Revelations of a Former NSA Insider
by Bruce Brill
Revelations of a Former NSA Insider
December 25, 1992 - Bruce Brill - The Jewish Press
We called ourselves "spooks." It implied that our work was
intriguing as well as secret. But, it was said tongue in cheek since
although our intelligence gathering efforts were clandestine, they
were not covert, were quite routine and by and large anything but
intriguing. Yet, over the course of my years at NSA -- or "The
Agency," as we spooks called it-- I was privy to some sensitive and
disturbing intelligence. But, first some background.
The American intelligence community is just that, a community, a
society unto itself with social guidelines even stricter than those of
an ordinary open society. Even personnel peripheral to Agency
intelligence work must have intensive security checks and clearances
in order to step foot into the NSA complex. Thus, the hierarchy of
security clearances begins at the Top Secret level and goes on from
there. There are parallel and layered levels of clearances which allow
the bearer access only to concomitantly classified information. Most
intelligence remains off limits to even the cleared analyst by the
requisite "need to know" restriction.
Only a select few, who sit at the top of the hierarchy, are privy to the
vast bulk of intelligence processed by the Agency. By controlling the
type of information passed on to National Security Council policy
makers, these few Agency heads effectively wield an immense
amount of influence by proxy with profound national --if not global-
- implications. Their hidden agendas remain hidden ... to the public,
the Congress and members of the National Security Council itself
(unless, of course, there is collusion between certain members of the
NSC and Agency higher-ups).
The traditional antagonism of the US State Department toward Israel
is mirrored in the US Intelligence Community. Examples are many,
but are subtly camouflaged. For example the Hebrew language was
the only one used at the Agency for overt spying where Hebrew
linguists were told to declare that they were "Special Arabic"
linguists.
While I worked at the Agency as an Arabic and "Special Arabic"
traffic analyst in the early 1970's, I had learned of the planned
October 6, 1973 invasion of Israel by Syria and Egypt 41 hours
before the attack began. Upper echelon Agency personnel knew of
the planned attack hours, if not days, prior to that. Not forwarding
this vital information resulted in the unnecessary deaths and
maiming of thousands of Israeli young men. That -- according to
Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir-- the US actually forwarded
misinformation that there would be NO attack on Yom Kippur, is
criminal.
The unstated anti-Israel policy within the US Intelligence
Community is one which --until now-- has been successfully kept
from public knowledge, or even general knowledge at the Agency
since the "need to know" where such policies are made is strictly
confined to non-Jewish select. It was, therefore, quite by accident
that I discovered that there are in fact chambers at NSA that are off
limits to Jews, US citizens with the highest clearances, simply
because they are Jews. Clearly, efforts towards Israel's demise are
made here. These Agency inner sancta are so totally immune from
any monitoring, that such unconstitutional goings on have a totally
free hand.
Are there such inner sancta that are off limits to blacks, Orientals
orother American minorities? There is no reason to believe that there
aren't, since there is absolutely no answerability that would prevent
it. Such discriminatory practices fly in the face of the US
Constitution's Bill of Rights. Likewise, working against the only
democracy in the Middle East, Israel, seems hardly very American.
Since only after the war these things became known to me, I
naturally assumed that Israel, America's publicly declared friend,
would have been notified immediately through proper channels
about the imminent attack on Yom Kippur, 1973. Now I live with
the haunting doubt that, somehow, I could have discovered the
intelligence was not being forwarded, gotten it to the Israelis, and
saved some measure of anguish that became known as the Yom
Kippur War. Yet I didn't and agonize each Yom Kippur.
I was a loyal American military intelligence analyst who contributed
towards Israel's planned demise. I received my honorable discharge
from the US Army and I am a free man; Jonathan Pollard, by
contrast, is still sitting in prison.
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