, 

! 

,t ~ hl h' ~~:-·U.h..ik ""-6..Q_LS DISAPPROVALS 

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t NAME•OR TITLE INITIALS CIRCULATE 

I Mr. W. F. Friedman 

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RETURN 

4 . SEE ME 

SIGNATURE 

REMARKS 

A copy ef the transcript of the recorded version 

ot my lecture, "R/D-Its Mission and Some Thoughts 

As To Its Future", is attached for your into:nnation 

and retention. 

17 February. 

Please return your copy dated 

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REF ID:A66658 

7 March 1955 

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RLJ?--Its Mission and Some Thoughts as to Its Future 

I have been around here now !or something like ll months. or t,.tta:t: 

11 months, I was a. Bell Laboratories man loaned to NSA for at least 10 

o! the months and I really started to work regularly for this A. ency 

on 1 February; so it seemed to me that I wanted to talk to R personnel 

to give them a few notions--! think this is primarily a matt r ot 

getting acquainted. I wanted to see what a good looking b ch you were 

and for you to see what kind or a guy I "1f, so that is t e whole lot 

of it. 

Another object in preparing this talk was to let e erybody know 

how they stood organization-wise so what I did was prepa the speech 

very carefully and then tried it out on a. few people, lik the General 

and some o! the people with him, as I was very anxious that the 

principles that I am going to talk to you about be agreed on 

one; so with the exception of a few details, this speech is go· 

be correct and has been agreed on by other departments. 

First of all, let's define R/D. I like to define R/D as the 

. . laboratories organization of tJSA. Like all other R/D laboratories 

organizationsy I know aJJ\Ything about, it produces tl«> things. One, 

ot the things" is relationships and the other is things--physica.l : 

things, so our charter is very very simple. It is nothing but " 

relationships and things. 

Well, what are the things? You know what they are. They are 

devices for OOMINT purposes and for COMSEC purposes, but you know 

that. ~ 

You may not quite understand what I mean by relationships. You 

don't invent a relationship--you discover it. It is the kind ot 

thing that nature did a long long time a.go, all you do is discover 

it. Maybe it's a basic mathematical. principle; maybe it's a physical 

principle but whatever it is, you don't create it., you discover it. 

Qa tbs dh11 lma, R/D 1 s mission is simply to do creative work. 

R/D is not a military organization and it is not my intention to run 

it as it it were a military organization. That is true even though 

NSA, as a whole, is properly a military organization encompassed 

within the Department of Defense and, of course, R/D 1 s mission in life 

.is to serve NSA. 

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Another thing· that R/D is not is a maker of policy. The only 

policies that R/D ·makes are the policies that have to do with its 

own internal organization. 

I~ is R/D's job to assist other organizations, such as the General's 

advisors, COM$C and the COMINT people as to their policies and we do 

that by slipplying them with whatever we know about either physical 

things, or the laws of nature, or mathematical relationships, or a.riTthing like that but we definitely do not make policies •. I regard that 

as an element of strength; not an element of weakness because if you 

are dealing silllply with tactual things, your fundamental background 

is a set 0£ facts and you don't worry about what you might have said . policy-wise a year ago. If you say nothing policy-wise, then you 

simply deal with tacts so that is an element in my jud@nent of great 

strength. 

One or the most vital requirements for the success of an organization is that it know what its job is and I think we have an admirable 

job to do. I have tried to tell you in a very general way what it is 

and now I will tell you in more detail. It is important or course 

that you know this for two reasons. 

First or all you need it to carry out your own work every day. 

You want to be sure that you know why a.re are -working, otherwise, you 

can have no enthusiasm for your wrk and you won't enjot it. One 

thing that I believe very much is that everyone should have a lot o! 

tun in his 'l!Ork. 

There are two ma.in things in this lite--one thing is your work, 

and the other is your family and t don 1t draw aey distinction as to 

which one is more important. I said at one other occasion, and m;y vile 

objected strenuous'.cy', that your job is the principal thing in this 

world, so now you see I have amended my statement a little bit. Anyway, your job is or tremendous importance and you must "have tun at it 

otherwise you lead a miserable existence and that is what we don't 

want you to do. 

It is also extremely important that R/D people know where they 

stand relative to other organizations. You can ·fool around a. lot and 

fritter away time needlessly if you don't know what you 8'l."9 supposed 

to do and what the other fellow is supposed to do, so you must have 

understanding in order to avoid friction and have harmonious relationships. 

