Body of Secrets

Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency is a book by James Bamford about the NSA and its operations. It also covers the history of espionage in the United States from uses of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system to retrieve personnel on Arctic Ocean drift stations to Operation Northwoods, a declassified US military plan that Bamford describes as a "secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba."[1]

Body of Secrets
AuthorJames Bamford
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectNational Security Agency
GenreNon-fiction
Published2001 (Anchor Books)
ISBN978-0-385-49907-1
OCLC44713235
327.1273 21
LC ClassUB256.U6 B36 2001
Preceded byThe Puzzle Palace 
Followed byA Pretext for War 

For the book, NSA director Michael Hayden gave him unprecedented access. In contrast, his previous book, The Puzzle Palace, was almost blocked from publication by the agency.

USS Liberty incident

One of the chapters in Body of Secrets is titled “Blood” and is about the 1967 USS Liberty incident.[2] In this chapter, Bamford details the attack and its immediate aftermath. He dedicates part of this chapter to discussing U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin E. Nowicki, a linguist aboard a Navy EC-121 that was flying overhead during the attack.[3][4] CPO Nowicki had commented that he and another linguist onboard the aircraft had intercepted Israeli communications that seemed to indicate they knew or suspected the ship they were attacking was American.

Bamford posits that the motivation for the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was to cover-up the Ras Sedr massacre, which occurred the same day as the Liberty attack. Bamford postulates that the Israeli Defense Forces grew concerned that the USS Liberty, a signals intelligence collection ship, may have collected evidence of the massacre and was thus attacked in an effort to suppress the evidence.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

Bibliographic data
  • James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency,
    • Doubleday; 1st edition (April 24, 2001) ISBN 978-0-385-49907-1
    • Anchor; Reprint edition (April 30, 2002) ISBN 978-0-385-49908-8
    • Bamford, James (2002), Body of Secrets: How America's NSA & Britain's GCHQ Eavesdrop On The World (New ed.), London: Arrow, ISBN 978-0099427742

See also

Notes
  1. James Bamford (2002-04-30). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Anchor. ISBN 0-385-49908-6.
  2. Bamford, James (2007-12-18). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-42505-8.
  3. "USS Liberty: Cover Up | History News Network". hnn.us. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  4. "USS Liberty: Cover Up | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  5. Bamford, James (2007-12-18). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-42505-8.
  6. Risen, James (2001-04-23). "Book Says Israel Intended 1967 Attack on U.S. Ship". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  7. "CNN.com - Israel's 1967 attack on U.S. ship deliberate, book says - April 23, 2001". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  8. Pensack, Miriam (2017-06-06). "Fifty Years Later, NSA Keeps Details of Israel's USS Liberty Attack Secret". The Intercept. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  9. "Remember the USS Liberty? The US and Israel wish you didn't". Middle East Monitor. 2014-06-04. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  10. Oren, Michael B. (2001-07-23). "Unfriendly Fire". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
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