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NEWS AND EVENTS

Cold War Spy Satellites Declassified (updated 2/2/12)

"Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of three of the United States' most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites.

The vintage National Reconnaissance Office satellites were displayed to the public Saturday in a one-day-only exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, Va. The three spacecraft were the centerpiece of the NRO's invitation-only, 50th Anniversary Gala celebration held at the center last evening." (Article by Roger Guillemette for Fox News)

Update: On December 26, 2011, an article by Helen O'Neill of the Associated Press was published about a group of individuals living in Danbury, Conn that worked at Perkin- Elmer and developed the cameras and optics system for the Hexagon satellite.

Update:  The three once-secret U.S. spy satellites, KH-7 Gambit 1, the KH-8, Gambit 3 and the KH-9 Hexagon, built to look down on the Soviet Union were unveiled in Ohio on Thursday, January 26, 2012 in a rare public display by the United States Air Force.  They are on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, and will eventually be installed in a new wing for space relics and other aircraft.  Pictures of the satellites are available on the space.com web site.

James Pryde and George Lucas' Movie "Red Tails" (posted 1/25/12)

Jim Pryde, past member of the NCMF Board of Directors and one of the Documented Original Tuskegee Airman (DOTA) previewed the movie Red Tails by George Lucas at the White House with other DOTA's.   Jim commented that the movie "is a good movie and displays the facts that the airmen could accomplish what the powers that be at the time asserted that they could not and that strong leadership and a dedication to the mission will result in success."

New Regional Operations Center in Hawaii (posted 1/25/12)

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service recently marked the completion of a new regional operations center in Wahiawa, Oahu, HAWAII,, officially named the CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony where officials emphasized how the $358 million project will help to further integrate national security efforts. The NSA web site provides the complete press release.

Bletchley Park Post Office (BPPO) (posted 1/19/12)

The BPPO has produced a set of four Royal Mail postage stamps, based on paintings by Mr. Steven Williams – the artist with whom we are discussing commemorative artwork to be created for the NCM. Principals of the BPPO visited NCM a few years ago. Interested philatelists should contact BPPO directly.

Block C at Bletchley Park to be Preserved (posted 1/13/12)

Bletchley Park, where the Germans' Enigma code was broken (photograph: Andy Hall/Channel 4)

Block C is 'a uniquely important site' according to English Heritage.  To look at, it is a distinctly undistinguished and desolate-looking piece of utilitarian 1940s architecture. There is a failed concrete roof, water seeping in, pigeons nesting and vegetation growing through the cracks in the brickwork.

But in context, the long overlooked and derelict Block C at Bletchley Park, the second world war codebreaking headquarters in Buckinghamshire, may be one of the most significant buildings of the 20th century and on Friday the UK government gave it Grade II listed status to preserve it for posterity.

NSA Hall of Honor – Call for Nominees for 2012 (posted 11/18/11)

The Foundation invites your nominations for the NSA/CSS Cryptologic Hall of Honor which was established in 1999 to pay tribute to Americans and others who have given especially distinguished service to the United States in cryptology and its related fields. The process is open to all individuals, military and civilian. Following selection, the NSA/CSS will host an induction ceremony at the Museum.

The nominee must have made significant contributions to the security of the United States in the field of cryptology either by one important achievement or contributions over a career. The nominee must be retired from active duty for a minimum of 15 years. The justification should be substantive and well written. You are encouraged to consult with others who worked closely with the nominee for input. Please review the HOH Selection Guidelines and the careers of previous inductees. Mail your nominations to NCMF, POB 1682, Ft. Meade by February 17, 2012.

NSA Memorial Ceremony (posted 11/16/11)

Nov. 10, Fort Meade, MD - GEN Keith B. Alexander, USA, Director,
National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service, paid special
tribute to CTRCS David B. McLendon, USN; Sgt Lucas T. Pyeatt, USMC; and
CTR1 Michael J. Strange, USN, at a Memorial Ceremony held here. Each of
these service members gave their lives, "serving in silence," in the
line of duty. The service was attended by family, friends, and
distinguished guests.  For information on each of those honored visit the National Cryptologic Memorial.


