typing] test, but didn’t

pass – not fast enough. But they notified

me that I could get a job in the IBM section,

wiring boards. I was in the 8th wing. There

were more blacks than whites, but key

punch was virtually all black except for the

supervisors. They started me as a GG-2. I

was promoted to GG-3, then GG-4 and

when I got be a GG-5, I became a first line

supervisor. I had about ten people working

for me. I tried to get out. Openings would

be posted on the board, and I would apply

for something, but it was almost unknown

to transfer. At that time, it seems like the

whites would come in with no degree and

in a little while they would move on up.

They would go to lunch with the bosses,

and would move right on up – not necessarily in the section in which they trained,

but in another section across the aisle or in

a different wing.

I liked my job, but I felt that they weren’t

always fair to us.61

Novella Carr, who entered the Agency in

January 1951, spent the first twenty years of her

career in the machine processing (MPRO) organization. She talked not only about the lack of mobility, but also about the negative effect security had

on the flow of information about job opportunities:

I came to the Agency in January 1951

from the Veterans Administration where I

was being riffed. I was in the 8th wing.

MPRO was divided into three wings. The

6th wing was the key punch operators and

the 7th and 8th wings were tabulating

equipment operators. When I went into

the IBM [tabulating equipment] section it

was 90 percent black, and the whites that

were in there were not educated. All the

supervisors were white. There were some

black team captains and most of them had

some college. And all the key punchers

were black. Security was very tight. If you

didn’t have a need to know, you couldn’t go

into another section. We got to know some

of the girls in key punch because the wings

were open in the back and they would walk

through our section to go to lunch. And

you might know somebody in 213, which

was all black, because you caught a ride

with someone. So you never heard about

vacancies. You didn’t get transferred. You

just stayed. Supervisors would change,

and they would reorganize, but you just

stayed.62

* * * *

Few memories of Arlington Hall Station are

more vivid than those of the stifling heat. In that

time, before air conditioning, windows were left

open and huge fans were used to circulate the hot,

humid air. In climate, as well as culture, the Agency

was a southern institution. That image is evoked

with remarkable clarity by the words of Dorothy

Amis, who began a thirty-four-year career in the

Agency as a tabulating equipment operator.

Arlington Hall was a beautiful place. You

see it was a former school, and they had

beautiful landscaped gardens in front of

the headquarters building. If it got too hot

in the evening, from 4 to 12, well, you could

go out and sit on the benches in the park

area. And if it didn’t cool off, they would

dismiss you for the evening. But in the

morning, it would start getting hot around

10. We would work right by the window,
Page 26

and all the windows were open. Novella

was one of those people singing all of the

time – singing and working on the

machines. It was just a different environment.63

Front view of Arlington Hall Station headquarters building

Garden in rear of Arlington Hall Station headquarters building
Page 27

It is the settled policy of the United States

Government that there shall be no discrimination in Federal employment or in

providing Federal services and facilities. –

From the text of President Truman’s message to

Congress on civil rights, 3 February 1948, New

York Times.

It is hereby declared to be the policy of

the President that there shall be equality of

treatment and opportunity for all persons

in the armed services without regard to

race, color, religion or national origin. –

From Executive Order 9981, signed by Harry S.

Truman, 26 July 1948.

Despite President Truman’s call for fair

employment in the federal government and the

issuance of Executive Order 9981, the Russian

plaintext traffic processing unit was essentially all

black well into the 1950s, and African-Americans

continued to predominate at the lower salary

grades in the machine division. The standout

exception to these realities was the hiring and

placement of African-Americans by the Research

and Development organization at AHS in 1948.

During a period when the New York Times was

accusing the Army of trying “to preserve a pattern

of bigotry which caricatures the democratic cause

in every corner of the world,” 64 the Agency hired its

first black engineer, Carroll Robinson. He was

assigned to the development team charged with

building the Agency’s first in-house developed digital computer, ABNER 1. Mitchell Brown and

Charles Matthews, graduates of Hilltop RadioElectronics Institute, a black-owned electronics

school open to African-Americans in Washington,

D. C., were also hired in 1948. With the title of engiCarroll Robinson, the first

African-American engineer at

NSA

Charles Matthews

(later photo)

Mitchell Brown

Chapter 7 – 1948: R&D – A Different Kind of Place
Page 28

neering technician, they too were placed in meaningful positions, working side by side with their

white counterparts. By all accounts, the environment for African-Americans in the Research and

Development organization was generally positive

and conducive to professional growth. Carroll

Robinson became the Agency’s first AfricanAmerican senior executive, retiring from federal

service as an office chief. Mitchell Brown became an

expert on technical devices and ended his career as

test director of the Digital Voice Processor

Consortium Test Program, which led to the

selection of equipment for the secure telephone

unit (STU) II. Charles Matthews was a project

engineer on ABNER 1 (the first in-house

designed digital computer), then SOLO, the

Agency’s first transistorized special-purpose

computer. He went on to hold a succession of

supervisory and middle-management positions

before retiring in 1988. Interviewed in 1999,

Mr. Matthews provided a glimpse of the

African-American experience in the 1940s:

