![]() ![]() The ASA transferred to USAFSS four Signal Corps units that had been performing COMINT and COMSEC missions for the Air Force. Security Service was given only six months to put into place its own staffing to replace the ASA personnel on temporary duty with its four newly activated squadrons. On that date, under a joint Army-Air Force agreement the new USAFSS command acquired “certain classified communications intelligence and communications security functions” from the Army Security Agency. Army Security Agency the mission of providing communications intelligence and communications security to Air Force commanders. The United States Air Force Security Service was created as a separate Air Force command on 20 October 1948, and on 1 January 1949 it inherited from the U.S. Volume IV, USAFSS Airborne SIGINT Reconnaissance.Volume II, USAFSS History in Europe and Middle East.Volume I, USAFSS General History and Women in USAFSS.The majority of FREEDOM THROUGH VIGILANCE addresses Air Force Security Service (1948-1979), with limited coverage of Electronic Security Command (ESC), Air Force Intelligence Command (AFIC), Air Intelligence Agency (AIA), and Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA). Many tables of information provide clear outlines of unit organization and manning history. Members of redesignated Air Force commands, which inherited and still conduct the mission of USAFSS, provide a look at current collection of multi-source intelligence.Ī wealth of photographs from the author’s collection will delight Security Service veterans and assist other readers in understanding the nature of the command’s work. Their accounts, although told with modesty and sometimes humor, illustrate inventiveness combined with technical expertise, courage and devotion to duty. They write or speak matter-of-factly about challenges overcome by resourcefulness, fortitude, and unstinting devotion to duty, with high morale and without complaint.įormer Security Service members share precise details of the intelligence gathering role they performed against the backdrop of the Cold War, including times when it heated up––the Cuban Missile Crisis, and during war––Korea and Vietnam. The veterans relate stories of harsh weather, shortages of manpower, materials and supplies, and lack of spare parts for their signals equipment, much of which was obsolete or unsuited for assigned tasking. In a smooth blend of formal and informal styles, Tart has written a very readable history.Īssigned to newly activated units in the United States, Alaska, Europe, and Asia, in the 1940’s and 1950’s the command’s pioneers literally built, often in remote locations, some of the bases and facilities needed to accomplish the mission. Men and women––intercept operators, linguists, cryptologists, analysts, communicators, clerks, and maintenance technicians––describe their personal involvement. The appeal of “FTV” lies in its hundreds of first hand accounts shared by the airmen and officers who created USAFSS history. A retired Senior Master Sergeant and career Russian linguist, he provides a rare look at Air Force signals intelligence operations, now possible following declassification of much of the Cold War SIGINT mission. In FREEDOM THROUGH VIGILANCE, author Larry Tart offers an appealing, in-depth history of the United States Air Force Security Service, for decades the most secretive command in the Air Force. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |