OHNR: OH-2011-87 DOI: 6 September 1960 

TRSID: cdbaker//ragenti DTR: 2 November 2011 

QCSID: dpcoole Text Review: 28 Nov 2011 

 Text w/Tape: 

INAME: MARTIN, William H. and Mitchell, Bernon F. 

IPLACE: Press Conference, House of Journalists in 

Moscow 

U/ID Female 

Speaker: ((TR NOTE: The press conference is prefaced by an 

introductory statement made by an unidentified female speaker. The 

recording itself begins with this person speaking in mid-sentence as 

follows:))...the appearance of two employees of the National Security 

Agency of the United States: Bernon Mitchell and William Martin. These 

two men who had worked for the Agency for a considerable time are at 

present in Moscow, and asked for permission to speak at the press 

conference. They have decided to break with the United States and ask 

for asylum in the USSR for political ((XM)). ((Reporter speaking in midsentence as follows:))...has granted Mitchell and Martin the right of 

political asylum and they are Soviet citizens with full rights. A 

photographic copy of a statement left by Mitchell and Martin in the State 

Bank of Laurel, Maryland was handed out at the press conference. The 

two men were then introduced, and William Martin read the following 

statements. 

Martin: Before leaving the United States of America at the end of June 

this year, we left the previously read statement in safety deposit box 

number 174 in the State Bank of Laurel, Maryland, rented in the name of 

Bernon F. Mitchell. We brought with us here a photographic copy of this 

statement. On the envelope containing this statement, we wrote and 

signed a request that the contents be made public because we wish to 

explain to the American people why we decided to ask the Soviet Union to 

grant us political asylum. Reports in the American press indicate that the 

United States authorities gained access to the safety deposit box and 

found our statement. But they did not fulfill our request to publish it. We 

can explain this only by assuming that the Eisenhower-Nixon 

administration does not wish certain of its policies...or certain aspects of 

its policies to become known to the American people. At this press 

conference, which has been arranged at our request, we would like to 

explain especially to the American public our reasons for leaving the 

United States. We were employees of the highly secret National Security 

Agency, which gathers communications intelligence from almost all 

nations of the world for use by the U.S. Government. However, the simple 
fact that the U.S. Government is engaged in delving into the secrets of 

other nations had little or nothing to do with our decision to defect. Our 

main dissatisfaction concerns some of the practices the United States 

uses in gathering intelligence information. We were worried about the 

U.S. policy of deliberately violating the airspace of other nations and the 

U.S. Government’s practice of lying about such violations in a manner 

intended to mislead public opinion. Furthermore, we were disenchanted 

by the U.S. Government’s practice of intercepting and deciphering the 

secret communications of its own allies. Finally, we objected to the fact 

that the U.S. Government was willing to go so far as to recruit agents from 

among the personnel of its allies. An instance of this practice involving 

payment to the code clerk of a U.S. ally was mentioned in our first 

statement. At this time, we would like to make some general comments 

relative to our reasons for leaving the United States. Before joining NSA, 

we had a high degree of confidence in the honesty of the U.S. 

Government, and we considered ourselves to be loyal supporters of the 

American way of life. But the policies mentioned above which have been 

carried out by the U.S. Government in recent years raised serious doubts 

in our minds as to whether the policies that these...or whether...excuse 

me, whether the causes that these policies are intended to support are 

actually worthwhile. ((TR NOTE: Audio ends abruptly here, then 

immediately starts up again.)) It was a difficult and painful experience to 

leave our native country, families, and friends. Yet we felt that the U.S. 

Government, in carrying out policies dangerous to world peace, should not 

be allowed to rely upon these emotional attachments to guarantee the 

loyalty of its citizens. In the statement which we left in the United States, 

we expressed the opinion that a preventive war would be futile. It should 

be evident that those who contemplate unleashing wars constitute a grave 

threat to humanity. Should another war occur, there would probably be no 

further opportunity to build communism, capitalism, or any other form of 

social or economic system. However, some people in the United States 

disagree on this matter. For instance, General Thomas Power, 

Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, made the 

following statement which was published in the United States in testimony 

before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations 

during debate on the 1959-1960 military budget. He said, “I would like to 

leave the deterrent role for a moment, and talk about the philosophy of 

initiation of a war and the tremendous advantages that accrue to the man 

who starts the war. You must always have the capability to strike first 

because obviously if these people thought we never could start a war, why 

then, they would just take this world away from us piece by piece because 

they would know that as long as they do not strike us, we could never do 

anything about it.” General Power’s statement involves the dangerous 

presumption that the United States owns the world, and implies that 

emulation of the Soviet Union represents taking something away from the 
United States. His proposal to strike first in an attempt to prevent the 

trend toward socialism sounds to us like a more suicidal than effective 

policy. Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Republican Senatorial 