I was born in Washington and went to

Dunbar High School. Toward the end of

WWII, I went into the Army

(Quartermaster Corps). I stayed in the

Army about nine months, then when I

returned I took advantage of the GI bill

and took technical courses at Hilltop

Radio-Electronics Institute. It was more or

less a black counterpart to the Capital

Radio Institute. The Agency was filled with

graduates from Hilltop. I don’t know how

we found out about the Agency. To my

knowledge the Agency didn’t recruit, but I Hilltop Radio-Electronics Institute

“[After the war] I had to find a job. They didn’t give electrical type work to blacks here, so I went

on unemployment. As a veteran, I got 52-20. You got $20 for 52 months or $52 a month for 20

months, something like that. I would go to the VA every month to sign for my check, and eventually

I met a guy there, Mr. Hollywood, and told him that I was looking for work and my classification was

electrician. He said that he doubted that I could find any work as an electrician, but there was a guy

who repaired radios who might accept an apprentice. This was a black engineer, Mr. Gresham, who

worked at the Bureau of Standards on very classified stuff. He was very well qualified and he took

me on. When I went back to VA for my 52-20 check and told Mr. Hollywood that I had a job as an

apprentice, he said that if this man would open a school, he could send him all the personnel that he

needs. This was the founding of Hilltop Radio, and I was the first student.” 

Mitchell Brown, 24 June 1999
Page 29

and two others decided to apply. I was so

anxious to get a job, I kept bugging them,

and I was the first to get hired. That was in

1948. I was hired as an engineering technician, Grade 9 (subprofessional). It was a

good start, but whites that were hired as

engineering technicians with comparable

experiences and sometimes less training

were always hired at a higher grade than

we were. Even though you were hired at a

grade lower than your white counterpart,

it was still a job, and it probably was a pretty good salary at the time – $2,100. Most of

the blacks in the Agency at that time were

making $1,440, and in the early ‘40s to

mid- ‘40s most blacks in the government

were in the custodial force or were messengers. Even with a college education,

that was the extent of employment. Then

they started hiring them as clerks. The best

jobs for blacks at that time were with the

post office.

Initially I started off tearing down equipment. Then the branch that I was in was

tasked to work on the first digital computer, ABNER 1. We built ABNER 1. I wasn’t

the only black in the organization. Carroll

Robinson was there. He was an engineer

and was hired shortly after I was hired. W.

C. Syphax, a black engineer was in there;

he built the power supply factory. But the

majority of the organization was white,

and they reacted to us very well. I never

had any negative experiences.

The Research and Development organization of

the late 1940s to mid-1950s was not free of racism.

In his interview, Mr. Brown supported the claim

that white engineering technicians with less or

comparable qualifications were hired at higher

grades. Carroll Robinson noted that for many years

blacks were not sent to overseas locations because

of the commonly held belief that they would be

unwelcome in the host country. These blots on the

record notwithstanding, R & D in 1948 stands as a

beacon of light in an otherwise dismal period in the

Agency’s history of black employment.65
Page 30

A National Agency Check is a good indicator of a person’s past life, but is of no

assistance in determining that person’s

present security risk. The use of a polygraph for this purpose would reduce materially the security risk involved in granting

interim clearances. . . . A recommendation

to allow the use of this machine is now

pending before the director. – AFSA-16

[Security Control Division] Monthly Operational

Report, 12 January 1951

Authority for the purchase of two Keeler

polygraph machines and the employment

and training of five persons was granted by

DirAFSA. – AFSA-16 Monthly Operational

Summary, January 1951

Effort is being made to take advantage of

a release of keypunch operators from the

Bureau of the Census. Ninety keypunch

applicants will be interviewed on 5 April

1951. – AFSA-02 Semi-Monthly Report for 16-31

March 1951 

The confluence of increased hiring of AfricanAmericans, primarily for low-wage jobs in machine

processing and traffic processing, and the introduction of the polygraph as part of the security screening process resulted in a crack in the all-white

Security Division of AFSA. Raymond Weir, Jr., a

D.C. schoolteacher, had served in the Army in

WWII under Captain

Fred Hazard. In

November 1951,

now Major

Hazard, a

branch chief

in the

Security

Division,

recruited

and hired

Mr. Weir

as a polygraph

examiner –

the black

polygrapher

for black

applicants.

He was a

trailblazer,

becoming the

first AfricanAmerican polygraph examiner in the United States,

and arguably the first African-American in the profession anywhere in the world. 

Raymond Weir,Jr., the first

African-American 

polygraph examiner (later

photo)

“Notwithstanding the current personnel strength position of the Agency, the conclusion has

been reached in this Division that to handle the employment problems of the Vint Hill Farms operation, the interim operation at the new site and the certain turnover of personnel which is anticipated at the time of the main move to Fort Meade,66 we must at this time hire three additional interrogation technicians. . . . The three individuals hired should be one female and two white male technicians. Experience indicates that the requirement for an additional colored technician does not

exist.”

