The Secret Sentry

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This book presents the first complete history of the National Security Agency, America's most powerful and secretive intelligence organization. In February 2006, while researching, Matthew Aid uncovered a massive secret document reclassification program, a revelation that made headlines. This discovery is just one of many from Aid's two decades of research into formerly top-secret documents. The account traces the agency's growth from 1945 to the present, highlighting critical moments in its history, including the Cold War and its ongoing involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Aid examines the agency's role in the Iraqi weapons intelligence debacle, where NSA officials deemed evidence "ambiguous" yet used it to assert Iraqi WMD capabilities. He also details the intense internal debates over the NSA's unprecedented role in domestic spying, influenced by the Bush-Cheney administration. Today, the NSA is the primary source of intelligence for the U.S. government, contributing 60 percent of the president's daily intelligence briefing. While previous works have covered the NSA since 9/11, this account offers new insights into every period since World War II, providing a shadow history of global affairs, from the creation of Israel to the War on Terror.