cryptolog_84.pdf - Cryptome

Declassified and Approved for Release by NSA on 10-16-2012 pursuant to E.O. 13526 , MDR Case # 54779

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STATIC MAGIC:THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF TEMPEST (U) •••••••••••Thomas M. Donahue••• .!••••••• 1

TEMPEST FOR EVERY OFFICE (U) ••••••••••••••••••• ~ 1./•.••••.•• 3I REMEMBER JFK (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ReG. R.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,. •• ,. • •,/~'/.i:'••••••• 5MBTI: THE MANAGEMEMNT TOOL OF THE FUTURE (U) ••• ~ ~ •••••••8ACRONYMANIA (U)................................ ~: •••••• 11THE WHITE HOUSE IS SINGING OUR SONG (U) •••••••••AIbert I. Murphy••/••••••••• 13

THE LITERARY BENDS (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••Albert I. Murphy•••••••••••14CIRCA 1949 (U) ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ~ ~ ••••••••• 195-4-3 PUZZLE•••••••••••••••••••••.••••••••••••••Watt Zizname••••••••••••••• 20

"IIIS BOCtJMBN~ CON~*INS e09EWOR9 MATERIJ.:b

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Editorial

"While I was perusing the Black Books forquotable oldies I realized that CRYPTOLOGcomes from a long tradition. In the 1920s theSignal Corps Bulletin published articles oncryptanalysis along with other subjects related to communications. Before that, as Irecall, around 1911 I think it was, Maubourgnepublished the solution to the PLAYFAIR cipherin a periodical of the War College (Ithink.,.don't remember exactly).

"I think that there's something deep insideevery professional that urges towards thepassing on of the torch, to chat in writingwith others of similar ilk, to want to findout what everyone else is doing, and how others are solving the same problems.

Well said, 'Virginia.

"You might want to write an editorial onthe (disrupted) continuity of documentation,exchange of ideas, etc. Before CRYPTOLOG wasKEYWORD, and I dimly recall something beforethat, including the underground press.

"Wayne:

*********************************************** ** CORRECTION ** ** The notation "This Document Contains ** Codeword Material" on the covers of the ** October 1983 CRYPTOLOG are in error. The ** proper caveat is HANDLE VIA COMINT CHAN- ** NELS ONLY. Please change your copy accord- ** ingly. ** ***********************************************

NOVEMBER 1983

BOARD OF EDITORS

4009885

Published by PI, Techniques and Standards

PUBLISHER

VOL. X, No. 11

Editor•••••••••~.~.I==================~1(963-3045s)Asst. Editor • ..I 1963-11035)production•••••••• ~ 1<963-3369s)

P .L; 86-36

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Contents of Cryptolog should not be reproduced, or further disseminated outside theNational Security Agency without the permission of the Publisher. Inquiries regardingreproduction and dissemination should bedirected to the Editor.

Collection•••••••••••• •1 1,(963-3961S)Computer Security

•••• Ji"----------.,4(968-7313s)

~:~~t~~~~~~~~~~~~:~ m~~~~=ll~~:~Information Science!,!

•••••• Carolyn Cornelius (963-5711s)Mathematics ••••• • 1 1(968-8518s)Puzzles David H. Williams!(963-1103s)Special Research Vera R. Filbyi(968'-7119s)

DOCID:

Nov 83 * CRYPTOLOG * Page 1

(U) These are just two examples of TEMPESTproblems at NSA. There have been others.

(U) There is no special meaning in the word"TEMPEST." It was simply picked from a covername list by an NSA engineer in the early1950s. However, TEMPEST has now become a generic word used throughout the US Governmentand industry to describe the unintentionalemanation of classified information from anequipment. It is used as a noun, verb, or adjective; sometimes in the same sentence. For

(U) Later she asked her boss, "Am I radiating?" Always the gentleman, he replied, "Youcertainly are, Nancy. Is that a new dress?"

-te7 A secretary in the R Organization atFANX II was typing a classified memo thatdealt with TEMPEST radiation. Her curiositywas aroused. The engineers in the lab werecomplaining about her new typewriter causingstatic in their equipment. Could this staticbe a form of the "compromising radiation" shewas reading about, and could it be picked upby the cars and vans parked less than 50 feetaway in the NSA parking lot?

(U) Fortunately for the Agency, she explained that it wasn't her dress she was worried about but her typewriter. The typewritershe was using was being placed throughout theAgency because tests had shown it had verygood TEMPEST characteristics. What had notbeen foreseen was that an enterprising salesman, to show his company's appreciation forthe new contract, was upgrading the typewriters at no cost to, and without the knowledgeof, NSA management. He was installing a device that let the typist see each line as itwas being typed on an electronic display. Unfortunately, it also let someone 200 yardsaway with TEMPEST intercept equipment see eachline as it was being typed.

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(U) The engineer twisted the dials on theelectronic intercept receiver. A couple ofblurred words appeared. A few more twists andthey became clear. "TOP SECRET" danced at thetop of the screen.

'%5TA1fC MAGfCORTheWonderful World ofTfMPE5T,} u)

OROne Man's Static Isb < Another Man's· Treasure!

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(U) Another time, another place, and morestolen cookies.

~ring the following two days we wereable to intercept classified text from 84 terminals in A Group and 4 in B Group. The terminals were immediately removed from service.

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(U) The COMSEC engineer almost had his nosepressed against the screen of the oscilloscope.

(U) "DID YOU SEE WHAT I SAW?"

(U) We smiled at each other. I gave theengineer a pat on the the back. My headachewas gone. We had done our thing. There wastension in the air--like being caught withyour hand in the cookie jar. But it was ourcookie jar.

(U) Staring at RF noise being displayed onan oscilloscope is like looking into a blizzard on New Year's' Eve. You start to imaginethings. It had been a long day. Suddenly twowords appeared on the screen: TERMINAL READY.I blinked; they were gone.

(U) How the devil did I know if I saw whathe saw if I didn't know what he saw? Besides,it was hot and I had a headache.

(U) The oscilloscope we were looking at wasdisplaying classified information radiatingfrom distant terminals in NSA OperationsBuilding Number 1. We were sitting in a Winnebago camper van in the visitors' parking lotnear Gate 2.