Monthly Operational Summary, Security Division, March 1953; NSA/CSS Archives Accession No. 42468

Chapter 8 – 1951: Color Barrier Broken in Security Division
Page 31

Nevertheless, the Security Division – populated

by individuals with investigative or law enforcement training, including FBI veteran S. Wesley

Reynolds as the chief from May 1953 to December

1961 – was viewed by many as the most conservative Agency organization.67 For years Ray Weir was

restricted to interviewing only blacks at NSA. Not

until the 1960s, and then only in careful stages, was

he assigned a demographic cross-section of the

Agency’s applicants. 

In December 1998, long after retiring as chief of

the Investigations Division (M54), Mr. Weir

recounted his story, including an amusing anecdote

that illustrates the incongruity of locating an arm of

the supersecret, intelligence agency in the heart of

the black community:

I was directly recruited into a program

I’d never heard of. I was a schoolteacher in

Washington at the time and the guy who

did the recruiting was Major Fred Hazard,

who was in Security. They wanted a black

polygraph examiner. They were processing a lot of women at the time, key punch

operators, most of whom were black, and

somebody decided that it might be good if

they had a black person be a polygrapher.

Their problem was there were no black

polygraph examiners anywhere. The

Agency hired me and sent me to school in

Chicago.68 I graduated in, I guess,

December 1951.

When I came, there were no blacks in

Security and there were none in

Personnel.69 Personnel and Security were

collocated because we had to process their

applicants. We were in the old Post Office

building on “U” Street, and the Agency was

trying to be very inconspicuous in the middle of a black neighborhood. They were

trying to be inconspicuous, but they

deposited the training school there, where

all these white kids were coming. My boss,

Fred Hazard, the guy that hired me, was a

former L.A. police officer, and he went

around to a barber shop on U street to get

his hair cut. He came back and said that

when he went in the barber shop was full,

but by the time he was finished, he and the

barber were the only ones left. I told him

that he must realize that the barber shop

was the place where people met their

neighbors for the day and heard the news,

and he was in the way. Seriously, he looked

like a cop, and so they made themselves

scarce. Anyway, Security thought it was

just wonderful that they were going to

have a black person. But, of course, after I

started to work for them, the problem was

what did I do? Well, I was hired to test

these black people who were being hired

as key punch operators. I didn’t mind; they

were paying me the same salary, as if I

were testing everybody. But there were

days they weren’t hiring [blacks] and I had

nothing to do.

Well, I didn’t think that would last. It

finally came about that they had more people to interview than we had examiners,

including me. I did work charts and that

sort of thing to stay busy, but one day they

said, ‘Ray, do you think you could handle

one of these white people?’ I said, ‘yes’.

After the first one or two came in and I had

no problem, it was understood that I could

interview white men, preferably from the

north. Then, that fell by the wayside a little

bit later on, and I could interview white

men from the south. [Eventually] there

was nothing but young white girls to be

interviewed, and my boss said, ‘Ray, you

think you can take one of these women?’

and I said, ‘yes’. I suppose this was in the

1960s, late ’60s. This was the kind of thing

that couldn’t be rushed.

What the Agency wanted, what my supervisors wanted was to make sure that [whoever] I interviewed would not have a legit-
Page 32

imate complaint about [the interview]. I

don’t think that most of what I ran into in

the Agency was prejudice, per se. There

was an unwillingness to do things which

would create problems, an unwillingness

to do things which would cause any kind of

publicity.

Ray Weir rose to the top of his profession,

becoming the first African-American president of

the American Polygraph Association and a recognized industry expert who testified before the

United States Senate Ethics Committee in its 1979

financial misconduct investigation of Senator

Herman Talmadge (D-Ga).70
Page 33

During the 1940s the Office of Operations probably consistently followed the military model, i.e.,

all black functional units were normally formed

within larger white organizations. Herman Phynes,

for example, was head of the commercial code section, which is believed to have remained a segregated unit until it folded (probably around 1950). Bill

Coffee, after leaving that section, supervised a

group of typists that transcribed automatic Morse

tapes. It is doubtful that this was a mixed group. An

indication of the personal feelings and controversy

that might have surrounded these black units is

provided by a story told by Jack Gurin, chief of the

Russian plaintext exploitation branch in 1948.

According to Jack, the critical need for clerical support prompted him to approach the personnel officer with a request for additional typists. He was told

that “Code 1’s” were not available, but “Code 2’s”

could be obtained. The coding, it was explained,

was used on personnel records to designate race.

“Code 1” was white; “Code 2” was “colored.” On the

advice of the personnel officer, Gurin discussed

with the existing branch personnel the possibility of

bringing “Negroes” into the unit. One person, “a

very dignified, good-looking Alabama lady, objected, stating that she could not ‘sit next to a colored

person and work’.” Gurin relocated her desk, and

shortly thereafter an African-American man and

five women reported for duty.71 Once again, however, this was an all-black functional unit, in this case

a typing section, within a larger white organization.

Signs of change began to appear around 1950.

