The Secret Sentry : The Untold History of the National Security Agency

In February of 2006, Matthew Aid's discovery of a massive secret historical document reclassification program then taking place at the National Archives made the front page of the New York Times. This discovery is only the tip of the iceberg of Aid's more than twenty years of intensive research, culled from thousands of pages of formerly top secret documents. In The Secret Sentry, he details the untold history of America's most elusive and powerful intelligence agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), since the end of World War II. This will be the first comprehensive history of the NSA, most recently in the news with regards to domestic spying, and will reveal brand new details about controversial episodes including the creation of Israel, the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, and the invasion of Iraq. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the NSA has become the most important source of intelligence in the US government: 60% of the president's daily briefing comes from the NSA. Matthew Aid will reveal just how this came to be, and why the NSA has gone to such great lengths to keep its history secret. A groundbreaking history of America's other, more powerful intelligence agency Matthew Aid is a leading intelligence historian and expert on the NSA, and a regular commentator on intelligence matters for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the National Journal, the Associated Press, CBS News, National Public Radio (NPR) and many others. Presents a history of the agency, from its inception in 1945, to its role in the Cold War, to its controversial advisory position at the time of the Bush administration's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, shortly before the invasion of 2003