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(U) Well. if you have been watching Operations Building 2A going up. you have been witnessing the building of NSA' s own "Cone OfSilence." That copper material that goesunder the glass facing is for TEMPEST protection. This building will be by far the largest shielded enclosure ever built. The US Intellignce Community is watching this projectwith much interest. If it works as well as wethink it will. full-TEMPEST buildings may wellbe the thing of the future. There are alsoplans to TEMPEST-shield the Headquarters andOperations Building 1. The savings in convenience and dollars should be considerable.

(U) Carrying the idea of the shielded enclosure to the extreme. why not shield an entire building? Then you could place equipmentwithout worrying about TEMPEST radiation.

(U) The radiation present in your liVingroom coming from television Channel 2 is manytimes greater than the radiation from TEMPESTsignals. An hour at NSA with TEMPEST will beno more dangerous, but.probably a lot less exciting. than an hour at home watching the tempestuous activities of "The A-Team."

(U) A few additional words on TEMPEST radiation. There have been questions about theTEMPEST radiation that's going to be "trapped"inside the buildings by the shielding. "!sri' tradiation bad for you?" Well. let me put yourmind at ease. TEMPEST radiation is the sametype of energy. in the same frequency range.as that used to broadcast radio and televisionsignals. but it is much weaker.

measures can be taken to insure that any radi-. ation can't be intercepted. The latter can be

accomplished by using the inherent attenuationprovided by the location of the equipment.such as our building zone concept. or bybuilding a special room to keep the radiationfrom getting out. Such a room is called ashielded enclosure or. for the old-timers, a"screenroom. " It's the same idea as MaxwellSmart's "Cone Of Silence."


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EO 1.4. (c)P.L. 86-36

example. "TEMPEST requires that we TEMPESTequipment to suppress TEMPEST radiation."

(U) There/are two ways of providing TEMPESTprotecti()n~ The equipment can be designed sothat it/doesn't radiate in the first place. or

(U) NSA, because of the variety of equipment and sensitivity of its work. has alwaysworried about possible TEMPEST leaks. However. it wasn't until the late 1970s that aworkable plan was initiated to categorizeequipment into groups by their TEMPEST characteristics. Until then there was only onestandard for describing TEMPEST characteristics: NACSEM 5100.

(U) The compromising radiation levels ofoff-the-shelf equipment are measured and theequipment is assigned a TEMPEST zone rating.A "Zone I" rating means it has a low radiationprofile. while a "Zone 5" rating is given tothose with high levels of compromising radiation.

(U) This specificatiQn. NACSEM (NAtionalComSec/Emsec Memorandum) 5100, stated the laboratory- t~sts- and radiation limits an equipment must meet to be TEMPEST approved. It either did or did not meet it. The intent ofthe specification was to prevent someone inone room from "reading" the emanations in anadjacent room.

(U) Designing and building equipment tomeet the strict requirements of NACSEM 5100 isexpensive. It has been estimated that thecost of modifying all the typewriters. computers, etc., used by NSA to process classifiedinformation to meet NACSEM 5100 would probablyexceed the entire defense budget. Yet MiltonZaslow. a former Deputy Director for Telecommunications. was fond of saying. "TEMPEST is aprice we must pay to stay in business." Toovercome the cost versus security problem,COMSEC developed the "zone" concept.

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The ITP was formed to provide an alternative to this steadily increasing cost of TEMPEST protection. Its purpose is to satisfythe government's need for TEMPEST-suppressedequipment by involving industry in thedevelopment of TEMPEST-suppressed productsthat can be purchased ·off the shelf.· Thisis a unique charter for a government program,and the ITP is a unique creation.

In 1976, on behalf of the National Communications Security Committee (NeSC), the National Security Agency created the IndustrialTEMPEST Program (ITP). Until that time, theonly way the government could obtain TEMPESTsuppressed equipment was to let: a contract forthe development of each specific equipmentneeded. Each contractor was given the classified information necessary to design and testits product. This was an expensive process.As the government's need for information processing equipment grew, the impact of the highcost of these contracts also grew.

The program is based on a no-eost contractbetween the government llnd qualified US companies that voluntarily develop, test, llndproduce TEMPEST-suppressed equipment usingtheir funds rather than government funds. Tojoin the ITP, a company must satisfy a set ofqualifications pertaining to US ownership andsecurity clearances and make a clear commitment to develop TEMPEST-suppressed equipment.Additionally, the company's llctivities must beof obvious benefit to the government. A company remains in the program by working towardthe goal of developing TEMPEST-suppressed information processing equipment.

by

Great ideal But what about the specialproblems that office automation presents tothe US Government? One of the problems, ofcourse, is security. Tb narrow down the scopeof this article, let's look at just one partof the security problem: TEMPEST (compromisingemanations) •

Nov 83 * CRYPTOLOG * page 3

At some point a decision WaS made that JohnDoe's workstation would have to meet thegovernment's TEMPEST requirements. The decision may have been made by John Doe himself,by his security Chief, or by the ·local TEMPEST authority.· A requisition was made for aworkstation and some few months later, JohnDoe sits at his terminal reading and writingwith the greatest: of easel The process ofprocuring a TEMPEST-suppressed terminal hasbecome this simple only in the last few years.

These are just a few of the ·miracles· thatwe all look forward to in the paperless officeof the future. High-technology firms havebeen gearing up to provide the computers,printers, workstations, and other peripheralsfor the transition. Experts predict that byusing our computer know--how to solve information management problems, we can save millionsof dollars -in all areas of cost in the office.

iil~ abn Doe mive' .t ~r' in the ~rn-ing, powers up his computer worksta-tion, and relaxes with a cup of coffee while he reads his morning mail

. on the CRT screen. Across the hall,Sue Smith finishes editing her project reportbefore routing it to the printer at the frontof the room. Meanwhile, Kathy's secretary hasjust completed a large batch of correspondencethat used to take twice as long to prepare.

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Dear Sir

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(6 SS8) I waS particularly interested toread your CRYPTOLOG May/1983 article on the"Computerizing of TA. "/ The analysis of whatthe TA analyst looks for and needs from ADPand the conclusion in favour of PINSETTER-typesoftware support is remarkably conslstent withour own findings in J Division,_ following adetailed systems analysis exercise conductedthroughout 1982. As "a resul t of this we areproposing for J Division a solution, nicknamedI I which will be ba8~d on UNIX-PINSETTER work at NSA.