According to Dave Bryant, by that year he had

secured a transfer out of AFSA-213, the traffic processing branch, and was attending Russian language classes preparatory to working as a translator/analyst in the Russian plaintext branch. James

Pryde was another early escapee from “the plantation.” A former radio operator with the Tuskegee

airmen, he joined the Agency in 1950 and was initially assigned to

AFSA-213 and then

the mailroom.

Eventually,

however, it

was discovered that he

could read

automatic

Morse tapes,

and he was

transferred

to a signals

analysis section. A brilliant

career in Soviet

exploitation followed, first as an analyst, then as a manager

and as a senior executive.72

An equally significant development in the early

1950s was the hiring of African-Americans as entrylevel analysts and linguists and, for the first time,

their immediate integration into a target element,

bypassing the traffic processing division altogether.

Both Clarence Toomer and Arthur Davis graduated

from Howard University in 1950, Mr. Toomer as a

premed major, Mr. Davis with a concentration in

German. In 1951, Mr. Toomer was an accounting

clerk at the Census Bureau. Seeking a better position, he registered with the Labor Department as a

job applicant and was subsequently interviewed at

the Pentagon by a representative of the Department

of Defense, in reality someone from AFSA. He was

hired and entered on duty as a GS-4 cryptanalytic

aide. Art Davis, meanwhile, had responded to an

advertisement in the local newspaper for government linguists. He too joined the Agency in 1951

and was placed in an intensive Russian language

Chapter 9 – 1950-1954: Strides toward Broad Integration; 

Breakup of the Plantation

James Pryde 

(later photo)
Page 34

course. There he met his future sister-in-law,

Royolla Franklin Davis, a newly hired GS-5 Slavic

languages major from the University of California

at Berkeley. Following their initial training,

Clarence Toomer, Art Davis, and Royolla Franklin

Davis worked as junior professionals in major

Soviet exploitation divisions.73

Minnie McNeal, a native of Philadelphia,

worked at the Commerce Department in

Philadelphia, then the

Census Bureau in

Washington, after

graduating from

the Philadelphia

High School for

Girls. She also

never worked

in the allblack traffic

division or in

machine processing, but in

a 1999 interview, she

described

how she

narrowly

escaped

that fate:

I came to be interviewed at Arlington

Hall in 1951, and there was a woman. I

don’t know her name, but she was white

and she had also graduated from the

Philadelphia High School for Girls. She

recognized my class ring, and she not only

hired me, she vowed that I would not be

‘going down in the hole’. I didn’t have the

slightest idea what she was talking about. I

was just glad that I had a job. I went for

processing, and when I came back, she

assigned me upstairs. There was a group of

us [including] Barbara Barnes, Bess [nfi],

and Priscilla [nfi] [upstairs]. Most of the

blacks at that time were assigned to the

basement. We were [in] the first group

whose initial assignment was upstairs in

Operations in B Building. We were

assigned to the ‘U’ Street School, and we

stayed there until we got our clearances or

whatever. We came as a group to the

organization. We all worked under Sam

Hall on what they call ALLO [all other targets]. We were dispersed throughout the

place.74

Clarence Toomer, Art Davis, Royolla Franklin

Davis, and Minnie McNeal Kenny represented a

new breed of African-American employee in the

Operations Directorate. They were hired at the GS4 or GS-5 level, higher than the starting grades

offered to African-Americans in MPRO or Russian

plaintext traffic processing and equivalent to that

given most whites with comparable qualifications.

They were immediately placed in intensive training

programs to prepare them for professional careers

as a linguist or cryptanalyst, and upon completion

of training, they were assigned to substantive target

exploitation problems in a totally integrated environment. Not until well after they entered on duty

did they learn of the existence of AFSA-213. Fellow

Howard University graduates who were also hired

by the Agency, but sent to “the snakepit,” asked

Clarence Toomer how it happened that he was

assigned to an analytic organization. He did not

have an answer.

How were these young professional people of

color received in the workplace? The reports are

mixed. Most said that the work environment was, at

least superficially, generally free of racial overtones.

Their desks were intermixed with the others; they

occasionally ate lunch with their white colleagues in

the cafeteria; and advanced training in the core disciplines of the agency – language, traffic analysis,

and cryptanalysis – was readily obtained. But they

still experienced the occasional slight; racial slurs

were overheard in office conversation; and few

African-Americans were assigned to the organizaMinnie McNeal Kenny 

(later photo)
Page 35

tion working on the highest priority Russian systems. Tours at external locations were difficult to

come by, and as their careers progressed, there

appeared to be a “glass ceiling” that dictated, at the

executive level, that they were usually the “bridesmaid,” or deputy, seldom the bride.

The sense of an undercurrent of racial bias was

understandable. In the early fifties, not only were

the all-black enclaves still very much in operation

inside the Agency, but the external environment

was still essentially segregated. Eugene Becker, who

retired as the assistant deputy director for support

services in 1992, described aspects of Washington

life and the Armed Forces Security Agency when he

entered on duty in January 1952. 

