The Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961 the Russians began building the infamous Berlin wall to stop the flow of German refugees to the west. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier of that time ordered "the anti-fascist protection wall" built, using barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles.

Suddenly 60,000 East German workers could no longer travel into the western sector. And more importantly, the flood of technical, scientific and labor talent to the west was abruptly shut off. People were voting with their feet whether they preferred Communism or Democracy. During the 28 years the wall was standing over 5,000 people tried to escape, with 100 dying in the attempt.

On August 23, 1961, the German Democratic Republic stopped the subways, railroads, and telephone lines going to West Berlin. President Kennedy considered this a provocative measure.

As Commander-in-Chief he extended the enlistment of all military personnel scheduled for discharge in the next few months for three more months. And all military stationed overseas scheduled for rotation to the states had their assignment extended for six months. My re-assignment to CONUS (Vint Hill Farms, VA. or Ft. Huachuca, AZ.) was canceled and I remained in Asmara until my regular discharge in June 1962.

Never Drink and Broadcast
Several months later another ASA listening post in Europe heard a Czechoslovakian soldier say, "Man, are they going to be surprised when we attack in the morning! They think it's just a war game but we are going to overwhelm those Americans before they know what hit them!"

Both sides monitored each other's radio broadcasts and on this particular morning the Czechs were having what appeared to be war games. A large contingent of their troops were armed and positioned near the border. From this broadcast we learned they actually planned a sneak attack and again a "CRITIC" alert message went out from the station in Europe. After the usual DEFCON 3, Presidential alert business we learned something about executive management.

The Americans and Russians always had great respect for each other - like two professionals prize fighters that have a wary admiration for their opponent. Through their informal contacts our generals called their generals and told them the cat was out of the bag, there was no secret about the pending attack. The West was ready and they better reconsider. The Czech generals were dumbfounded. They investigated from the information we gave them - the unit and location. They found the guilty soldier. He had been drunk and the whole thing was just a joke. We went back to DEFCON 5 and World War III was narrowly averted once again!

Military Tribute At The Movies
Some of the most entertaining moments occurred when troops made unrehearsed comments during movies. Bawdy responses to innocent remarks on the screen were both spontaneous and hilarious. But my most memorable unsolicited declaration was not from the audience.

The movie theater happened to be across the street from Post Headquarters. Frequently we would attend the second show (at 9pm) and go to work at midnight. One evening the theater was almost full for one of the most popular movies, "Home From the Hill," with Robert Mitchum. Near the end, about 2 hours into the movie, there was an emotional scene where the family is waiting in the living room while a doctor was upstairs tending to Mitchum, who had been accidentally shot while hunting. Then the doc slowly comes down the stairs and announces to the family, "I'm sorry, there is nothing I could do. He has passed away." The entire theater is silent.

At that very moment (11PM), from Post Headquarters across the street, the loudspeaker sounded, "Taps!"

Always Vigilant
The motto of the ASA is "Always Vigilant." And we were, especially in the Automatic Morse section. Back on the job one morning in late May 1962, about 2AM, one guy found a new station but was having difficulty tuning it in.

The R390 radio had 17 separate knobs and dials that adjusted any number of things. Plus, there were 50 antenna outside providing reception in all directions. The Assistant Trick Chief (ATC) was called over because he had a "knack" for tuning in difficult signals.

The sound was a bit "off," in that it sounded like Morse code but there was something out of place. Nevertheless, he twisted one dial after another, adjusted this and that. Normally it takes about 15 seconds to tune in and tape a signal. This took about 10 minutes. And after getting it to print it still didn't make sense. It was not in Morse code! It was quite frustrating. If it wasn't in Morse code he had no authority for recording it. After a while, out of frustration and with nothing better to do, he held the tape up to the light and lo and behold, there it was! It printed backwards! His exact words were, "Well I'll be a son of a bitch! They're sending it backwards!"

Fortunately the Army had installed an accessory that was able to reverse the polarity of signals. He flipped the switch from the normal "A" over to "B" and the tape made sense. This was the first and only station we had ever seen that reversed polarity, that is, sent the signal backwards. Strange. Very strange! Why would anyone do that?

Reversed polarity means the sounds and silences are backward. With a normal signal the silence is interrupted by sounds - dots and dashes. In this case it was a continuous tone interrupted by short dots and dashes of silence. Weird!

Initially there was nothing but "handshaking" (exchanging call signs) between a new radio station in Moscow, sending to Havana, Cuba. This lasted for two hours before the station went off the air.

The new station went into the section logbook, with its call sign, frequency, signal strength and the "B" for signal type. It looked strange, a long column of "A"s with one "B" at the bottom. The logbook was left for the other shifts to complete and at the end of the day the 24-hour report was sent to the NSA, Ft. Meade.

The new station was tuned in the next night and, as before, they were sending their signal backwards. This time they commenced sending regular message traffic.

After typing a page or two we saw they were sending commercial cargo manifests to Havana, Cuba. From the outset the messages concerned construction material for what we assumed were factories. The shipments went from Odessa, a Russian port on the Black Sea, past Turkey via the Dardanelles, across the Mediterranean Sea, past Gibraltar and southwest across the Atlantic to Cuba. It appeared the Cubans were building factories and the Russians, one of their few allies at that time, were providing the material and money.

Each message included the cargo being shipped, the ship's name and date of sailing and the date of arrival in Havana. There was a long string of messages, with the station transmitting for up to 3 hours each morning, from about 2am to 5am.

