JFK Assassination System Date: 7/7/2015 Identification Form AGENCY : RECORD NUMBER : RECORD SERIES : AGENCY FILE NUMBER : ORIGINATOR : FROM: TO: TITLE : DATE: PAGES: SUBJECTS : DOCUMENT TYPE: CLASSIFICATION : RESTRICTIONS : CURRENT STATUS : DATE OF LAST REVIEW : OPENING CRITERIA : COMMENTS : Agency Information Released under the John Kennedy Wses5asgsination Records oOllection Act of 1992 SSCIA 157-10014-10187 (44 USC 2107 Note). ase#: NW 55355 Date: ii-24-2017 MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE 07-M-92 Document Information SSCIA NSA MONITORING 09/09/1975 6 WATCH LIST NSA MEMORANDUM Unclassified Ic Redact 06/26/2000 v9.1 HW 55355 Docld: 32423575 Page 1
Date : 08/07/95 Page : 1 JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION -FORM AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY : SSCIA RECORD NUMBER : 157-10014-10187 RECORDS SERIES : MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE ‘AGENCY FILE NUMBER : DOCUMENT INFORMATION OPENING CRITERIA COMMENTS ORIGINATOR : SSCIA FROM : TO : TITLE : NSA MONITORING DATE : 09/09/75 PAGES : 6 SUBJECTS : NSA WATCH LIST DOCUMENT TYPE : MEMORANDUM CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED . RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED ‘ CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 01/19/99 [R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED HW 55355 Docld:3242735575 Page 2?
HW 55355 ‘House. INTERVIEW WITH: Mrs. Juanita Moody DATE/TIME/PLACE: September 9, 1975, 9:30 a.m., NSA PRESENT: - Eric Richard, Peter Fenn RE: NSA Monitoring Background was with the Second Signal Service Battalion. She began as a clerk and later, during World War II worked as a cryptanalyst. She then worked for the Army Security Agency, and later, the Armed Forces Security Agency, which is the forerunner of the National Security Agency. Prior to 1961, Moody worked in the Soviet area and analyzed SIGINT traffic. In July 1961, she became the head of G Group which was the NSA section responsible for non- Communist countries. In 1966, she became head of P Group, which included the Information and Reporting element, Cus tomer Relations, the Command Center, the Library, and the Central Reference service. In 1973, she became head of V Group, which included the responsibilities of P Group, as well as research and engineering, requirements, report ing, and the NSOC (National SIGINT Operations Center). Watch List Moody explained that the term "watch list" was some- what of a misnomer because it changed in meaning over the years. She said the first time that she ever heard the term "watch list" was in 1961, and it was in relation to looking for names of people, reports of meetings, or some other kind of activity. She recalls, in the early 1960s, the names of subversives and agents, particularly Soviet, that CIA had sent to NSA. She has no recollection of any. U.S. citizens being on the watch list in the early 1960s. In fact, she says that at that time, she was working on the military aspect of the Cuban problem, and did not keep close track of individuals on the watch list. The period during which Moody has the clearest memory of change in the way the watch list was conducted was in 1963. The assassination of John Kennedy provided the im- petus for the Secret Service's inclusion of American eiti zens who posed threats to the lives of prominent Govern- ment officials. She recalls meeting with other agencies during the time the Warren Commission was putting togethe its report, particularly with CIA and the FBI. She state that these early meetings were somewhat confusing in that no one in the intelligence community seemed to understand exactly what NSA did. She recommended that P-2, or Cus- tomer Relations, be established to promote better contact with the other agencies; this was done to provide direct support to agencies, like the Secret Service and the Whit Docld: 324273575 Page 3
HW 55355 [ Jaia state that She-was involved in sending ou | 6 INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page > of The Director and Deputy Director were aware of the early watch list activity. Moody stated that because the | FILE: material was so sensitive, and the officers in the Agency were concerned for the "perishable nature" of the SIGINT product, the Director and Deputy Director took a major role in the activity. When names of American citizens wer put on the watch list, Moody is sure that the Director an Deputy Director did know of this activity. As for the General Counsel, Moody was not sure about his knowledge. Moody has no personal recollection of names coming i from the Office of Security. She stated that she inter- faced mostly with the other agency users and would not have had responsibility for communications with the Office of Security. Asked about the submission of names by telephone, Moody stated that this may have happened before the for- malization of the procedure in 1969; after 1969, any name coming in by telephone would have to be followed by written authorization from the requesting agency. The Yarborough cable of October 1967 signaled the first time that U.S. citizens and groups associated with biack and antiwar movements were expressly put on the watch list. She does recall the Yarborough cable coming in on a weekend and the reply from General Carter the nex week. At the time the cable came in, Moody discussed it with a Colonel William Hamilton. Hamilton questioned the legality and propriety of the task requested by Yarborou Moody and Hamilton then decided not to implement the re- quest until the Director approved it, which he did before authorizing a reply. Moody recognized her initials on the Carter response and the date of June 19, 1969. She could not recall why she initialed that document at that late date, although it may have related to the MINARET charter, which was written in July 1969. Moody cannot recall any meetings or discussions with anybody in the Defense Department, CIA, or FBI about the Yarborough cable. In fact, she sai she never talked to Yarborough about anything. She was under the impression, however, that there was a Presidentjal order to the Secretary of Defense to keep track of civil disturbances, and the Secretary of Defense had tasked the Army to do that monitoring. The Carter response to the Yarborough cable was familiar to Moody, but she could not recall ha j ment in its production. She noted that We later cabIS. Burns stated that Carter probably either dictated TFK Act 6 (1) (B) DoclId: 3274273575 Page 4