I was struck by the fact that the bus that

I rode out to Arlington Hall was a segregated bus, because you transferred from the

District bus and trolley to Virginia buses at

the Federal Triangle. So I got on the bus

that took you to Arlington, and it was segregated. This was 1952. I remember being

struck by that. Having gone to school in the

district [George Washington University], I

knew that the movie theaters were segregated. I remember going to the Blue

Mirror. That was the club where you had

whites and Afro-Americans mixing. There

were not many of them. But I had never

given it a thought that the bus system in

Northern Virginia was still segregated.

Washington in those days was a Southern

town, totally dominated by Southern culture. 

The fellow that I talked to in my interview was clearly on the Russian problem. I

could decipher that much from his questions and the way he inquired about my

interests, but before my final clearance

came through, it was decided that I would

go in a class. I think there were five of us

that started in an Arabic class. I think that

it was the first one begun at the Agency.

We went to the school on U Street and

14th, the old post office building, for six

months. We had a great instructor. The

agency language department was excellent

at that time. We were in an all-white class,

as were most of the classes. I don’t remember seeing any Afro-Americans in the language classes at the time. There may have

been one or two that came in while we

were going through our six-month period,

but on reporting for work in January, I

don’t remember seeing any in the school. 

The Agency is a microcosm of the nation

at large. It was neither ahead of it or

behind it, and so it reflected, to a precise

degree, what was going on – what the

country was. The workforce had a liberal

cast, but seeded among the workforce

were plenty of racists. They were not hard

to find. That was palpable in the place. You

knew who they were.75

* * * *

“[In Washington], we went to our own

segregated areas. We went to our own

clubs, our own theaters. We had nice theaters, nice clubs, so you didn’t realize you

were being segregated that much. It wasn’t something that was bothersome. We

had the Lincoln theater, the Booker T.,

and in northeast [Washington], we had

the Strand theater.”

Carroll Robinson, 8 June 1999
Page 36

By the mid-fifties, there were even positive

changes within the traffic processing division (now

designated NSA-63) and the machine section. Carl

Dodd, an NSA-63 supervisor, drafted job descriptions for the other leaders in the organization which

eventually were approved and resulted in an

upgrade of all positions in the division.76 An interview with William Pinchback, however, revealed

that although measured progress had been

achieved by 1955, remnants of the old practices

were still very much evident. Mr. Pinchback, a former Army cryptologic operator and a 1950 graduate

of Storer College, entered on duty in 1954 as a GS-3

communications clerk in NSA-63. He was assigned

to a recently added branch that received, sorted,

and distributed hard copy messages (other than

Russian plaintext radioprinter). At that time, he

recalled, whites were occasionally hired and

assigned to his unit and that one, with only a high

school diploma, was brought in at a higher grade

than he. The system was slowly changing, however,

for this time, after the unfairness was brought to the

attention of the section chief, Mr. Pinchback was

promoted with less than the minimum time in

grade. The next year, Mr. Pinchback applied for an

advertised vacancy for a cryptanalytic aide. In a

then rare demonstration of equal opportunity in

competitive selection, he was interviewed and chosen for the job. Once in his new office, his supervisor confided that Pinchback’s army experience as a

code clerk, coupled with the scores that he achieved

on Agency aptitude tests, indicated that he would

be a good cryptanalyst. In the mid-fifties, though,

these facts and a college degree had not prevented a

black man from being hired as a GS-3 and being initially assigned to the mailroom in the National

Security Agency.77

Significant professional advancement for

African-Americans in the machine division during

the 1950s was limited, but James Bostic broke convention. In 1952 he left the Census Bureau and

joined AFSA as a tabulating equipment operator. A

gifted, largely self-taught programmer and systems

analyst, he became known as the “the Optimizer”

during a career that paralleled the agency’s

advancements in

computer technology. An early

tour in ABNER

1 operations

was followed

by assignment as a

programmer on

ABNER 2

and as a

software

designer for a

mass file storage and retrieval

system. Before

retiring in 1986,

he led the terminal subsystem

development

team for a

UNIX-based system.78

* * * *

The Research and Development organization,

already home to a number of African-American

males in engineering specialties, was also breaking

other barriers in 1951. Vera Shoffner Russell, an

African-American mathematician, reported to the

Agency that year and was assigned as a programmer on the early computers, ABNER 2, ATLAS 1,

and ATLAS 2. But the glass was only half full. She

believes, as do the vast majority of AfricanAmericans hired before 1954, that she started at a

lower grade than similarly qualified whites. Her

story also includes familiar references to the

employment options for educated blacks in the

1950s and to the harsh realities of segregation:

I graduated in 1951 from West Virginia

State College and took the test for math

majors at the U.S. Employment Center in

Charleston. I was a math and physics

James Bostic, 

The Optimizer 

(undated from the 1970s)
Page 37

major and had an offer to teach school in

Winston-Salem [North Carolina], but I

didn’t want to teach. At the time, however,

for the most part, when [blacks] came out

of college, you went to teach. Teaching and

preaching were the only things open.