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. The ultimate goal is for ITP companies tointroduce their TEMPEST-suppressed version ofa product at the same time that the commercialversion hits the marketplace. This will giveJohn Doe and friends the opportunity of obtaining the latest and greatest informationprocessing equipment with TEMPEST protectionat the same time that the rest of the world isdiscovering the same state of the art productin a commercial configuration.

I1*fffibl! 'I'M SaUHI'f SIWlNll:bS QNM.'

Close communications between ITP membersand the government has been an importantfactor in the success of the ITP. As the relationship between ITP members and the government continues to grow and strengthen, we expect to see even better results from the program. Our efforts will be devoted to bettercommunications with ITP members, smootheroperation of the program, and even cheaperTEMPEST-suppressed products for the government •


The no-cost contract (known as the ITPMemorandum of Understanding) calls for certaincommitments for both government and industryto contribute to the development process.

The success of the government-industrypartnership is undisputed. Since 1976, ITPmembership has grown from 9 to 95 companies.The number of government-accredited TEMPESTsuppressed devices has also multiplied. In1979, when the first list of accredited items,the Preferred Products List (PPL) , was published, it listed 11 different products. Today the PPL includes 135 deVices, such as wordprocessors, printers, communications terminals, and CRT display units. There are otherbenefits from this arrangement as welL Advantages to the government include a largerselection of TEMPEST-suppressed products atlower prices; an excellent channel of communication with industry; and firm control overthe dissemination of TEMPEST information.Companies in the program gain the opportunityto compete effectively in the TEMPEST marketplace.

The government provides classified specifications, technical assistance, technicaltraining in the form of Air Force TEMPESTcourses, and the government market forTEMPEST-suppressed equipment. Industry provides those resources needed to put TEMPESTonto the production line. These includedevelopment expertise, TEMPEST test capability, R&D expertise and funding, and themanufacturing capability.

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(D) The funeral took place the followingMonday and all government employees got theday off. but for several days after their return tQ work, the major topic of conversation-

(pess) As luck would have it, the outsidephone was on my desk so I got the full impactof his loud "Wha-a-a-a-t?!?" She repeated thenews and he uttered a short phrase that Iwouldn't dare repeat here and hung up the receiver without even saying "Thanks" or "'Byel"With a rather perplexed look on his face hethen proclaimed to nobody in particular "ThePresident has just been shot!"

(F8NS) There was a series of thuds as pencils were dropped by a nwnber of sUFprisedanalysts. There were also excited cries of"What did you say1" and "Are you sure?" Therewas also an occasional "How did you find out?"from SIGINT analysts used to checking sourcevalidities. Somebody said, "1 won't believeit until I hear it over the Agency loudspeakersystem," but to the best· of my recollection,such an announcement was not made. For therest of the day, though, various individualsin the office would call relatives at home tosee if there was any later news. A few indi-viduals ran down to the parking lots to listento news on their car radios. At go-home timePresident Kennedy was still in the hospital.but the sad news came later.

(FeijS) To get the burning question out ofthe way, in case anybody cares where I was onFriday, 22 November 1963, let the record showthat I was at work somewhere on the secondfloor of the NSA Building. (At that timethere was only one, the 3-story edifice nowknown as the Operations Building.) Life wasgoing on as usual in one of those offices thatalways seemed to be running at a fever pitch--"Every day is flap day here I " was the wayone person put it--and since our mission didnot include keeping track of the presidentwhen he was traveling around CONUS, nobodygave much thought to the fact that JFK was gaing to Dallas that day. But shortly afterlunch AI Graves' wife called him and gave himthe news.


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NOW that November 1983has'rolledaround, the media can be expectedto"make a lot of fuss over the fact ·······lU}·~HGR" 15 one Qf ;everal ,seudQnymsthat it has been 20 years since uSedby·I:;-~':L~_~'i:"'::"l'__~~~JP16, who

(D) President John F. Kennedy was assas- remembered Mabel Babe In our Augustsinated in Dallas, Texas. The comlllentators issue.and journalists have been making a semi-majorevent out of the anniversary ("Just like onPearl Harbor Day, everybody remembers wherethey were on November 22,1963, when theyfirst heard the news" and similar inanities),but anniversaries divisible by 5 or 10 alwaysproduce a greater outpouring of such deathlessprose. So this 20th anniversary of PresidentKennedy's death will no doubt engender exceptional numbers of articles, radio and TV specials, memoirs, even a book or two, and countless numbers of interviews asking that earthshaking question "Where were you on that day?"Not that I think that all the to-do is reallynecessary but Cryptolog and 1 might as wellget on the bandwagon.

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(U)Boy, did my prayer get answered I Itsnowed so heavily on the 19th that the Agencypowers that be decreed an early dismissal forall employees about 2:00 p.m. Letting everybody out at the same time on a good day wouldcreate a horrible enough traffic jam, butturning the entire crew out at the same timeon a snowy day really compounded confusion.It took my carpool over an hour just to getoff the NSA parking lot--by comparison, onnormal days it took me about 45 minutes to getall the way home to Southeast Washington--andalmost another hour just to get over to theBaltimore-Washington Parkway. The pac~ on theParkway was mighty slow and the roads in theDistrict of Columbia were clogged with snowand stalled cars so progress was difficult.Fortunately, I had just filled my gas tank theday before or else I might have joined them.Every time we were stopped by a red light oneof the carpool members and I would hop out andbrush the snow off the back windshield.Shortly, after 10 p.m. r- staggered into myapartment, cold and weary. Yes, I got tospend the day at home and was able to watchthe swearing-in, but I' ve been afraid to doany praying about the weather ever since.

"OK, the speech is over. Now get home!" so Ileft after only slightly more than 20 hours onthe job that day.

(U) But another l-o-o-o-o-o-ong day in connection with John Kennedy that I'll certainlyremember is the day of his inauguration in1961. The announcement had been made thatonly Federal employees in the Washington~would be given the day off; subsequently weheard that Fort Meade was not considered partof the DC area. It should be noted that forprevious inaugurations the Agency had beenhoused at Arlington Hall, which was in theWashington area, so I remembered having gottenthe day off when Eisenhower had been sworn in.Accordingly, I was annoyed at the thought thatwe wouldn't be getting the day off for theKennedy inauguration. Recalling the fact thatthe Agency had given its employees a few daysoff the previous winter because of severesnowstorms, a few days before the ceremony, Ivoiced a silent prayer asking for just enoughsnow on the 19th so that I'd be able to stayhome on the 20th and watch JFK take his oathof office.