ASA Soldier Remembered (posted 11/11/11)

The November/December issue of VFW Magazine contains a photo and an article on Spec 4 James T. Davis (ASA) titled "50th Anniversary: First U.S. KIA in Vietnam"

Hall of Honor – 2011, NSA Press Release (posted 11/30/11)

FORT MEADE, MD - Four pioneers of American cryptology were inducted into the NSA/CSS Hall of Honor on 28 November at the National Cryptologic Museum. In his keynote remarks during the induction ceremony, John C. Inglis, Deputy Director, National Security Agency, highlighted the distinguished achievements of each of the inductees:

  • Mr. William Coffee: A civil rights pioneer who proved what minorities could achieve in cryptology when given the opportunity. He served as one of the first African-American cryptologists elevated to a supervisory position in the Army Signal Security Agency.
  • Mr. Joseph Desch: Selected among all other engineers at the National Cash Register Company to design the Bombe, a vital cryptanalytic machine in the war against Germany's U-boats, thus saving countless lives and helping to achieve Allied victory in Europe in World War II.
  • Colonel Parker Hitt: Authored The Manual for the Solution of Military Ciphers. Published in 1916, this was the first work of its kind in the United States in 100 years and laid the foundation for the nation's impressive cryptologic achievements during the 20th century. His cryptographic and cryptanalytic principles were used for decades to protect U.S. military communications.
  • Ms. Laura Holmes: A career cryptanalyst who inspired and motivated her students and colleagues with her patience and persistence in solving some of the most difficult cryptanalytic problems in the late 20th century. Her remarkable qualities and legendary ability to remember facets of different systems were often the difference between success and failure.

Sale of a Three-Rotor Enigma cipher machine breaks record (posted 11/5/11)

An Enigma machine which was featured in a Hollywood movie about the codebreakers of World War II has smashed auction estimates and sold for a world record price. The encoding device sparked a three-way bidding war when it went under the hammer at Christie's in London Thursday, selling for £133,250 ($208,137) -- more than double the upper estimate of £50,000.

Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan, USAF (Ret) and AFCEA Leadership 5 Questions (posted 11/5/11)

Gen Minihan sat down for a 5 question interview with AFCEA on leadership. The interview runs about 6 minutes and you should find his comments interesting, especially his response to the question about his biggest failure.

HP Donates Another Printer (posted 9/13/11)

The printing capability of the NCMF office was enhanced recently with the donation by HP of a multi-function color printer. John Garcia, a member of the NCMF EXCOM, orchestrated the donation. Pictured below are . David Aumiller, HP Imaging & Printing Group, Federal Advanced Programs Group, Mary Faletto, NCMF Senior Administrator, Aldo Micheli, NISUS technician, who installed the printer, and Gene Becker, President, NCMF. David Aumiller was also responsible for donating the color printer that was replaced.

Members Only Passwords (posted 8/2/11)


When we were developing the Members Only section of the NCMF web site we decided that since Members Only would not contain any significant personal information that a full blown security system was not necessary. By doing so, we unknowingly limited the special characters that could be used in passwords. When a member used one of these unacceptable special characters it caused “strange” results in the emails sent to the Webmaster for membership verification. Now that we know the cause of these strange results, we have decided that rather than pay the cost to modify the system to accept these special characters or to identify and list those special characters that are acceptable, we have decided to limit Passwords to numbers and upper and lower case letters.
Therefore, beginning shortly, under the password fields on the Members Sign Up form in Members Only will be a notation that reads, in red, "Passwords can only contain numbers and upper and lower case letters."
It is likely that some might find our solution inadequate but we believe a password that is secure enough for our purposes can be created by our criteria. I found password testers on the Web and ran a few tests on the strength of passwords using just numbers and lower or upper case letters and I got a rating of very strong with lengths of 8 to 15 characters.

Special Note: if you already have a password that contains special characters registered in Members Only you can continue to use it.

Maryland History Day and Milt Zaslow Award (posted 7/1/2011)


On April 30, the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation (NMF) was pleased to join the Maryland Humanities Council (MHC) in its ceremony to recognize students from around the state who were selected as winners in the annual Maryland History Day competition in preparation for the National History Day events.

The MHC is a private, educational nonprofit organization that stimulates conversations that explore issues in Maryland communities. In 2010, the NCMF created an annuity for the MHC in honor of Mr. Milt Zaslow, which would fund the awards in the Junior and Senior Divisions that would focus on cryptology. The award is known as the Milt Zaslow Award in Cryptology, and it is scheduled to be awarded for the next ten years. This is one of the major efforts of the NCMF in furthering education in cryptology.

