Bamford, James 1946-

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BAMFORD, James 1946-

PERSONAL: Born September 24, 1946, in Atlantic City, NJ; son of Vincent (an insurance executive) and Katherine (Schmidt) Bamford; married Nancy Tyler (a respiratory therapist), January 20, 1979. Education: Suffolk University, B.A., 1972, J.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES: Home—2 Park St., Boston, MA 02107.

CAREER: Private investigator in Boston, MA, 1975-79; ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Washington investigative producer, late 1980s-1997. Distinguished visiting professor, Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, early 2000s. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1964-67.

MEMBER: National Press Club, Authors Guild, Investigative Reporters and Editors Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Best Investigative Book, Investigators and Editors Association, 1982, for The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency.

WRITINGS:

The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1982.

Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret NationalSecurity Agency: From the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

Author of introduction to The Chinese Black Chamber: An Adventure in Espionage, by Herbert O. Yardley, Houghton, 1983. Contributor to periodicals, including Harper's Magazine, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, USA Today, and Washington Post Magazine.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book about "the intelligence aspects of the events of September 11."

SIDELIGHTS: James Bamford's The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency, exposes the clandestine spying operations of the American government's National Security Agency (NSA), sometimes jokingly referred to in Washington as "No Such Agency" due to its top secret status. Established by the federal government in 1952, the agency is the largest intelligence operation in the country. With a two-billion-dollar budget and sixty thousand employees, many of whom are trained cryptologists, the agency effectively decodes and interprets international and domestic communications using highly sophisticated computers and satellites as its tools.

Bamford tapped the secrets of the NSA by his "aggressive use of the Freedom of Information Act," according to Philip Taubman in the New York Times Book Review. "I found a loophole in a section of Public Law 86-36 that enabled me to request the N.S.A. Newsletter," Bamford told Herbert Mitgang for the New York Times. "It has lots of information in it and is restricted 'to N.S.A. employees and their families.'" Bamford also reported that he was given a tour of the NSA facilities at Fort Meade, Maryland, when he told them he was writing a book on the subject.

The Puzzle Palace raised alarms among many government officials. In his exposé, the author, a lawyer and former private investigator, mentions specific names, places, and functions that are integral to the operation of the agency. Some critics and officials feared that the publication of such information would jeopardize the secrecy of the agency and hence the security of the United States. Taubman, however, argued that Bamford, for unknown reasons, failed to make the most potentially harmful disclosures, and he lauded him for the omission: "By revealing the scope and opening up the operations of the N.S.A. without giving away its most sensitive secrets, Mr. Bamford has performed an important public service."

Concerning the role of the NSA in the technologically expanding American society, Bamford is skeptical of the ability of the law to keep abreast of technical progress and thereby keep spying within the limits of the law. According to Taubman, Bamford is concerned about the failure of the law to compensate for "communications technology and the technology of spying." Taubman quoted a passage from Bamford's book in which the author warns, "Like an ever-widening sinkhole, NSA's surveillance technology will continue to expand, quietly pulling in more and more communications and gradually eliminating more and more privacy."

With the 2001 book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency: From the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century, Bamford delved much more deeply into the topic he had explored in what had theretofore been the definitive work on the NSA. Containing newly declassified information about events covered in The Puzzle Palace as well as tales of spying incidents that happened after that book was published, Body of Secrets is not only "the definitive book on America's most secret agency, but it is also an extraordinary work of investigative journalism, a galvanizing narrative brimming with heretofore undisclosed details," Joseph Finder wrote in the New York Times Book Review. Bruce Schneier of Salon called Body of Secrets "one fascinating book....Andit's chock-full of juicy stuff: secret Cold War missions over the Soviet Union, government coverups of military debacles, eavesdropping on our friends and enemies."

Bamford received much more official assistance in the writing of Body of Secrets than he had twenty years prior when he was working on The Puzzle Palace. In the more open post-cold war world, the NSA's director, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, had become concerned about the negative portrayal of it and other U.S. intelligence organizations in movies such as Enemy of the State. Eager to present the American people with a more accurate (and positive) view of the NSA, he gave Bamford an unprecedented degree of access to "Crypto City," the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade. Not only did Bamford have an opportunity to go through countless pages of documents and interview numerous NSA officials, but the agency even hosted a book signing for him on the Crypto City grounds.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, May, 2001, interview with James Bamford, p. 12.

Booklist, May 15, 2001, Brad Hooper, review of Body of Secrets, p. 1707.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January-February, 2002, Thomas Blanton, review of Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency: From the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century, pp. 62-63.

Chicago Tribune Book World, September 25, 1983.

Choice, February, 1992, review of The Puzzle Palace:A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency, p. 863; January, 2002, R. H. Immerman, review of Body of Secrets, p. 965.

Economist (U.S.), May 19, 2001, review of Body ofSecrets, p. 4.

Foreign Affairs, September-October, 2001, review of Body of Secrets, p. 155.

Insight on the News, July 30, 2001, Timothy W. Maier, interview with James Bamford, p. 36.

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.,: The IREJournal, July-August, 2001, Steve Weinberg, "NSA Revisited: Author Unearths New Material on Intelligence-Gathering Agency," p. 29.

Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1982.

Nation, June 18, 2001, Dusko Doder, review of Body of Secrets, pp. 25-29.

New Scientist, October 8, 1988, Barry Fox, review of The Puzzle Palace, pp. 55-56; August 11, 2001, Caspar Bowden, "Spooks, Snoops, and Spies," p. 49.

Newsweek, September 6, 1982.

New York Review of Books, February 3, 1983; June 21, 2001, Thomas Powers, review of Body of Secrets, pp. 51-54.

New York Times, September 5, 1982; April 23, 2001, James Risen, "Book Says Israel Intended 1967 Attack on U.S. Ship," p. A-7; April 29, 2001, Joseph Finder, "Bugging the World," pp. 8-9.

New York Times Book Review, September 19, 1982; October 16, 1983, review of The Puzzle Palace, p. 43; April 29, 2001, Joseph Finder, review of Body of Secrets, pp. 8-9; May 12, 2002, Scott Veale, review of Body of Secrets, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, April 23, 2001, Mark Rotella, review of Body of Secrets, p. 67; September 24, 2001, Charlotte Abbott, p. 13.

Reason, March, 2002, Michael Young, review of Body of Secrets, pp. 67-70.

Times Literary Supplement, February 11, 1983.

Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2001, Timothy Naftali, review of Body of Secrets, p. A24.

Washington Post Book World, October 3, 1982; May 27, 2001, William D. Hartung, review of Body of Secrets, p. T09.

Whole Earth Review, fall, 1990, review of The PuzzlePalace, p. 111.