(U) John Kennedy's inauguration address included the off-quoted line, "Ask not what yourcountry can do for you; ask what you can dofor your country." That speech and that lineare the examples of Kennedy oratory that mostpeople remember best, but the linguist in mehas even more vivid memories of another JFKspeech, the one he made at the Berlin Wall in

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(P6B6) However, there are ,a few otherthings about, President Kennedy's term that Iremember at least as well as his last d~y.

Considering that his term of office includedthe Bay of Pigs ,invasion and the Cuban MissileCrisis, events that caused lots of extra workfor this Agency and necessitated my workingmany 12-hour shifts, 6-day -weeks (and therewere some others 'even more patriotic who putin 7-day weeks), weekends when I'd work noonto midnight on Sunday and then go home only tobe back in the office at 7: 30 Monday, Iguarantee that it'll be a long time before Iforget the Kennedy presidency!

-'-at least in the office where I was thenworking--was the lack of any official announcement over the loudspeaker system, withthings like "You'd think a communicationsagency could at least communicate somethinglike that to its employees" being said moretimes than I care' to recall. (For the record,during the next year or so, the Agency didreact to the criticism by announcing s'paceshots, presidential signing' of Federal payraise legislation, etc.)

('Otto) There were probably some employeeswho have put in 24-hour days and although Itried to do it on one occasion, I wasthwarted. I could probably go look up thedate, but I don't feel like it. However, during the October 1962 Missile Crisis our section had gone on 12-hour shifts and I was onfrom midnight to noon, but at midday I was inthe midst of a long wrap-up report, so I stuckaround a few hours longer to finish it, andthen someone asked me for a little help onsomething he was doing, and then somethingelse happened, and then something else, andsomething else, so I stayed a litle longer.At this point, I figured that since it was almost dinner time, I might as well wait a bitlonger and eat in the cafeteria. While eatingsupper, the idea hit me that since l'd beenhere f6r over 18 hours, I might as well tryfor 24, but Carrie Berry, one of my supervisol's. dropped' back in the' evening to see howthings were going. She recalled having seenme that morning--I have one of those facesthat it's hard to forgetl--and gently suggested that I should hit the road. However,we had heard that the president was going tobe making a speech af 8:00 o'clock so I urgedher to let me at least stick around to hear, iton the portable radio that one of our coworkers had smuggled in. I planned to findsome other excuse at the end of the speech,but Miss Berry anticipated me. Within 10seconds of the the president's last word(while the radio announcer was still saying

, "You have been listening to President Kennedyspeaking live from the White House"), she toldme in a very firm tone of voice (that she apparently hadn't to use with me previously)

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(U) Obviously what had happened was thatKennedy had asked someone "How do you say 'Letthem come to Berlin!' in German?" and thatperson (not necessarily a competent Germanlinguist) had told him "Lassen sie nach Berlinkommen!" which can be translated that way ifyou mean "Allow them to come" rather than themodal idea of "they should [or "ought to"]come" which the President had in mind. Orit's possible that JFK had studied German inhigh school or college and had vague recollections of what he had learned. I have usedthis example many, many times to remindlinguists to beware when some friend comes upto them and asks "How do you say so-&-so inEsperanto?" Oh, it sounds very nice to beable to rattle off an answer right away, but acautious linguist will ask a few backgroundquestions, trying to find out the context, theprecise shade of meaning, the people who willsee or hear the words, etc., etc. IfKennedy's informant had asked to see the wholeparagraph, he or she might have deduced that"Sie soll'n, etc." would have been better than"Lassen sie, etc."

(U) The story has a happy linguistic ending, though. A{ter Kennedy had said "Laaa-s'nzee nock Berlin common!" he listened to hearwhat the interpreter was saying--he obviouslyhadn't thought to do so the first threetimes!--and realized that the interpreter hadsaid something altogether different. In aquick flash of that now-famous Kennedy wit, hethen said "I would like to thank the interpreter for translating my German into GermanI"Let the record show that the interpreter wasright on the ball though, because he renderedthat remark as something like "Ich will denDolmetscher danken fuer die Uebersetzungmeines Deutsches auf besseres Deutsch" ( •••for translating my German into better German).

(U) Let others remember John F. Kennedy forhis civil rights stands, for his meetings withKhruschev, for playing touch football, or forthe fact that he left the r off the end of"Vigor" ("vigah") but prono;nced one on theend of "Cuba" ("Cuber"?), for telling us notask what our country could do for us, for appointing his brother to the cabinet, or forhaving a pretty wife. Let others remember JFKin terms of where they were or what they weredoing when they learned he'd been assassinated. I may think about those things but,in addition, I assure you that I'll rememberJFK for a couple of the lo-o-o--o--o-o-ongestdays in my life and for those language-relatedincidents at the Berlin wall.

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(D) I've listened to recordings of thatspeech many, many times and the only way thatI know that his German words were supposed tobe "Ich bin ein Berliner" are because that'sthe only thing that ma~es sense in context; itsounds like "Ik benign b'layeh" with the "lay"drawn out for an extra syl;t,able or two. Hespoke about how in an earlier times one of theproudest statements a free person could makewas "Civ~s romanum sum" (I am a Romancitizen)--and I must admit that he pronouncedthe Latin fairly well--and that since WorldWar II "all free men, wherever they live, arecitizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a freeman, I take pdde in the words: Ik benignb'layeh!"

