A Study On Telecommunications Security Policy During The Ford Administration, 1974-1977

As a counter-measure to contain the Soviet Union signals intelligence activities on US soil, telecommunications security policy during the Ford administration constitutes an important part of information warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the late 1960s, the Soviet intelligence services started to set up some SIGINT stations to intercept telephone circuits and microwave communications in the United States, and established Sixteenth Directorate, responsible for SIGINT and communications interception, which has brought high risk to the US telecommunications security. This dissertation mainly pays a visit to the telecommunications security policy decision-making process and its results during the Ford administration facing the threat of Soviet to intercept the US telecommunications.In the late period of the Nixon administration, the US government has been aware of the vulnerability of the microwave lines to covert exploitation by Soviet communications intercept groups. With the increasing recognition of interception scale, involved scope and the nature of Soviet intelligence activities, the Ford administration gradually formulated four National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM266, NSDM296, NSDM338 and NSDM346), working out near term actions and long-term solutions to take defensive measures and offensive measures to protect government and non-government communications. In 1977, the Carter administration submitted Foreign Surveillance Prevention Act to the Congress, and signed the Presidential Directive No.24. So far, national security telecommunications policy was finally established.Unlike the open and transparent manner on the telecommunications security that the Carter administration takes up, the Ford administration mainly focuses on safeguarding national security and protecting national interest, rather than protecting the privacy of citizens. The Ford administration would like the public neither to be fully aware of the details that Soviets are intercepting American microwave communications, nor to link the telecommunications security breach with the Soviet threat to the United States. In conclusion, telecommunications security policy during the Ford administration mirrors the era of Detente. As in the process of decision-making, there are many examples where the Ford administration takes US-Soviet foreign relations into account, and spares their efforts to maintain the Detente. In the short term, the policy works well because the KGB signals intelligence activities were restricted to a certain extent, and the KGB was forced to transfer their communication interception target. But in the long term, this effect becomes limited. On the one hand, the amount of intelligence intercepted by KGB was not decreasing but increasing. On the other hand, due to the betrayal of John Walker, the KGB is still able to intercept and decipher some government communication lines.