Then, I got this letter to come to

Washington and take a physical at the

Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, I came into

the Agency, which was located at the time

on Arlington Boulevard. Now, my maiden

name was Shoffner, and West Virginia

is only three percent black, so my

notification of hiring, which I

saw in my personnel folder

years later, carried a ‘w’, and

they offered me a GS-5.

When I got here, they asked

if I would accept a 4. I took

it. I didn’t know anything

about 

GS ratings, and I really think they offered

me the job because they thought I was

white. As far as segregation goes, I did better in West Virginia, because Washington

would make you stand in carry-out lines.

But you didn’t have that in West Virginia.

The first year I came here, I sat up at the

drugstore counter down on Connecticut

Avenue, and I opened the compartment

and took a donut. And all the commotion!

All the waitresses were white, and they

kept going back and forth – passing me. I

wanted a cup of coffee, and nobody

gave me a cup. So, the guy from

behind the cigar counter came up

and told me, ‘We do not serve

colored people at the counter’.79

Vera Russell 

(later photo)

Page 39

I was so involved in what the Agency

stood for, and I wanted it to be better. I had

a feeling that things were going to get better. Everybody in there was not evil. I felt

that one day African-Americans would

break out of this box and be able to go into

reporting or personnel or other areas, if

they were prepared. I preached – be prepared. – Iris Carr, 30 June 1999

In 1956, as part of a major Agency reorganization, NSA-63, the successor to AFSA-213 and

AFSA-211 (another receipt and distribution unit

with a high percentage of African-Americans), was

dissolved. Many blacks, particularly the tape printers, moved to the new collection organization

where they continued to perform the tasks of

receiving, converting, and distributing intercept

data. A large number of the scanners, however, and

many who had worked on the staff of NSA-63 were

transferred to various divisions in GENS, Office of

General Studies, where they successfully pursued

careers as analysts, staff officers, and managers.

As a group, African-Americans suffered from

institutional racism at Arlington Hall Station. The

segregationist policies of the Army were strictly

enforced during the war years and, with the singular exception of Research and Development, were

generally followed for years thereafter. It was a

white-male-dominated environment that reflected

Army racial policies and southern attitudes.

African-Americans were routinely hired at lower

grades and shuffled into the most menial jobs. They

waited longer for fewer promotions and received

less training, which constrained their opportunities

to assume higher-paying positions. 

Early in the 1950s, as the Army’s long-standing

support for the “separate, but equal” doctrine

faded, barriers at AHS began to crumble. AfricanAmericans were hired not only as keypunchers and

clerks, but also as analytic aides, linguists, and

mathematicians. Some that had entered the Agency

through the all-black traffic processing division

successfully transferred to organizations that held

the promise for challenging, rewarding work in a

racially integrated environment. The contributions

of whites who acted as agents for change during this

period cannot be overlooked or underestimated.

African-Americans who started their careers during

the early fifties and rose to leadership positions

acknowledged the assistance and mentorship of

many Caucasians, several of whom, Melba

McCarthy, Benson Buffham, and Jack Gurin, were

interviewed for this manuscript. 

The dissolution of NSA-63 erased a visible and

notorious manifestation of racial separation, but

questions about equality in recruitment, hiring,

assignments, job training, awards, and promotions

continued to be raised for years afterwards. Many

of those who started at Arlington Hall Station

became the Agency’s social activists of the 1960s

and 1970s at its new location, Fort Meade,

Maryland. There, new chapters in the AfricanAmerican experience at NSA would be written.

Epilogue
Page 40

End Notes

1. Alan M. Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces during WWII: The Problem of Race Relations (Washington,

D.C., 1977), 11.

2. Bernard C. Nalty and Morris J. MacGregor, eds.,

Blacks in the Military: Essential Documents

(Wilmington, DE, 1981), 108.

3. Ulysses Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops

(Washington, D.C., 1994), 111-112.

4. Nalty and MacGregor, Blacks in the Military, 114-

115.

5. Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces during

WWII, 5.

6. Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, 45.

7. Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces during

WWII, 5.

8. Charles H. Wesley, The Quest for Equality: From

the Civil War to Civil Rights (Cornwell Heights, PA,

1969), 176.

9. CCH oral history interview with Carl Dodd, 14

July 1999.

10. NSA predecessor organizations carried various

names between 1930 and 1952, i.e., Signal Intelligence

Section, Signals Security Service, Signal Security Branch,

Signal Security Division, Signal Security Agency, Army

Security Agency, and Armed Forces Security Agency.

11. Frank B. Rowlett, The Story of Magic: Memoirs

of an American Cryptologic Pioneer (Laguna Hills, CA,

1998), 47.

12. James L. Gilbert and John P. Finnegan, eds., U.S.

Army Signals Intelligence in World War II,

(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1993),

26-27.

13. History of the Signal Security Agency, Vol. 1,

Part 1, Organization, 12-16, 38-52.

14. Personnel records of Bernard W. Pryor and interview with Delores Schommer, 6 May 1999, who entered

on duty with SIS on 16 July 1940. According to Mrs.