(U) But just before that paragraph he madeanother attempt to show off a little languageknowledge--and truly, a li ttle languageknowledge is a dangerous th~He pointedout that there were people who didn't understand the issue between the free world andCommunism; "Let them come to Berlin!" he added. There were others, he said, who considered Communism to be the wave of the future; "Let them come to Berlin!" Twice morehe referred to people making simplistic statements made about working with the Communists.About these individuals too he said "Let themcome to Berlin!" However, the last time hedecided to say it in German, so he said"Lassen sie nach Berlin kommen!" (except thathe pronounced it something like "Laaa-s 'n zeenack Berlin common!"). The only trouble wasthat the three previous times he had utteredthe magic words the interpreter had renderedthem (more correctly) as "Sie soll'n nach Berlin kommen!"

the Spdng of 1963. The president was notparticularly known for his language abilities,other than his penchant for salty language.(Dh, could that man cuss!) The linguist inthe family was his wife Jacqueline, who hadgrown up with a French gover-ness and was bilingual. (Shestudied Spanish prior to apresidential trip to SouthAmerica and acquitted herselfadmirably in conversationswith' Latin American dignitaries; that fact, the way shecharmed Charles de Gaulle on apresidential mission to Europe, and her remark about"mink underwear" are justabout all I remember about heryears in the White House.)JFK made one foray into thefield pf foreign languages,the so-called "Ich bin einBerliner" speech.


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"It is fashionable to say that the individual is unique. Each is a product of his orher own heredity and environment and, therefore, is different from everyone else. From apractical standpoint, however, the doctrine of

Here is a brief introduction to the typetheory, quoted from the Myers book GiftsDiffering:

What is the "MBTI·? It is a questionnairewhich can be used to classify people by "type"along four major dimensions. It is based onCarl Jung's theory of personality (asdescribed in his Psychological Types, firstpublished in English in 1923). ~ight beexpected from that remarkable psychologicalinnovator, Jung's personality theory is uniqueand creative; its flavor and approach to assessing personality carves out a whole newconceptual world, totally different from othertheories and assessment schemes. The MBTIquestionnaire contains a list of questions eliciting the testee's preferences among variouskinds of activities. It can be scored manually in seconds by a simple series of overlayswith windows singling out sets of answers thatpertain to each of the four main variables being measured. It provides a personality typeclassification in the form of four letters,for example "ISTJ", "ENFP", or "INTJ". Eachof the four places in the classification coderepresents a choice between, two possiblepreferences: I or E, S or N, T or F, and P orJ. The letters stand for terms which seemmisleading at first reading; you have to readthe descriptions of the personality types,choose all four letters in various combinations, and practice applying them to friendsand acquaintances, ·before you get a good"feel" for what they imply. Once you get theknack, however, I guarantee that you will findthem astonishingly enlightening and helpful.

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MANAGEMEN1~

BTOOLI


If you have never heard of the

~ "Myers-~riggs Type Indicator" (MBTI, for short), you will probably be in.,,". the minor i ty over the next few

years. This psychometric question-naire seems likely to become a new fad as amanagement. tool ~ it has been exploited in abig way by the Japanese, who find it highlyvaluable in matching people to jobs. For thisreason alone, US industries and Federal Agencies will probably use it increasingly in thenear future. It is easy to administer andeasy to score, and it provides an astonishingdegree of useful insight into .personality asit affects cooperation with others on teamprojects, the likelihood of success at varioustypes of jobs, and matching up workers withthe different "styles" and philosophies ofdifferent organizations or companies.

The.MBTI.was developed by two women, IsabelMyers and her mother Katherine C. Briggs, during the 1950s, entirely outside the mainstreamof psychology. A manual was published in 1962by the Educational Testing Service, and Myersand Briggs accumulated a large.body of data bytesting groups of people in a wide range ofoccupations and populations. Interestinglyenough, in view of its current and growing popularity, this instrument remained in obscurity well outside of the establishment of personality and vocational testing for manyyears. Its developers were not academicpsychologists; they didn't "belong to theclub." In fact, the "response from organizedpsychology was certainly cool if not hostile"(to quote the PUblisher's Foreword of "GiftsDiffer ing. " [2] • The MBTI has only· begun tocome into its own in the last decade, perhapseven the last five years, as more and more organizations and individuals discover its amaz- .ing usefulness.

aCID:


Fourth letter: P (Perception) or J (Judgement). A final preference that enters intothe identification of type is the choicebetween a perceptive or a judging attitude indealing with the world. Perceptive peoplelike to continue gathering data and keep theirminds open as long as possible, while judgingpeople want things settled and a decisionmade. Perceptives like to ride with thestream. and dynamically follow it wherever itgoes; they don' t like things to be cut anddried. Judging people want order,

Third letter: T (Thinking) or F (Feeling).This dimension pertains to two contrastingways of coming to conclusions preferred bydifferent people. Thinking people prefer touse logic, reasoning systematically from A toB to C. Feeling people care more aboutvalues: the consequences or meanings of an actor object. and its effects on other persons.Thinking people are IlIOre interested in dataabout things or ideas~ feeling people preferdata about human beings and human relationships. Again, we have to guard against ahasty assumption that to be a Wfeeling- personin this sense means to be illogical or elllOtional, or that -thinking- necessarily meansintelligent. The words are being used here ina very special way, with no inherently good orbad implications.

time- and quiet space to catch up with his owninner life and balance the partying and gadding about. The extrovert, in contrast, hatesto be stuck by himself in a quiet corner. Hegets bored, restless, or sleepy there and soonfinds an excuse to get back out into th-e action. That doesn't mean, however, that he isnecessarily a pushy, noisy, insensitive boor(a frequent pejorative implication of the term-extrovert- in popular parlance).

Second letter: N (Intuition) or S (Sensing). This choice defines two sharply con':"trasting ways of perceiving preferred by different people. Sensing people enjoy exploringthe outside world through their eyes, ears,fingers, and noses. They prefer to get theirdata from the environment and through theirsenses. Intuitives, on the other hand, preferto consult their own mental world of associations, symbols, hunches, and ideas to generatedata. Sensing people are down-to-earth, objective, pragmatic~ intuitives tend to be morecreative and theoretical. Sensing people areinterested in the past or the here and now;intuitives prefer future possibilities andleaps into the unknown. Note that a personmay be an extrovert (preferring to act externally in a dynamic outer world) and also anintuitive (preferring conceptual or theoretical data from his own mind). An introvert mayalso be a sensing person: objective, matterof-fact, and practical.

uniqueness is not useful without an exhaustivecase study of every person to be educated orcounseled or understood. Yet we cannot safelyassume that other people's minds work on thesame principles as our own. All too- often,others with whom we come in contact do notreason as we reason, or do not value thethings we value, or are not interested in whatinterests us.