One particular thing that I intend to do is to very promptly take 

care 0£ anything that is not sweet relative to the relationships 

between you people and other organizations. That is on~ o! the most. 

important things that the Head of an organization should do, so I want 

to be sure that in your daily work that whenever aD;,Vthing like that 

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REF ID:A66658 

happens; whenever you are not sure what you ought to be doing relative 

to sane other organization, that you immediately pass the word up the 

line because I can assure you that that is one of the things that I 

will give the most prompt attention. · 

I can give you a little general advice, of course, because 'We 

don't want too maey little silly things carried up-a particular bit 

or advice is this: Never argue with somebody else who wants to do 

something that you think encroaches on your job. You have more than 

enough to do so if anybody else can do part of your work and wants to 

do it by all means let him do it. 

Now, as I said at the beginning, R/D is the labora.to:ries organization of NSA. It encompasses all of the laboratories functions and 

I believe that is as it should be because NSA is not large enough to 

af tord the luxmy of more than one laboratories organization. The 

Bell System, from which I come, 'Which is an enormous organization, has 

just one laboratories set-up for the same kind o! reason. 

The fact that R/D is the laboratories organization, and the sole 

laboratories organization, is not intended to shut out operations 

people, either in COMSEC or fROD,, from such use or laboratory facilities as they properly need in the course of their regular operations. 

Neither is it intended to shut out COMSEC or PROD from technical 

knowledge. Also it is not intended to shut them out from the use of 

technical tools which they need for their operations. 

Nov as to a little more detail on organization. One thing which 

we all know and believe in is that an R/D organization cannot exist if 

confined to an ivoey tower, therefore you folks need, for an effective 

operation, first-hand kDqwledge of the fields of ope~tion wherein your 

products are applied. 

More specif'ical.ly, in the COMINT !.ield, this means that R/D needs 

and bas freedom to visit representative intercei:-t stations in different 

parts of the world wherever they may be. It. is also necessary that R/D 

be familiar with the network of commwli.cations channels and other means 

which bring COMINT .material to NSA headqlJarters. 

R/D must al.so be !a.mi.liar with PROD' s operations. With respect to 

PROD• s operations, the requirement~ ot security introduce real handicaps 

to R/D. We, of course, must all appreciate that R/D must not jeopa.rdize 

security; however, it must have essential knowledge or PBOD 1 s operations. 

If R/D does not have this essential kno-wledge of PROD 1 s operations it 

could never rise above being simply a model shop for PROD. Neither PROD 

oor R/D want &.J:Vthing like this so we are both earnestly striving to 

set up a working arrangement whereby we will not jeopardize securit7 but 

nevertheless will know these essential things. 

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REF ID:A66658 

Now in the CXJMSEC field: 

R/D is tree to contact directly all communication users; 

military,, other government departments, and commercial communication 

organizations. 

R/D has full responsibility for the creation or all new 

CX>MSEC gear and it must continue this responsibility for vital features 

of over-all design as well as component design throughout all phases 

of manufacture and such modifications as may later be indicated desirable 

as a result of experience in the field. This applies throughout the 

"whole life of the equipnent. 

R/D has no facilities f'or and does not aspire to become the 

custodian for detailed design information of the gear which NSA manufactures or has manufactured1 either in the COMSJ£C or COMINT fields. 

In this it differs from at least one very important laboratory that I 

knew which actually maintains the custodianship of detailed design 

inf orma.tion on everything it creates. It seems to ma that f'or NSA., 

however, on balance,, R/D should not endeavor to maintain this custodianshiir-one of the reasons being that their products are so short-lived •. 

Another reason i::i that they do not~ve the facilities for this 

custodianship and a~e better oft if iq judgment by not attempting to 

take them over. ~ 

At this point, I might say that another thing that R/D does not do 

is to seek ~ monopoly on new ideas. R/D should welcome ideas from. 

everywhere and does. Above all, R/D should have no "pride of authorship" 

whatsoever with respect to ideas. Ideas are the whole life blood of 

this place or aI\f other creative place and you must get ideas !rom anyplace you can find them and you must do everything not to dr,y up this 

source. 

I want to discuss R/D's internal organization a bit and since I 

am a pa.rt of this organization I ,must necessarily say a tew WQrds about 

~el!. 

I cam here because R. D. Parker,, one of our consultants, thought 

that I might be interested in the job and told the General about me. 

I want to give full credit to him for that because I think that l«>rking 

in this place is going to be one of the happiest i.:eriods of 11\V lite. 

Secondly, I didn't really want to retire after all. I am 65 years 

old--I am one of these people who believe that you are much happier 

to continue working rather than drop out of things. 

