The Puzzle Palace (1982)

The Puzzle Palace is a book written by James Bamford and published in 1982. It is the first major, popular work devoted entirely to the history and workings of the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States intelligence organization. The title refers to a nickname for the NSA, which is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In addition to describing the role of the NSA and explaining how it was organized, the book exposed details of a massive eavesdropping operation called Operation Shamrock. According to security expert Bruce Schneier, the book was popular within the NSA itself, as "the agency's secrecy prevents its employees from knowing much about their own history".

Research and publication

The NSA describes Bamford's research process in a partially declassified history of postwar American cryptography. The history begins by describing how Bamford approached Houghton-Mifflin with a proposal to write a book on the NSA. The publisher accepted and paid Bamford a $7,500 advance.

According to the NSA's historical account, "Public Law 86-36 had served as a useful barrier against this type of research, but Bamford proved to be cleverer than others. He began with a barrage of requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)." Bamford eventually discovered "the Mother Lode," a collection of documents deposited at the George C. Marshall Foundation Library by former NSA chief cryptologist William Friedman. These documents included copies of the NSA Newsletter, addressed to "NSA Employees and their families." The account continues, "Bamford then submitted a FOIA request for the entire collection, using as his rationale the offending phrase indicating that the information had been intended for dissemination to uncleared people." The FOIA requests gave Bamford access to an only lightly redacted set of documents, and a former NSA employee later gave Bamford access to an almost complete collection.

During the 1975 Church Committee hearings, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) had investigated the legal culpability of various intelligence agencies. Bamford submitted a FOIA request for resulting documents, and received most of their report on the NSA. The DOJ did not inform the NSA of the release because the investigation was ongoing, and the NSA was a possible target. The released papers were later to become the subject of threatened litigation, and their release prompted eventual rule changes that allowed for document reclassification. According to the NSA's history, "the document, with some Justice redactions, contained a good deal of information about the NSA-GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, a British intelligence agency] relationship, and served as the basis for Bamford's information on Second Party issues [i.e., issues regarding outside agencies with which the NSA had partnered]." The NSA history dryly notes that "GCHQ was not amused" about the disclosure.

Bamford also interviewed retired NSA senior officials, including former director Marshall Carter, with whom he talked for a day and a half. None of the discussed subject matter was classified, but, according to the NSA, "it helped Bamford to complete his mosaic." The NSA account also describes how Bamford drove through the NSA parking lot, recording diplomatic license plates and cross-checking them against known lists to determine which countries maintained representatives at Fort Meade.

The NSA's historical account summarizes Bamford's work thusly: "James Bamford broke new ground in intelligence agency research, and his techniques were adopted by others seeking to investigate reclusive federal agencies. He did it all within the limits of the law – through attributable interviews, FOIA'ed documents, and meticulous research in public libraries and newspapers. ... He 'wrote the book' on how to put together a comprehensive picture of an organization that wanted no such comprehensive picture."

Threatened legal action and document reclassification

Before the book's publication, the Reagan administration claimed that unclassified source documents were released to Bamford in error, and threatened him with prosecution if he did not return 250 pages of documents he had obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The documents in question related to a 1975-76 DOJ investigation, and described the NSA's widespread illegal monitoring of domestic communication, warrantless surveillance of Americans, and monitoring of commercial cable and telex traffic. Bamford's attorney, believing that they would prevail in court, invited the DOJ to prosecute, but no case was ever brought. In the wake of the dispute, classification rules were revised to allow document reclassification, and the contested documents were reclassified. NSA agents then visited libraries to remove other source documents from circulation.

The new rules allowing document reclassification were outlined in Executive Order 12356. Previously, Executive Order 12065, issued by Jimmy Carter in 1978, had prohibited document reclassification. Executive Order 12356, issued by Ronald Reagan in 1982, eliminated the reclassification prohibition and described situations in which documents could be reclassified. Released documents could be reclassified as long as they could be reasonably recovered (meaning that documents available to the public at large would not meet this criterion). It also allowed documents requested under the FOIA or Privacy Act to be classified or reclassified provided they met specified requirements (e.g., certain matters related to national security). According to Bamford, he could not be prosecuted under the new rules because of the principle of ex post facto.