-The merit of the theory presented here isthat it enables us to expect specific personality differences in particular people andto cope with the people and the differences ina constructive way. Briefly, the theory isthat much seemingly chance variation in humanbehavior is not due to chance ~ it is in factthe logical result of a few basic, observabledifferences in mental functioning.

Bere, in a very brief overview, is a summary of the meanings of different choices forthe four letters of the type code or -indicator-:

First letter: E (Extroversion) or 1 (Introversion) • The introvert is a person whosemain interest lies in his own -inner- world ofideas and concepts. (The term -introvert- hasoften been distorted or misused to mean a person who is antisocial, shy, reclusive, evenneurotic; we must discard that pejorativeabuse of the term in considering Jung's theoryas used in the MaTI.) The extrovert is a person who directs his interest outward into theexternal world of people and things. A goodcriterion in applying-' this choice is to askyourself: -00 1 frequently feel tired andpeople-weary after a noisy party or a long dayspent interacting with people?- If you answer-yes,- you are probably an introvert. If youfeel pepped up, raring to go on to anotherparty or stay out all night, you're probablyan extrovert. The introvert may havethoroughly enjoyed the interaction; he isn't amisanthrope. Be just needs frequent -alone

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-These basic differences concern the waypeople PREFER to use their minds, specificallythe way they perceive and the way they makejudgements. PERCEIVING is here understood toinclude the process of becoming aware ofthings, people, occurrences, and ideas. JUDGING includes the processes of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. Together, perception and judgement, which makeup a large portion of people's total mentalactivity, govern much of their outer behavior,because perception--by definition--determineswhat people see in a situation and theirjudgement determines what they decide to doabout it. Thus, it is reasonable that basicdifferences in perception or jUdgement shouldresult in corresponding differences inbehavior.- [pp. 1-2]


[3) otto Kroeger Associates, 1401 South BartonSt., Suite 242, Arlington, VA 22204, (703)892-4566

[1) Myers, I.B., Introduction ~!XE!., 2nd edition, Center for Applications of Psychological Type, Gainesville, FL, 1976

References

[2] Myers, I.B. and P.B., Gifts Differing,Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc., PaloAlto, CA, 1980

definition of "leadership." My subgroup hadfour members. We sat right down and got bUsy,finishing our task long before the others. Iwas amazed at the feeling of satisfaction Ihad: everything went so slllOOthly with thesepeople. We were all so sensible. We allwere on the same wavelength, and it was a joyto work on our little team. Our definition of"leadership" included words like "practical,""objective," and "responsible." And no wonderlWe all turned out to be "SJs": sensing judgingtypes. The "NTs" (intuitive thinkers) arguedlong after their time was up, and their definition of "leadership" featured "intelligent"and "creative." The "NFs" (intuitive feelers)sat on the floor in a huddle 1 they, too,talked on past the time limit. Their definition focused on ability to communicate and getalong with people. It was a revelation to mehow uniquely easy and pleasant a task could bein a team of people intentionally matched bytype. What benefits might we not reap in manywalks of life if we could learn to make conscious and intelligent use of this tool?Perhaps someday children wiil learn thecharacteristics of the different types inschool and be taught how to make the IIIOSt oftheir own and' others I predictable strengthsand weaknesses. I am still amazed at how completely my own behavior, preferences, and interactions with others .are described andpredicted by this theory of personality. Infact, I am still discovering new insightsbased on my own "type" classification. Tryit. You can't lose, and you might gain a lotof valuable self-knowledge.

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At least one Management Course at theAgency covers the MBTI and the various implications of type in our work environments. Infact, I learned of the MBTI through a coworkerwho took this course and was greatly impressedby the insights he gained from it. I thentook a one-day seminar from Otto Kroeger andAssociates, the contractor who taught theAgency Management Course. (See the lastreference at the end of this article for thefull details.) The questionnaire was sent tome in the mail in advance 1 I returned myanswers by mail, and was assigned a type bythe instructors before the day of the seminar.There were about ten attendees, all of whomhad been assigned a type in advance by the instructors. Our ing the IIlOrning, we were toldthe history and general theory of the type indicator and the types. We also participatedin some very enlightening and amusing littleexercises designed to illustrate some of theimplications of the types in a very vividmanner ,having all the IIIOre impact since wedid not yet know our types. Since the instructors knew our types, they could assign usto subgroups whose members all shared certainimportant letters in common. In the afternoon, after we had gone through several ofthese li ttle games, we were told what ourtypes were.

These four pairs of choices result in 16possible sets of four letters, each having itsown strengths and weaknesses in the context ofcertain kinds of jobs. Marriages are apt tolast longer and be happier if the couple arecompatible in type (i.e., with at least twoletters the same and preferably three). If Iam an INTJ, and I work for a boss who is anESFP, we are both going to have some problemsgetting along (especially if we are sitting atneighboring desks in .the same small room I )Many schoolteachers are "SJs" , they have ahard time understanding and coping with thesizable number of perceptives in their classrooms, they want order and common sense. whilethe little "Ps" want to go with the flow andrun about gathering data. And so it goes, onand on, through far more examples than I canmention here. I strongly urge anyone interested in human factors to read the twobOOks listed as references at the end of thisarticle and, if possible, get himself and hisfamily "typed." You are likely to find theresults amusing and interesting at the veryleast, and you may well also obtain some substantially useful self-knowledge.

I will never forget the impact of one exercise, where we were split into three groupsand told to work separately to come up with a

predictability, and seeing things in theirproper places1 they don't like things to be upin the air or undecided.

P;L. 86-36

Captain, USAF, JOCep

ship to the nature of the proj ect. One instance of this. for example, is the Navy termSWAM, an acronym meaning "Shallow Water Attackcraft. !!edil.DD." - - -

(U) Although the military creates thelion's share of acronyms. they aren 'ot the onlyusers. There are plenty of acronyms employedin the civilian community too. Some of theseactually fit the cause the organizationrepresents. For example, WIN (for Whip Inflation Now) was a popular (if not infamous) button worn briefly during Gerald Ford's administration. (The button may still be seen in thehalls of the National Security Agency, beingworn by members of Women in NSA.) And whatabout the organization NOW (the National Organization for Women). The name Of the organization drives home the point of immediacy.(At many of their rallies, you'll hear theshout "What do we want? ERA! When do we wantit? NOW!") MAnD (Mothers Against DrunkQrivers) shows the anger of the members. -

(U) The words RADAR and LASER both startedout as acronyms. ("Radar" stands for "radiodetection and ranging" while "laser" meansTight amplification by stimulated emission ofradiation.") These words are used so often innormal conversation that they have both beenaccepted and duly listed in dictionaries.