Another reasonJ of course, is that I am anxious for the safety of 

ID1' own skin and I think that NSA. has a great job to do in helping to 

protect this Nation. 

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REF ID:A66658 

, 

Another reason is that this conmunications business, and particularly 

the research and developnent business, is so::nething I have been at for 

more than 40 years and it is so near like the kind of thing I have been 

doing that I honestly felt that I could help you people; however, I can 

assure you that I have much to learn since you folks know really how to 

make the communications business really tougb. 

Another point is that I have great personal interest in both the 

discovery of relationships_ and the creation of new things. Thus my 

major .. interests coincide exactly with the charter of R/D and I do expect 

to have a lot of tu:n, as I said before. 

Finally I noted on my first vi.sit to NSA and have had this confirmed as I have become better and better acquainted, that R/D has 

already in being a great organization and a record of great achievement. 

I don't know entirely r.ow this good result has comt# about but I 

certainly believe that Dr. Kullback deserves much of the credit and 

of course much of the credit goes to all of you. 

One of my ambitions, therefore, will be to se~ that R/D is 

adequately recognized for what it is. It liessmr~I believe, the 

recox:d or Qe1ns tbe--most effective R/D organization in the whole military 

establishment ol the United States and I think it deserves -e:ud: shocttd b& 

recogniz~such. 

Since Dr. Kullback has already achieved a wonderful organization, 

I intend to disturb its workings as little as possible. I therefore 

intend to leave the regular day-to-day operations in ~s hande. 

for myself, my principal desires are to: 

Do whatever I can to further improve the organization and 

in particular to bring in the new men which this organization so sorely 

needs. 

Secondly, I want to do all I can to plan for the future. 

More simply expressed, I propose to devote my efforts to the 

greatest extent practicable to _personnel and planning •• Dr. Kullback 

will take ca.re of everything else. since he ri1l also, of course, 

participate in the work on personnel and planning be will continue to 

be a busy man. 

Now I w.nt to give you a few words expressing my current thoughts 

on personnel and planning. 

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REF ID:A66658 

First of all, in regard to the Civil Service set-up, I think 

Civil Service, from at least my observations of it however I am .f'ar 

from an expert on the subject, is far from as bad as it has sometimes 

been painted. You have a good pension plan and a good plan for 

vacations and sick leave. Salaries in R/D, for at least the first 

10 to 15 years, compare favorably with commercial organizations with 

which I am familiar. This includes starting salaries. 

Another point about Civil Service is, it seems to me, that we 

sbould always bear in mind the very worthy objectives which led to 

the creation of the Civil Service. As I understand it, th~ primary 

objective was to eliminate politicians and political influence. Now 

in order to do that it has had to set up some rules which tend to be 

onerous; however, I think if we try to keep in tune with the spirit 

of Civil Service and rise above the petty annoyances and rules that 

we will do pretty well. 

General Canine has already ma.de great strides in that direction. 

One example--it is no longer necessary to warp an organization into a 

form which it should not possess in order to meet Civil Service rules. 

That I regard as an extremely·important thing. Therefore, I believe 

that, on balance, Civil Service should not be a serious obstacle to 

the further success of R/D. .. The next point, which I think is also very important, is that R/D 

does not operate under military dominance of such a nature as to 

inhibit its success. It is quite true that I report to Lt. General 

Canine, and he, of course, is a military man; however, I can assure 

you that he is full of sound business ideas. His military background 

is of great value to NSA.; in fact, I believe it is indispensable to 

NSA and I don't believe that his military background has much 

significance one way or the other to R/D so, on balance, I consider 

General Canine a very great power for the good of NSA and also for R/D. 

Now I want to say a. bit about military personnel. 

Military personnel, mostly of lower rank, are now used widely 

within R/D and have contributed a great lot or good. In particular 

they have helped enormously in offsetting the shortages of manpower. 

We must therefore do everything we can possibly do to make military 

people working for us ha.pJJY· 

We must, hoever, recognize tw problem:!. One is the fact that 

military people are generally of short service--two or three years. 

The second is the difficulty of rank. The short-service feature of 

military people, whether th.ay be of low rank or high rank, makes it 
·- REF·ID:A66658 

, 

practically impossible to use them to direct technical work. Aeyone 

at ~~ether he is a civilian-or a milita.r;y man,\«>uld need to be 

excee 7 gifted or exceedingly- e~rienced., both in knowledge ~ 

understanding., to be able effectively- to fit into a technical organization at high level ror purposes of directing the work. However, 

high-level military people can be very useful. as liaison people and 

in the positione ol the R/D organization that deal with administration. 