Campaign Committee, made a speech in Chicago on the eve of the 

Republican National Convention in which he said, “We must not agree to a 

further ban on nuclear testing nor disarmament in the near future.” In the 

same speech, he also said, “To our undying national shame, there are 

among us those who would prefer to crawl on their bellies to Moscow 

rather than to face the possibility of an atomic war.” We do not hesitate to 

include ourselves in the company mentioned by Senator Goldwater. In 

fact, we would attempt to crawl to the moon if we thought it would lessen 

the threat of an atomic war. General Power and Senator Goldwater 

occupy important posts in American society, but we do not believe that 

they reflect the attitudes of the majority of the American people. After the 

U2 incident, the U.S. Government admitted its policy of deliberately 

violating the airspace of the Soviet Union. United States officials, 

particularly Vice President Nixon, tried to justify this policy by claiming that 

it was the only way to forestall a surprise attack by the USSR. Vice 

President Nixon did not mention that much of the information gathered on 

these flights could be useful only in an attempt to penetrate the defenses 

of the Soviet Union. In connection with this, the statements of General 

Power take on ominous meaning. They could indicate that there are plans 

in the United States to forestall a surprise attack by the Soviet Union by 

striking first. It is very difficult for the Soviet Union and other nations to 

assume that General Power was only expressing his private opinion in his 

official testimony before Congress. Besides these attempts to contain 

communism in the Eastern Hemisphere, the United States recently 

declared that it would not tolerate communist influence in the Western 

hemisphere. Perhaps U.S. hostility towards communism arises out of a 

feeling of insecurity engendered by communist achievements in science, 

culture, and industry. If this is so, such feelings of insecurity are a poor 

excuse for endangering world peace. The ring of U.S. military bases 

surrounding the Soviet Union seems to indicate that the U.S. Government 

thinks it can effectively combat the ideas of communism by military 

means. If the United States and the Soviet Union were to improve 

communications between their peoples, perhaps there would not be so 

much mutual antagonism, and conditions might be created which would 

make possible the large scale diversion of military funds to peaceful 

purposes. Let us now consider the aerial intelligence policies of the U.S. 

Government. Our first acquaintance with these policies was during the 

time that we served with the U.S. Navy from 1951 to 1954. We both 

served as communication technicians at several U.S. Naval radio intercept 

stations during this period. The U.S. Government has recently admitted 

carrying out intelligence flights around and over the borders of communist 

nations only during the last four years. However, we would like to state 
that these flights were also being conducted in the period from 1952 to 

1954 when we were serving at a U.S. Naval radio intercept station at 

Kamiseya, Japan near Yokohama. In advance of a reconnaissance flight 

of a U.S. military plane along the Chinese or Soviet Far Eastern borders, a 

TOP SECRET message would be sent to Kamiseya and other 

communications intelligence stations informing them as to the flight time 

and course of the plane. At the designated flight time, monitors at these 

stations would tune in on the frequencies used by radar reporting stations 

of the target country—i.e., the Soviet Union or Communist China. At the 

same time, radio direction finders would scan on these frequencies to 

seek out the locations of radar reporting stations. Information gathered in 

this manner would then be forwarded to the National Security Agency. 