[ ) CHRIS = Cancer Hazards Ranking and Infor-mation £.Ystem; - -

[] HAS = .!!.igh !ngle !trafe;

[ ) TO = !uesdays .Q.nly;

[) RUN = !eduction Unlimited.

[) GO = .£eneral Qrder; and


CD) Acronyms, unlike ordinary abbreviations, consist of letters (usually initialletters of words. although sometimes two ormore letters from one word will be used) thatare strung together so as to form meaningful-or, at least, pronounceable--words or names."Acronymania," as I call the practice. issweeping America; it is especially prevalentin the military. Many military projects takeon names that, most often. have some relation-

<CHRIS HAS TO GO RUN. This sentenceis very innocent-looking. Althoughit may not be entirely correct grammatically. it is made up of words

(U) that form a meaningful sentence andhas another claim to fame. All the words init are acronyms. According to the Acronyms.Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary. 8thedition. 1983-84, edited by Ellen T. Crowley:

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"You mean you have to go to meetings to dothat?"

"I can't study anything now. I'm on my wayto a SIN meeting."

"You know. KISS: !.eep It ihort, .§.tupid!"

"What?! ..

"Okay, but let's leave with an acronym. Howabout a KISS?"

"1 give up up! 1 'm ready to go.

"I didn't say 'GO'; I said 'go'! You know:depart, leave, scram, vamoose, hit the road,decamp, .....

"Ready to GO? How do you get ready for aGeneral Order?"

"Held to what?

"My name'Ej not Chris, it's Jack!"

"Not held to anything. TO means TuesdaysOnly."

(U) Of course, some people develop acronymsor see them in places where none was intended.I know several drivers who seem to think thatthe word STOP you see on those octagonal signsstands for ".§.tart 1.romping ~n ,Eedal. "

"CHRIS is a system, stupid. It's the Cancer~azards ~anking and Information .§.Ystem, andyou better know all about it."

"Hi! Are you going to study CHRIS?"

"NO, no, you dodo. SIN is my coin collecting~rganizationmeeting. It is held TO."

(U) 1 was a little worried when 1 heardabout a group on some college campuses calledSTOP-NSA because 1 thought they were trying toput our agency out of business. Boy, was 1 relieved when I learned that it stood for Students to Oppose Participation in the Nati;nalStudent Association! -- -

(U) We use so many acronyms in our dailywork that it's a good thing we don't carrythis practice over into the world beyond thefences. Can you imagine what an everydayconversation might sound like if "normal peo-

Jple" peppered their speech with acronyms? Itmight well sound like the old "Who's onFirst?" routine. Just a sample of this follows.

(U) Another case where a real word is alsoan acronym of unrelated meaning is SIN, whichstands for the Society for International Numismatics. For those'who don't have a dictionary handy, numismatics simply means coin collecting, which isn't really a sin (althoughthe spouses of such hobbyists may think so).

(U) How many times have people gotten confused between NASA, the National Aeronautics &Sp~ce Administration, and Nassau, the capitalof the Bahamas? You never know if the personyou're talking to is discussing a currentspace shot or telling you about his vacation!

4009885

(U) Some organizations choose acronyms thatpoint toward the danger of whatever it is thatthey're trying to combat. Two examples thatcome to mind are GASP, the Group Against Smogand Pollution) and WAR (Women Against Rape).And -let's not forget SHHH, -Self-Help for~ard-of-~earingPeople. --

(U) Comically, some acronyms can actuallybe confused with real words that may not evencome close to the meaning intended. For example, many people refer to a "Short Takeoffand Landing" aircraft as a STOL, pronouncingthe acronym an awful lot like the word"stall," which we all know is a word used todescribe the condition when an airfoil is incapable of producing lift, causing the aircraft to dive. Or how about the Navy's CINCUS(for Commander-in-Chief, US), pronounced "Sinkus!"?- - -

ero:

FeR ePFi6iaz 88& QShY

by Abert LWuphy'. E403

whole array of bad things that are-happeningin Government writing (we let him see some actual samples of unclassified NSA writings):the gobbledygook. the evasiveness (the passivevoice). the bankrupt language, the inappropriate tone-all of it! And he didn't hesitateto identify the groups he viewed as the primeoffenders: lawyers. educators (can you believeit?). and military people. ("You've got lotsof ex-military people here at NSA." he said."I can tell.")

(U) We were so pleased with what he had tosay and at how he said it that we decided todescribe some of the outstanding details ofhis presentation. But then we thought that.instead of doing that, we'd ask the editors ofCryptolog to republish an article from theJanuary 1982 issue that addressed this problemin much the same way Lt Col Murawski did. Thehope was that all writers at the Agency willtake heed because what the article said is nowstrongly endorsed by this potent force on theWhite House staff. The editors obliged.Please turn the page.

FeR epPi8i*b aBH 8ML1

(U) In those three days he convincinglyreinforced all the. things we at the NationalCryptologic School have been trying to do overthe past several years in terms of persuadingall NSA writers in general. and NSA supervisors and managers in particular. to come downto earth in their writing--to write in a waythat's compact. natural •. and to the point. Hewas singing one of our old and familiar songs.and the words came back as clear as yourplease.


OUR SONG! M

(U) Lt Col Murawski is a tenured professorof English at the US Air Force Academy and iscurrently serving as an adviser on clear writing to the White House staff. His charge isto teach "Just Plain English" to the majorfederal agencies. That's precisely what hedid here at NSA. He skillfully described the

THE WHITE HOUSE IS SINGING

Iii h. dynami, Lt Col Tom Mu,avaki of~ . the ,White House staff socked it

to us-in a, beautiful way. Hepresented his informative and

(U) thoroughly entertaining program on"Just Plain English" in the packed FriedmanAuditorium. first on 26 September 1983 for theNSA "heavy hitters" (Grade 15s and above andthe equivalent military ranks) and then on the27th and 28th for the "at large" NSA audiences. And what a show!