While many of the student papers looked at Civil War themes, several papers involved a wide variety of topics.   Of interest were the winners of the NCMF Milt Zaslow Award, Alex Snouffer and Aiden Jensen of the Springfield Middle School for their exhibit on Public Security vs. Personal Privacy:  The Debate Over the Key Escrow Program and Katie McRae of Wooten High School for her exhibit on Wiretapping.  Pictured below is John Garcia, representing the NCMF, presenting the plaque to Alex and Aiden.  Katie was not able to be present for the ceremony.


Ceremony to Honor David Kahn for his Donations to the NCM (posted 11/12/10)

On 26 October 2010 a ceremony was held at the National Cryptologic Museum to commemorate and to acknowledge with thanks the generous donation by Dr. David Kahn of his lifetime collection of cryptologic books, memorabilia and artifacts to the museum and its library. The ceremony was hosted by the foundation - as part of its activities in support of the museum.

Proceedings began with the introduction of several speakers and prominent guests by Mr. Patrick D. Weadon, Curator of NCM. Following his brief opening words the podium was taken by General Keith B. Alexander USA who, in addition to his combined responsibilities as Director NSA and Chief of the Central Security Service, is also Commander of the newly-formed U.S. Cyber Command. Gen. Alexander spoke in glowing terms about David Kahn’s standing and abilities as the foremost of cryptology’s historians and officially thanked him on the agency’s behalf for his outstanding generosity in donating this valuable and unique collection to the NSA’s museum where it will be accessible to a wide range of scholars, both domestic and international, who will now see the Fort Meade facility as the primary center for crypto-historical research in the USA.

David Kahn, who holds a D.Phil. awarded by England’s Oxford University, followed General Alexander at the podium where he spoke about the early days of his life’s interest in cryptology and the way in which it led to the writing of his seminal work, The Codebreakers - first published in 1967 and now in its second edition [1996], with the possibility of a third edition always in mind. Dr. Kahn spoke also of the invaluable research work done, for this book and many others, on his behalf by his boyhood friend Mr. Edward S. Miller who was also present and who took the podium to say a few words at this point in the proceedings.

Mr. Miller was followed as a speaker by Mr. Eugene J. Becker, President of NCMF who spoke briefly of the work of the foundation and its former and charter President – currently emeritus – Major General John E. Morrison USAF [ret], who was the key figure in arranging David Kahn’s generous donation. The foundation then transferred this vast quantity of irreplaceable material to the museum and into the care of the NCM Librarian, Ms. Rene Stein. Ms. Judith A. Emmel, NSA’s Associate Director for Public Affairs closed the proceedings and added her thanks to Dr. Kahn for his support over a number of years.

The speakers then gathered and, after receiving their ‘golden’ scissors from Ms. Emmel, joined in a five-way ribbon cutting ceremony to open officially this new segment of the library. The ceremony was followed by a catered lunch hosted by the foundation.

The David Kahn collection is still being inventoried by the museum but individual items of great rarity and even uniqueness include Blaise de Vigenère’s ‘Traité des Chiffres’, written in 1587 and Johannes Balthasar Friderici’s ‘Cryptographia’ of 1684. The historical pièce de résistance is without doubt a signed letter from the Emperor Napoleon to his son Prince Eugene Napoleon. The letter is described elsewhere in these web pages in more detail. The framed letter will shortly be on exhibit in the museum along with the many other rare and ‘one of a kind’ items already in the NCM collection. A large proportion of the David Kahn collection is already on the shelves of the library where items may be studied and copied: but not borrowed.

Article written by David Hamer, photos by John Garcia


NSA – NCMF MOU

An MOU was signed by the Deputy Director NSA and the NCMF Chairman of the Board which reaffirms the longstanding commitment of both NSA/CSS and the NCMF to work in partnership toward achieving a highly successful Museum. The purpose of the MOU is to strengthen this relationship as well as to clarify the responsibilities, expectations, and obligations assumed by both parties in their support of the Museum.   

                                    
The full text of the MOU is only available to Members of the NCMF. To access the document, log into Members Only, click on Member News and scroll down to the News Archives where you will find the MOU entry. An alternative is to log into Members Only, click on Member News, scroll down to the Archives and enter MOU in the search box.

Members Only News


The NCMF members news is only available to Members of the NCMF. Currently available are excerpts from past Board of Directors and Executive Committee meetings as well as the full text of the recently signed MOU between NSA and the NCMF and the call for nominees for the 2010 Hall of Honor.

To access current and historical news, log into Members Only, click on Member News and scroll down to the News Archives where you will see all news items that are available. An alternative is to log into Members Only, scroll down to the Archives and do a search on the subject you are interested in.