There, analysts study the communications and code systems used by the 

radar stations. NSA is then able to estimate the degree of alertness, 

accuracy, and efficiency of the radar defenses of the target nation. And it 

is also able to collect information on the organization of command within 

the nation’s...a target nation’s internal defense system. After going to 

work for the National Security Agency, we learned about another type of 

aerial intelligence mission which involves incursion into the airspace of the 

target nation. These missions, known as ELINT missions or electronics 

intelligence, consist of flights in the immediate proximity of radar 

installations of the Soviet Union and other countries to obtain data about 

the physical nature of radar emanations from radar transmitters. This 

information is used in an attempt to find ways to render the radar defense 

system ineffective—for instance, through the use of radar jamming 

devices operating from bases close to the Soviet borders. Flights of U.S. 

planes along and over the borders of the Soviet Union are routine 

operations, and the number of such flights is far greater than is generally 

supposed by the U.S. public. In order to clarify the nature of such flights, 

we would like to discuss one of them in detail. In September 1958, a U.S. 

C-130 plane flew over the Turkish border into Soviet Armenia. This plane 

never returned. The U.S. Government—as it invariably does in such 

cases—issued a cover story claiming that the plane was engaged only in 

gathering scientific information, and that the crossing of the Soviet border 

was accidental. The U. S. claimed that the C-130 had been shot down 

over Soviet territory without provocation. The Soviet side confined itself to 

a statement that the plane crashed. In February 1959, the State 

Department released a recording in the Russian language which it claimed 

substantiated its contention that the C-130 had been shot down inside the 

Soviet Union. However, the State Department said nothing about the 

actual reason that this plane was flying over the Soviet Union. In 

connection with this incident, we would like to make the following 

comments. Late in the afternoon of the same day that the State 

Department released the above recording, Lieutenant General John 

Sanford, Director of NSA speaking on the NSA internal broadcasting 
system, suggested that NSA personnel refrain from discussion of any 

questions pertaining to the C-130 flight. It is clear that if the C-130 had 

really flown with the sole intent of gathering scientific information, NSA 

would have had nothing to conceal. Despite General Sanford’s 

suggestion, NSA employees did discuss among themselves the possible 

far reaching consequences of the C-130 incident for the United States. A 

high official of NSA told William Martin that this particular C-130 plane was 

carrying electronic specialists and special equipment for receiving at close 

range, the signals of Soviet radar transmitters. This official added that the 

Turkish-Armenian border had been deliberately crossed in order to get 

into the immediate proximity of Soviet radar installations. It should be 

clear, even to a layman, that information about radar defenses has no 

bearing whatsoever on the problem of ascertaining whether or not the 

Soviet Union is preparing for a surprise attack. This information can be 

utilized only for the purpose of determining the defense potential of the 

Soviet Union. Meanwhile, various U.S. officials condemned the Soviet 

Union for allegedly shooting down the C-130 without sufficient reason. 

Hubert Humphrey said in effect that the Soviet Union should not have shot 

down the C-130, and should refrain from molesting U.S. planes, eh...U.S. 

planes in the future. His arguments assumed that the State Department’s 

statements regarding the incident were truthful and that the U.S. was the 

injured and innocent party. Thinking that Senator Humphrey and perhaps 

most members of Congress were ignorant of the facts, we decided to 

speak privately with a Congressman, and see if this was the case. In 

February 1959, we obtained an appointment with a Congressman who 

had publicly expressed concern over the State Department’s concealing 

from Congress pertinent facts about the C-130 incident. During this 

appointment, we discussed the statements of Hubert Humphrey and 

commented on the failure of the Executive Branch to keep Congress 

correctly informed. We explained to him the nature of the C-130 

intelligence mission, and indicated that we felt such violations of the 

airspace of other nations were dangerous to world peace. Our 

conversation was interrupted when the Congressman received a 

telephone call from the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional 

Relations, Mr. William (B% McComber) who requested him to refrain from 

further public discussion of the C-130 incident. Again, it is clear that if this 

plane had been engaged solely in gathering scientific information, the 

State Department would have had no reason to be concerned. Further 

corroboration that the U.S. has a policy of conducting overflights was 

obtained when a high official of NSA told Bernon Mitchell that the U.S. 

intentionally violated the Chinese communist borders on aerial intelligence 

missions. We hope that the American public will bring pressure to bear 

against the U.S. Government’s policy of violating the airspace of other 

nations. A single incident or misinterpretation concerning the purpose of 

planes involved in these flights could be the cause of war. It is difficult to 
understand how U.S. officials can maintain an attitude of indignation when 

the Soviet Union takes defensive action against U.S. planes flying over its 

territory. The Soviet Government has shown great forbearance with 

respect to these flights, and has repeatedly called upon the U.S. 