I believe that we will continue to use at least as many high-rank 

people as we now have and perhaps more. 

Now, I want to come to one of the most important things of all 

and that is the recruitment. 

In order to start that off, I am going to give you some figures* 

as to what happened last year. By last year, I mean February- 1, 1954 

to February l, 1955. This is the latest full year for which I was able 

to get figures. I am going to consider engineers alone because those 

are tbe only good figures I have. 

' 

Last year we obtained a total of 20 engineers input to' R/D. We 

lost exactly 20. . Where did we get this 20? We got four new people 

out of colleges; we lost one of these in the school, however, and 

another one left alter a few months; so of our college recruitment, 

lft) have just two left. 

We obtained Dine engineers from the junior military people who 

took off their·uniforms after their military service requirement,,s 

were terminated and stayed with R/D. Of these one was a private and 

eight were junior officers. Why we got more junior o.fficersthan 

privates, I don't know. This number nine should be compared with the 

total of 69 junior military people who left R/D after their military 

assignments were completed. 

Another source of hirings was the personal solicitations of 

di.fferent members o! R/D directly from friends, acquaintances and 

other sources. As I have already told you., I was one of these JDiYSelf. 

We got a total or nine from that source. That adds up to 20. Mr. 

Cro~e got some of these pe9ple that I am putting into this nine. The 

fact that he got thelll al.most single-handed makes me include them in 

this personal solicitation group. 

Now as to where these men went. Seven engineers went to various 

industria.l establishments. Two engineers went to other governmental 

~ore complete .and accurate personnel figures are attached as Tab A. 

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REF ID:A66658 

agencies outside or NSA. Eight engineers were transferred from R/D 

to other sections of NSA.. Of these OOMSEG t.ook a total of six; Logistics, 

one and PROD, one. Three were drafted into military service. 

It is very significant that R/D received no men by transfer from 

other organizations. I think it is very healttt,' that R/D does supply 

people to other parts of NSA. That's a fine thing but the tact that 

they do this means that we must have more recruits. 

Another thing you get· out of this is the great importance of 

junior military people1 both with respect to the work which they do and ~ 

.wtai t:A:e:r 11t•ii a great source of new men. ' ' • ~lrt'C!Lc....,,7f ..... ~ ~ 

This year I have sought and obtained authorization or adding a 

total of .W college people if we can get them and we are~tM-~.-

a very heroic campaign to that end. All parts of the organization 

from the top down are participating in this drive. We think we know 

the difficulties and wa think we know some ways to avoid them.. I am 

going to stick my neck out and say that I am very optimistic-I expect 

to get these people. 

When I say 40 I do not include the further conversions of military 

people who I hope will continue to want to stay with us and also I do 

not include the personal solicitations from friends which I want to 

continue to encourage. I think that that is one of the things tha.t 

you people have done best and it shows how tough you are and makes me 

glad th..1 t you are so tough. 

I have written down here something that I think you know alreac\Y 

and that is that the nature· of R/D' s -work is an element ot great 

strength f'rom the standpoint of causing other people to want to come 

with us and also with respect to the satisfaction of employees now 

here. This is a great place to work and also a great place to entice 

other people into. · 

Because you people are so good, you are continually being wooed 

away to better jobs. Provided the place that is \iOoing you is really 

going to give you a better job, I do not propose to stand in anybody's 

way at all. Rather I want to encourage it and even help you to get 

better jobs if I am convinced that we can't give you better jobs here. 

We want R/D to deserve the reputation of being a good place to come 

from. Also we are anxious to have sympathetic and understanding alumni 

in the outside world. They are good !or us in many ways.'fl'So I conclude 

that the personnel situation is tar from black and I hopel'that if I 

give you people another report in a year £rom now that it will look 

better than it does now. 

Finally I want to talk a little bit about planning • 

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REF ID:A66658 

Planning is my dearest hobby. I would rather work on planning 

than anything else I know of. Planning real.ly consists of living in 

the future. Sometimes i! you a.re too interested in planning, you never 

catch up with yourself because by the time things have actually gotten 

around to getting created you are another five or ten years in the 

future and you find it rather difficuJ.ttf beil@ interested in the 

creations of the day. That is the kind of guy I am anyway. 

One thing you need for planning is knowledge of what is going 

on, so you will find, if you don't already know it, that I ask a lot 

of questions to a lot of people aud in the years tha.t are to come, I 

expect that the many other planners will be asking you lots o! questions 

so don't feel too ba.d about it. Don't ~ways expect that the question 

means exactly what it seems to imply. 