When the ATC went to log the station he reviewed the transmitted report from the previous night and noticed someone had changed the signal type from "B" to the usual "A". Apparently the day shift supervisor has assumed the "B" was in error because it had never been seen before and he was being helpful by correcting a "mistake." However, in the interest of accuracy a correction message was sent showing the actual "B" designation.

This caused some concern with the people on the day shift. At the end of the next shift (around 8AM) a civilian "spook," (NSA analyst) "dropped by" and asked about it. (There were a few NSA types assigned to our building. (Day shift, naturally!)

The "correction" message indicated something extraordinary, that the "B" was no fluke. He asked about it and it was explained that the signal did show reverse polarity. We had learned how to use the new accessory device back at Ft. Devens and the "B" was correct. He agreed and that new station became part of our regular monitoring. From then on, during the summer of 1962 many freighters traveled from Russia to Cuba and the United States intelligence community was aware of every one of them.

NSA, with the help of the ASA and others, had been monitoring the Russian buildup in Cuba for several years. This small contribution was a team effort. One fellow noticed a new sound where no station had been before, someone else tuned it in and reported it and the NSA noted the contents of the messages. And someone interpreted the Russian into English. Your tax dollars at work, giving analysts several questions to answer: Why would they try to hide the traffic by using reverse polarity if the contents concerned only routine factory material? Were they trying to avoid detection? If so, why? The answer to these questions became evident in a few short months.

By June there were 114 shipments enroute or in Cuba. The CIA sent low-flying surveillance aircraft to photograph the ships as they entered the eastern Atlantic. Later U2 aircraft photographed the construction on Cuba and the rest is history.

If the Soviets had slipped those missiles into Cuba undetected the balance of world power would have certainly shifted to their side. But they didn't slip them anywhere.

"Radio intercept has often made significant contributions to history. I was, and am, pleased to have been part of the complicated process that, well in advance of the missiles arrival in Cuba, provided some of the information President Kennedy needed. If the missiles had gone operational before we learned about them the US would have had to live under the threat of nuclear missiles 90 miles from our shore. Not a pleasant prospect."

ATC-Mids Automatic Morse
ASA Operations Company
June 60 - June 62

This from the official NSA website: (no longer available).

"Looking back on the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is clear that SIGINT, combined with other types of intelligence such as photography and human sources, had pinpointed Cuba as a grave threat to the United States. The arms buildup and the defensive improvements spelled trouble, and focused the president and military leaders on the threat from Cuba long before the crisis erupted. In the middle of crisis, the intelligence system gave the president the information he needed to extricate the nation from its most dire crisis since the end of World War II."

Short Timer
Since my enlistment was up the end of June I soon headed back to CONUS for discharge at Ft. Dix. As a member of the Army Security Agency I was authorized First Class travel in civilian clothes on civilian aircraft. The Ethiopian Airlines DC-6 carried me north from Asmara to Frankfort, with a stop at Cairo. I stepped off to walk around and saw the most beautiful sight I had seen in many a year. There, sitting in all her splendor, was a TWA Constellation with the US Flag painted on her tail. It brought a lump to my throat. I was never more proud to be an American.

Tommy Tourist
We flew on to Frankfort to wait at the Air Force base for a MATS jet back to Maguire AFB/Ft. Dix NJ. They said I could expect to leave in about four days. That was good news since it gave me an opportunity to look up another buddy from high school, Ed White, stationed with an Army Signal Corp unit nearby. We hooked up and went into a nearby town for dinner and a few 'Biers."

The next evening I went into Frankfort to wander around on my own. About 5 O'clock I caught a trolley car and just rode to the end of the line where there happened to be a park in a pleasant residential neighborhood. Since it was dinnertime I found a place to eat, a small restaurant, down one flight, below street level, with only four tables. The lady handed me a menu but since it was German I couldn't understand it. She couldn't speak English. This was well off the tourist path and would take some figuring! I thought for a moment and said to her, "Moooo." Oh, and the single German phrase Ed had taught me, "Ein Beir, Fraulein." She brought a delicious beef dinner and a beer.

Whoosh! Up, Up and Away
Soon I was on my first jet, a military version of the Boeing 707. I had seen several of them take off and wasn't looking forward to it. The military, not being a commercial airline, is not as interested in passenger comfort as their primary concern is simply getting up to altitude and getting the flight over with as quickly as possible. As soon as they rotate and lift the wheels off the runway the pilot tips the nose up and the aircraft goes up at about a 45-degree angle. Whoosh! Wheeeeee!

As it was, the takeoff was hardly noticeable. The flight was quick and much faster than the trip over! (Duh!) By the way, I was the only one on the plane wearing a blue suit. Someone asked me whom I was with and I responded, "Department of Defense." I was, I just didn't say it was the Army part. Besides, this way I didn't have to explain why the ASA required their members to travel in normal clothes when the rest of the Army had to wear their military uniform. On a military jet out of Frankfort it made no sense. But the ASA is stationed in many parts of the world and wears civilian clothes to blend in with the civilians. It keeps the foreigners from asking a lot of difficult questions. We prefer to remain anonymous and non-descript.

The B707 landed at McGuire AFB in New Jersey, next door to Ft. Dix. I checked into the area reserved for short timers and was out in two days.

Two years away from the real world. It was great to be back!