Government to cease them. Moreover, so far as we know, the Soviet 

Government has refrained from making any retaliatory flights around and 

over the United States. We have purposely stressed in detail the 

intelligence flights of American planes over the territory of the Soviet 

Union and other countries because this practice might be the cause of a 

great catastrophe. The connection of NSA with aerial intelligence 

missions has already been described. Now, in order to give a better 

perspective of NSA, we would like to add the following detail. Some 

information concerning NSA’s activities is given in the book, Central 

Intelligence and National Security, Harvard University Press, 1958. The 

author correctly states...This author’s name is Ransom by the way. It’s (B

% omitted) here. 

U/ID Male 

Speaker: Mm hmm. 

Martin: “The NSA specializes in communications intelligence. It operates 

as a semi-autonomous agency of the Department of Defense under the 

supervision of the Secretary of Defense’s Office of Special Operations. In 

addition to maintaining its own professional staff for technical operations, 

NSA exercises broad supervision over and coordination of the Army 

Security Agency and similar communications intelligence groups within the 

Navy and Air Force.” Further, Ransom states, “NSA plays a major, if 

unobtrusive role, in the national intelligence community. At any rate, 

through the National Security Agency and related units, the American 

Government is again engaged in communications intelligence on a 

worldwide scale. NSA Headquarters is located at Fort George G. Meade, 

Maryland, about 25 miles north of Washington, D.C. The NSA building at 

Fort Meade is second in size only to the Pentagon among U.S. 

Government buildings. Approximately 10,000 people work there under the 

direction of Air Force Lieutenant General John A. Sanford. About 100 

million dollars a year are spent to maintain NSA Headquarters at Fort 

Meade—the basement of which contains the largest single digital 

computer installation in the world. The network of radio intercept stations 

which supply information to NSA extends throughout the world, and keeps 

in continuous operation more than 2,000 manual intercept positions which 

are staffed by more than 8,000 armed forces intercept operators. A 

smaller number of additional personnel operate equipment for the 

interception of radio teletype transmissions. Some intercept units are 

located on ships and planes, but most of the intercept activity is carried 

out at U.S. military radio stations located in foreign countries. Both 
enciphered and plaintext communications are monitored from almost 

every nation in the world, including the nations on whose soil these 

intercept bases are located. To maintain this extensive network of 

intercept stations and to forward intercept material to NSA Headquarters, 

cost about three hundred and eighty million dollars a year. Thus, including 

the cost of operating NSA Headquarters, the United States spends almost 

half a billion dollars a year for communications intelligence. NSA 

Headquarters is subdivided into four main offices: the Office of 

Production, PROD; the Office of Research and Development, R&D; the 

Office of Communications Security, COMSEC; and the Office of 

SECURITY, SEC. The major functions of PROD are to receive intercept 

material from the outstations, to perform cryptanalysis and traffic analysis, 

and to analyze the resulting information. R&D carries out research in the 

fields of cryptanalysis, digital computing, and radio propagation; and 

carries out the development of new communications equipment. 

COMSEC is responsible for the production and security of U.S. cipher 

systems. SEC conducts investigations of NSA personnel, gives lie 

detector tests, passes on the loyalty and integrity of NSA personnel. 

Major subdivisions within PROD and R&D are as follows. PROD: ADVA

—studies high-level Soviet cipher systems and diplomatic codes. GENS

—studies Soviet military code systems and medium-level cipher systems. 

ACOM—studies the code and cipher systems of Asian Communist 

nations. ALLO—studies the code and cipher systems of U.S. allies, 

neutral nations, and some communist nations. MPRO—provides 

electronic digital computing and data processing services to other 

divisions of NSA. In R&D: REP—conducts cryptanalytic research and 

works on applied cryptanalytic problems without restriction as to country; 

provides consulting services to other divisions of NSA; and carries out 

research in computer componetry. RADE—designs radio receiving and 

transmitting devices, radio direction finders, radio fingerprint apparatus; 