Schommer, Bernie was the single messenger for the

organization.

15. Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A

History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital

(Princeton, NJ, 1967), 231. According to records maintained by the Office of Workforce Information, Official of

Personnel Management, the total number of civilians

employed by the federal government in 1938 was

882,226. 

16. Personnel Clearances and Historical Study, NSA

Archives-ACC#17862.

17. Memo from E.S. Turner, Adjutant General, to

Chief Signal Officer, 18 April 1942, NSA Archives –

ACC#18981.

18. History of the Signal Security Agency, Vol. 1,

Part 1, 88.

19. NARA RG457, Box 1027, Signal Security Agency

– Personal Interviews, July 15-September 1943.

20. CCH oral history interview, General Earle F.

Cooke, 15 July 1982.

21. Personnel Records, William D. Coffee.

22. Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet (New

York, 1998), 112-116.

23. History of the Signal Security Agency, Volume

Two: The General Cryptanalytic Problem, 229-230.

24. Ibid.

25. Memo for the Control Officer, SSA, from SPSIS9 (Intelligence Branch), 15 September 1944, RG457, Box

1005, ACC#10616.

26. Mission and functions, B-3-b and organizational

charts, 15 November 1944 and 1 February 1945, NARA,

RG457, Box 843, ACC#646.

27. Ibid.

28. Mission and functions, B-3-b; CCH oral history

interview with Benson K. Buffham, 15 June 1999.

29. Mission and functions, B-3-b; personnel records

of Herman Phynes.

30. Personnel records of Bernard Pryor.

31. The plans and priorities officer developed collection plans and adjusted the tasking for intercept sites to

meet changing requirements.

32. CCH oral history interview with Benson K.

Buffham, 15 June 1999.

33. B-3-b organizational chart, NARA RG457, Box

843, ACC#646.

34. Intercept and Control Branch Annual Report,

1945-1946; NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#17394; personnel

records, William D. Coffee.

35. Annual Report of the Cryptanalytic Branch, July

1945-June 1946; NSA/CSS Archives ACC#47439 and

personnel records of Herman Phynes.
Page 41

36. History of the Signal Security Agency, Volume

11: The Machine Branch, published by ASA, Washington,

D.C., 1948.

37. CCH oral history interview with Norm Willis, 11

January 1999.

38. Dr. Solomon Kullback was one of the three pioneering “junior cryptanalysts” hired by William

Friedman in April 1930. Harry Lawrence Clark joined

SIS later that year as a cryptographic clerk to analyze

secret inks. Sam Snyder entered on duty with SIS in 1936

and worked as a cryptanalyst on both Italian and

Japanese systems prior to WWII. Colonel Spencer Ball

Akin was O.I.C., Signal Intelligence Service, 25 July

1939-2 May 1941.

39. CCH oral history interview with Delores

Schommer, 5 May 1999.

40. Phone interview with David Shepard, 22 May

2000.

41. CCH oral history interview with Geneva Trusty

Arthur, 28 September 1999.

42. History of GENS-6 Civil Division of Office of

General Studies; NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#9895, and

CCH oral history interviews with Jacob Gurin on 26

April 1995 and 15 October 1999.

43. CCH oral history interviews with Jacob Gurin, 26

April 1995 and 15 October 1999, and David Bryant, 23

February 1999.

44. Thomas R. Johnson, American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989, Book I: The Struggle for

Centralization, 1945-1960 (CCH-E32-95-03), 168.

45. 27 March 1950 memorandum from C.P. Collins,

Chairman USCIB Intelligence Committee to Coordinator

of Joint Operations; NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#8243.

46. Report by the Director, Armed Forces Security

Agency, to the Armed Forces Security Council on

Requirements for Conduct of an Optimum

Communication Intelligence Program, 14 July 1950;

NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#5221.

47. From 1949 until sometime in 1951, AFSA-213

was a branch. A December 1951 organizational chart

shows AFSA-213 as a division. A reorganization in

August 1952 resulted in a new designator, AFSA-29.

When NSA was created, AFSA-29 became NSA-63. In

the interest of simplicity and consistency, the Russian

radioprinter traffic processing division will usually be

referred to by the earlier designator, AFSA-213.

48. Undated and unsigned report; however, a penciled notation indicates it was authored before 31 May

1950; NSA/CSS Archives ACC#8243. Data extracts from

the paper later appeared in the 14 July 1950 report from

the director, AFSA, to the Armed Forces Security

Council.

49. NSA oral history interview with William Jones

conducted by R.D. Farley on 14 August 1986.

50. CCH oral history interview with Richard Hill, 18

October 1999. The low grade structure was confirmed in

other interviews and by the personnel records of

Jefferson Tancil, a supervisor in the traffic division.

From January 1950 to November 1951, he was a GS-6

section chief responsible for eighteen to thirty communications clerks, GG-2 to GG5.

51. CCH oral history interviews: William Byrd on 8

March 1999; Richard Hill on 18 October 1999; and Carl

Dodd (by phone), 17 May 1999.