In that connection I think it is good to use this expression that 

I have heard used on television to the effect that questions do not 

necessarily reveal our point of view. They a.re merely our way ot 

obtaining amunition for planning. 

Ifow a few things about. planning. 

Planning in the OOMSEC field requires a good deal of cooperation 

ld.t.h high-level military people in the three Armed Services. I want 

to report to you that a Committee chainna.ned by Mr. Dean Garner, in 

the office ot the Assistant Secretary of Defense !or Supply and 

Logistics, with membership from the three Armed Services; the General 

Sta.ff, and myself, in i/D, have been functioning for quite a few months. 

I believe tha.t 4=' t NSA is already feeling its effects in better 

understanding of many of the problems involved. 

In that connection, I want to observe a few things and express 

some of my own beliefs. One is that human beings are inherently 

reasonable. If they know the facts, you don't have very much difficulty 

getting into agreement. I believe furthermore that this inherent 

reasonableness persists even though people wear uni.!o:nns and I would 

say the success which this committee is having is at least partial 

proof that this is true. 

As evidence of the success of the Garner Committee, the Committee 

recently decided t.o change its name. Its name is now Crypto-communica.tions 

Committee, meaning that it is a committee that considers the overall design 

o:f communications circuits of which crypto-devices are merely a. part. 

The committee has already gotten over the notion that a Signal Corps 

outfit can design a cormnunication system sitting in thia dark corner 

and NSA can design black boxes in another dark corner and put them 

together and expect them to work. Rather this Committee stands for the 

idea. that the right way to produce communications syst~s is to do the 

whole job a.t once, security devices and all. 

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REF ID:A66658 

k 

In the COKINT area, there is anoth ttee fllllct~nil1€, 

chainnaned by Dr. Joseph ~achus. This e has been endeavoring 

to set up a fundamental plan for better zation in the CO!-UNT 

area. This Committee has membership both from R/D and from PROD. The 

second phase of this undertaking has just been completed_Jwhich consists 

of a statement of the important things that FROD does, starting with 

the collection in the field; transmitting the intelligence to the 

central point and finally processing it here. The next phase is going 

to consist of suggestions, of which we have already received a lot, 

of what we might do to improve the situation. I am very hopeful indeed 

for success of this undertaking. 

Also with reference to planning, one very effective way to improve 

a job of planning is to prepare adequate reports setting f ort.h, at 

suitable intervals, the current status of different jobs; the.program 

envisaged for the future, and the philosophy underlying this program. 

Such reports are ':Very good medicine for the person who prepares it. 

In tact they are the best medicine I know or; they are good medicine for 

me and good medicine for General. Canine. In fact General Canine likes 

that medicine veg_ 

~, 

~c;h. ~,1~ 

.... _.;~ 

With re! rence to these reports, I would say that the object 

shoW.d be to produce the kind of reports which the job needs-not to 

confonn · · outmoded forms of the past. We want to weed 

out th;/ unnecessary things and do the necessary things and we don 1 t 

want to be too much bound by the pa.st. 

I merely want J:.o make this little bit of summarization for you. 

I would like all or you to remember your charter which is simply to 

discover relationships and create new things. It is a very simple · charter, one that is very easy to remember. On the other hand, the 

fact that it is simple merely gives you a good definition of your job 

and does not imply that your job is simple. I think that all of us 

can be very proud to be working on such a mission as this. Also I 

want to express the hope that all o! you have a lot of run. 

A. B. CLARK 

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FOR Of dtnAt. Ust ONtY 
ll March 55 \ REF ID:A66658 
~ ' • REF ID:A66658 

11 March 1955 

R/b MILrrARY TECHNICAL STAFF l Fe.b 54 - 1 Feb 55 

TYPE GAL"fS LOSSP'S m CONVERI'ED TO CIVILIAN STATUS - 0f:ficers E, M. Total O:r!ice?'e E..M.: Total Officers ~ Total 

-· 

Engineers 37 . 31 68 38 19 57 +11 7 l s 

Mathematicians and 6 2 8 ll l 12 -4 6 0 6 

Cryptanalyate 

. ' ' 

·,·· 

;.fhysicist s 0 3 3 0 0 0 +3 l 0 1 ,,. 

43 36 Tl T<YrAL 49 20 §2 TOl'AL +10 14 l ll~ 

Net Gain credited to military 10 + 15 :a 25 

( 

'