and studies unknown communication systems. STED—studies possible 

weaknesses of cipher machines in general; assists COMSEC in the 

design of cipher machines for U.S. use; studies the process of enciphering 

speech. Successes obtained by the National Security Agency in reading 

the code and cipher systems of other nations are due primarily to the 

skillfulness of cryptanalysts frequently aided by electronic digital 

computers. However, success in at least one case has also been 

facilitated by the fact that the U.S. supplied to other nations cipher 

machines for which it knew the construction and wiring of the rotors. As 

we have said before, success concerning one of the U.S. allies was aided 

by the fact that the United States paid money to a code clerk of that 

country for his information. The National Security Agency includes a 

special group—the United Kingdom Liaison Office, UKLO—which is 

staffed by British citizens. Likewise in the British communications 

intelligence organization, called GCHQ, there is a corresponding NSA 
liaison group. Britain and the United States exchange information as to 

cryptanalytic methods and results in reading the code systems of other 

nations; and their respective networks of radio intercept stations 

supplement one another. Besides the United Kingdom, the United States 

maintains close cooperation with Canada in the field of communications 

intelligence.” As we know from our previous experience in working at 

NSA, the United States successfully reads the SECRET communications 

of more than 40 nations, including its own allies. Besides what we have 

said above, other factors in our decision to defect were the suppression of 

informations, restraints on the freedom of expression and political activity, 

and discrimination against people who are not theists, which exists in the 

United States. For instance, according to U.S. press reports, the Federal 

Government each year confiscates about 50 million pieces of mail 

entering the United States—frequently without notifying the addressees 

that any seizure has taken place. In the state of Maryland where we live, 

in order to hold any post whatsoever with the State Government, it is 

necessary to take an oath to the effect that one is a theist. People with 

political convictions unpopular with those who determine United States 

policy are frequently hailed before investigating committees, harassed, 

fined, imprisoned, and denied jobs. By means of withholding passports, 

the U.S. State Department attempts to keep within U.S. borders citizens 

whose political views are not in favor. Victims of this practice have won 

some court battles, but the State Department is constantly pressing 

Congress for new legislation to tighten up the issuance of passports. Are 

these practices in keeping with the free and open society which U.S. 

officials so often proclaim exists in the United States? We do not think so. 

Finally, we would like to say a few words about our personal situations. 

We have, of course, renounced our American citizenship. We have asked 

the Soviet Government to grant us Soviet citizenship and assistance in 

learning the Russian language. Both of these requests have been met. 

And in addition, the Soviet Government has offered us the choice of living 

where we choose. Moreover, we have been offered the opportunity of 

continuing our educations and assistance in finding jobs in our capacity as 

mathematicians, providing approximately the same salaries we received in 

the United States. Recently, we made a tour of the Soviet Union, visiting 

a number of cities, plants, collective farms, universities, exhibitions, 

cultural centers, and sanatoria. We have familiarized ourselves with the 

way the Soviet people live, the progress they have made, and the 

problems they now face. We will be glad to hear from relatives or friends 

who wish to correspond with us or visit us, and we will give them a good 

reception. 

U/ID Female 

Speaker: After that, Mr. Martin and Mr. Mitchell replied to questions. One 

of the American newsmen present asked Mr. Martin whether he knew 
anything about Soviet espionage activities against the United States. Mr. 

Martin replied that as far as he knew, the Soviet Union does not conduct 

aerial espionage like the United States does. Another correspondent 

asked for a more detailed explanation as to whom Mr. Mitchell and Mr. 

Martin had in mind when they mentioned “a code clerk” at one of the 

embassies in Washington who had been recruited by the American secret 

security agency. He was told that it was a code clerk in the Turkish 

Embassy. Next, a few personal questions were asked, such as the men’s 

age and details about their past activities. Mr. Mitchell is 31 years old. 

He’s a mathematician with a bachelor’s degree, especializing [sic] in 

statistics. William Martin is 29. He has the same degree and profession. 

When asked whether American intercept stations operate only against the 

Soviet Union or also against other countries where they were located, Mr. 

Mitchell replied that there is no discrimination in intercepting foreign 

stations. They are all intercepted. The two men were then asked what 

they are now doing. They replied that they are studying Russian, and 

preparing for entry to a university. ((She pauses.)) That was a report 

about a news conference in Moscow today ((audio abruptly stops at this 

point))... 

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