52. CCH oral history interview with Bernice Mills on

10 November 1999.

53. Jack Gurin interview, 15 October 1999.

54. Comptroller Monthly Operational Summary,

July 1953; NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#42468.

55. CCH oral history interview with Iris Carr, 16 June

1999.

56. Report by the Director, AFSA, to the Armed

Forces Security Agency Council, 14 July 1950, 3;

NSA/CSS Archives, ACC#5221.

57. Ibid., 36.

58. AFSA-02 Semi-Monthly Report for 16-31 March

1951; NSA/CSS Archives ACC#42468.

59. AFSA-153 Monthly Operational Summary,

October 1951; NSA/CSS; NSA/CSS Archives,

ACC#42468.

60. Memorandum, “Excessive Number of Transfer

Requests,” from Deputy Head, NSA-222 (IBM Branch)

to NSA-220A (Assistant Chief for Administrative

Management, Machine Division), 2 December 1952;

NSA/CSS Archives ACC#2606.

61. Oral history interview with Maebelle Holmes, 26

April 1999.

62. Oral history interview with Novella Carr, 19

January 1999.

63. CCH oral history interview with Dorothy Amis,

19 February 1999.
Page 42

64. Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the

Armed Forces, 1940-1965, (Washington,D.C.: Center for

Military History, 1989), 363, footnote 81. 

65. Information in this chapter obtained from the

following oral history interviews: Carroll Robinson, 8

June 1999; Charles Matthews, 22 June 1999; Mitchell

Brown, 24 June 1999.

66. By 1949 AFSA had outgrown the temporary

buildings and converted dormitories at Arlington Hall

Station. Also, in the wake of the national angst over the

Soviet Union’s first nuclear test, AFSA was directed by

the JCS to identify a standby or disaster site outside the

metropolitan Washington area. The two requirements

were merged, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, was selected as

the site for a new headquarters and operations building.

This decision was reversed, however, when the prospect

of massive civilian resignations became apparent, and

the search continued. Several sites in northern Virginia

and Maryland were considered, but on 5 February 1952

Fort Meade was officially chosen as the new location for

AFSA.

67. Other examples of appointments to the Office of

Security: Two former FBI employees and one former

ONI employee were chosen to become the Special

Research Unit (investigations of alleged employee

wrongdoings). Monthly Operational Summaries,

Security Division, February and March 1953; NSA/CSS

ACC#42468.

68. Chicago was the home of the Keeler Institute, the

training school for polygraph examiners.

69. This is inaccurate. At least one AfricanAmerican, Bernie Pryor, was an employee counselor in

the personnel division at this time.

70. Polygraph: Journal of the American Polygraph

Association, December 1979, Vol. 8, No. 4.

71. CCH interview with Jack Gurin, 15 October 1999.

72. CCH interview with James Pryde, 15 December

1998.

73. CCH oral history interviews with Clarence

Toomer, 12 January 2000, and Arthur Davis, 8 February

2000.

74. CCH oral history interviews with Minnie McNeal

Kenny, 30 March 1999. ALLO targets were those other

than the Soviet Union.

75. CCH oral history interview with Eugene Becker,

19 January 1999.

76. CCH oral history interview with Carl Dodd, 2

April 1999.

77. CCH oral history interview with William

Pinchback, 25 January 1999.

78. CCH oral history interview with James Bostic, 4

November 1999.

79. CCH oral history interview with Vera Russell, 8

February 1999.
Page 43

J

eannette Williams retired from the National Security Agency in 1998

after thirty-five years of service. During the 1960s and 1970s, at the

height of the arms race, she was an intelligence analyst and reported extensively on missile and space activities. Later in her career, she

assumed successively responsible management positions, including

assignments as the Agency’s senior operational officer and as an assistant inspector general. Since retiring from federal service, Mrs. Williams

has been employed as a principal research analyst with Logicon DPC

Technologies under contract to NSA. 

Mrs. Williams holds a degree in English from Ohio State University and is

a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute and the National Senior

Cryptologic Course. She resides in Carroll County, Maryland, with her

husband, Walter, and enjoys the arts, gardening, reading, and community affairs.

Ms. Dickerson began her career at NSA in 1967 in computer operations. After holding numerous analytic and administrative positions, Ms. Dickerson worked in the National Cryptologic School as

an education and training officer and adjunct faculty member. While at

the School, she served as a member of a career development panel. A

member of Women in NSA, Ms. Dickerson assisted in education and

career advancement for women in the Agency. Toward the end of her

career, she served in the Center for Cryptologic History as a historian.

After retiring from NSA in 1998, Ms. Dickerson worked under contract as

a senior systems analyst in the NSA Technology Support Division and

later as a senior research analyst in the Center for Cryptologic History.

A graduate of the University of Baltimore, Ms. Dickerson holds a B.A.

degree in sociology and business management. She is married, the parent of four and grandmother of four. Ms. Dickerson resides in Anne

Arundel County, Maryland, and presently works at the Museum of

Industry in Baltimore, Maryland, as a docent coordinator.