HW 355355 INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page _3_ of (1) (B) it to her or gave her the essential ‘points that he wante in the cable, and she then wrote. it up. {[__|statea that she was quite sure that the’ ‘telegram was sent to Yarborough and to the other individuals on the U.S. Intelligence Board. She cannot recall any meetings or communications during that time between Carter and Yarborough regarding civil disturbances). Moody could not recall anything being included on t watch list directly as a result of Yarborough's telegram. She did not know of any names of people.or organizations that came along with the Yarborough cable. In addition, she could not recall any specific response other than the Carter memorandum to Yarborough's telegram; she recalled no SIGINT every being supplied. Moody does not recall any meetings ‘within NSA that resulted from the Yarboroug cable. : . Moody stated that it was during this mid-late 1960s period that NSA began to develop a fairly sophisticated computer capability to do dictionary scans. The_initial effort was focused on a pilot project related tof [ana probably began in 1962-1963. But, she sai ha took many years to develop the capabili to the point where the computers could scan a large num- ber of messages. Moody recalls that names began to come in to the P Group from the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and possibly from the military services and DIA. She does not recall any names of individuals from the Army ACS(I) or from the State Department, although Ambassador Hoffacker was Chairman of the Terrorism Committee and may have submitt names that related to it. As for the Bureau of Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs, their submissions did not start coming in until about 1970, and then with assurances fro Director Ingersoll that the material would not be used to prosecute drug traffickers. Moody stated that NSA does not have "any law enforcement function." She did concede, however, that NSA could have intercepted com- munications which could have been used in apprehending drug traffickers. Moody stated emphatically that there were never any names sent from state or local police, an had there been, NSA would not have accepted them. This would have been a clear law enforcement function. When asked about the 4-page, roughly~typed document Moody said that she did not author it, but speculated that there were two people in her office who may have -- She recognized the lan- guage in it, but could not pinpoint where the list of names and organizations had come from, Docld: 324273575 Page 5
HW 355355 INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page | of ‘When questioned about project MINARET and the reason for it, Moody stated that she sensed the sensitivity of the project and was attempting to control. access to the perishable SIGINT information. In a sense, she was "pro- tecting the need to know. The charter was probably pre- pared within her office, but she cannot recall preparing it herself. It was approved by the Director, as were all other materials relating to the watch list. She stated that "Gayler was informed on a day-to-day basis about the watch list activities." She stated that she even took a specially-colored folder. containing watch list product to Gayler every day. FILE In addition, MINARET was discussed with and approved by the Secretary of Defense. Evidently, there was no approval by the White House. The post-MINARET period di not result in any substantive change in NSA's operation with regard to monitoring U.S. dissidents. Moody does not recall any questioning about the legality of the monitoring operation during this period. Questioned about the scope of the project, Moody stated that all monitoring was a result of a USIB require- ment and that it was also in response to another agency' specific request. Moody confirmed that there was a total of 1100 names of U.S. citizens and groups on the watch list; the largest number at any one time totaled about 300. Moody had no recollection of how much product was generated each month, nor how much was disseminated to other agencies. She did say that there was never any great amount of material, and that it was a small portio of their SIGINT effort. In terms of what material was disseminated to which agencies, Moody said that it depen upon their requirement; anything related to foreign con- nections with domestic activities would be sent to CIA, and the product regarding domestic groups would be sent to FBI. Obviously, if an agency had submitted a name, they would have received the product on that name. In terms of the value of the product, Moody said that "not much was turned up on foreign influence," but "Secret Service protection was enhanced because of our efforts. She stated that some NSA take was purportedly used to help save Henry Kissinger's life as well as that of Undersecretary Sisco. ' Moody was unclear as to when the General Counsel's office first became aware of the watch list, but knew that Lew Tordella informed both the General Counsel at CIA and DoD about the watch list in 1973. Docld: 324273575 Page 6
HW 355355 INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page > of 6 Moody was asked about the activities during the Huston Plan and IEC periods. She stated that certainly G Group was involved in some of the that related to the Huston Plan; both Buffham ana{_ FP rvon her shop participated in those activities. In fact, she recalls a proposal to change the charter of NSA-so that the Agency could target domestic citizens without ‘having to worry about the foreign communications caveat. . Moody Stated that if NSA were asked to monitor activities of radicals domestically, and the charter was changed, they would "carry out what we were told to do." ee“ IEK Act 6 Moody recounted fo i logue between Henry Petersen of Justice and and Tordella on the legality of the NSA wate st. he said that it was th opinion of the Justice Department that the activities against American citizens should be halted. She stated that this was a confusing period because for awhiie they thought all watch list activity was supposed to be stopp including that directed against foreigners. Moody recalled that some of the watch list files we destroyed in January 1974 and that she participated in that decision. It was decided that most of their materi should probably not be kept for a period of over five years. The destruction of drug files was due to the fac that that effort had ceased in 1973 and NSA saw no need for that material. As for the different attitudes ex- pressed over the watch list material, she attributed tha to the post-Watergate atmosphere. She also stated that Tordella may have been talking. with the General Counsel about the legality of the drug intercepts. Asked about the watch list product, Moody stated that most of it was printer traffic and very little was voice. She does remember that the general requirement t look at people involved in civil disturbances was pro- | bably sent to the voice intercept stations. But she has. no personal knowledge of this, and she would not have tasked them specifically. To her knowledge, most hits were processed, and no individuals or groups were not sent to any particular agency. In terms of the biographic information included in the footnotes, Moody said that most of it came from in- ternal sources; C-5 and some from CIA. She does not re- call ever calling, or knowing of anybody calling the FBI to get information to puton a piece of watch list produc Moody was asked about the memorandum that she sent out in May 1970 which instructed all agencies to re- affirm their interest in the watch list product. The Docld: 3274273575 Page 7