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(U) Just before the students complete ourcourses, as part of a normal procedure wealert them to the post-course period of whatwe call "the literary bends," during whichthey might find it difficult to apply theirnewly acquired (or their refreshed) set ofrules of good grammar and effective writing."Don't be surprised," we tell them, "to findyour pencil frozen in your hand or yourfingers immobile at the typewriter during yourfirst writing tasks on the job." They understand that. Some have reported that that'sexactly what happen~d. Others have had towrestle with the problem while still in thecourse. It is unfortunate, however, that' weare now compelled to warn them of possible additional difficulties that can occur when aperson in the supervisory chain, whetherthrough ignorance, or obstinacy, or, alas, because of misguided pressure from a supervisorat yet a higher level, discourages the students' attempts to apply what we have taughtthem.

(U) How valid are these rumblings? What isthe extent of alleged shortcomings in the waypeople in management write (we're talking primarily about supervisors and staff editors)?And what are we going to do about it? Basedon our own collection of bits of evidence,coupled with this human testimony from thestudents, we believe that the rumblings havesome validity. But since we have neither themandate, nor the resources, nor the time for athorough research effort, the best we can dois to present the problem in this vehicle inthe hope that the managers in question willread it and do something about it.

SilElR£l'f SFaIU]

THEUTERARYo

o

oo

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(U) In the business of teaching Introductory Writing (EG-022) and Expository Writing(EG-122) at the National Cryptologic School(NCS), we have encountered some rather pointedfeedback from some of our students, which cannot be so easily put aside. The students talkof two worlds of writing at NSA: the idealworld of writing, as taught here at theschool, and the real world of writing, aspracticed on, the job. Eventually, one of themwill crystallize the issue by saying, "Thiscourse is all well and good. But when I finish it, I know I'm going to be faced with thedecision of writing your way for the sake ofgood writing or of knuckling under to mysupervisor's blue pen for the sake of my nextpromotion." Rightly or wrongly, the hauntingquestion inevitably comes to mind: "Is his orher supervisor under 35 years old and a product of society's convulsing educational system?" We choose never to ask it.


SHeM'!' SPElftB

mhe story goes that a famous authoronce was approached at a cocktailparty by a young aspiring writer whohad in his hand a large draft of a

(U) novel he had written. The youngman, perhaps more brash than polite, asked theauthor to take the draft, read it, and suggesta title. The author, taken aback by suchdirectness and by the size of the document,thought for a moment, then asked: "00 you mention drums anywhere in the story?" "No sir,"replied the young man. "Do you mention trumpets?" Again, "No sir." The maneuver hadworked. "Then why don't you call it 'NoDrums, No Trumpets'?"

ero:


Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation

2. Pronouns must agree in number with theirantecedents. A certain ABC television reporter either didn't do his homework or decided to go modern when, in describing arecent hurricane, he said: "Damage will bein the millions, but only one person losttheir life."

1. Dangling and misplaced modifiers are majorcauses of confusion in conununication~ towit, "The second child, Nancy, was the onlychild of a mother who was divorced in herinfancy"~ and nIf found guilty, the Division of Motor Vehicles will be notified andyour license may be subject to suspension."

I,.~ .,

(U) We have compiled an array of real-worldwritings from NSA in-house correspondence andCRITICOMM messages, which we contend are inconsistent with what we teach. But, in ordernot to raise the hackles of a iot of people,we will cite only a few that are important tothe point we are trying to make, and then onlywhen we think they will do no harm. RecentlyE asked various in-house elements to submitany comments they might have on an NCB courseon reporting, which some of their people attended. It was a bit disconcerting when astaff editor of one of those elements, in hisresponding memorandum, said, "We don't needgrammer in the course. We in the editingchain- can handle it." Impertinent of us tomention this, you say? Well, maybe. But whatabout the problem of credibility? It's there,isn't it? If the element in question recognizes its handiwork here, we hope the peopleinvolved will not take umbrage but will viewit in the spirit of light criticism and let usmake our point. We have taught your peoplethat

SSQRI3'l' SP9RS4009885

Cheyenne ••• Pawnee ••• Apache •••Comanche •••Sioux •••Shoshone--

here the students joined in--

Mohawk •••Cherokee•••Blackfeet •••Chippewa •••Algonquin ••• Iroquois.

Managers:By all means enforce good quality control~

but in the process, please be aware ofthis problem, be fair with your people,and be square (that is, be traditional)'with the language.

We contend that the modernists are wrong.Like it or not, there is an English Lanquage~

and it is governed bya set of rules forcorrect grammar, effective sentence and paragraph structure, and good writing style. Perish the thought of Congress wanting to changethe words of the Constitution to accommodatemodern linguistic happenings.

Then the spell was broken as quickly as it began 'when one of the students wistfullyoffered ••• "the Washington Redskins." We havetold them about the importance of good communication, whether in face-to-face conversations, on the telephone, or in writing: and ofthe potential disasters of failing to communicate. We've aqvised them not to write withoutgood reason. But once they've decided towrite, they should spend some time thinkingabout what they want to say 'before committingtheir thoughts to paper. They've heard us saymany times that bad writing is usually theresult of poorly thought-out ideas.

(U) If managers are willing to face up tothe reality that some of their people arefrustrated in their' jobs because, as they perceive it, we don't practice what we preach inthe field of wr iting, then we are well on ourway to solving the problem. Perhaps, then,our message to managers ought to be

(U) You managers, if you are following thisdiscourse in earnest, should be asking atabout this point, "Well, what have you beentelling our people in your classes?" Ouranswer is that we've tr ied to convey to themthe fact that there is beauty in our language,and that the students should find it and useit. We have found ~hat they not only are receptive to this idea, but also at times areresourceful (and not too subtle) in expressingtheir endorsement. You can experience intellectual beauty, we once told them, by merelypronouncing the names of tribes of AmericanIndians, for they have a majestic quality thatevokes, through vivid mental picture of frontier days, much of what is noble in the American character.

DOCID:

The Sentence

~ Since your people are not as gifted asGeneral MacArthur was, we have trained themnot to write long, Aristotelian sentences.So, when you see them trying to limit theirsentences to about twenty words or fewer (tothe fullest extent that the content will allowit) -- let them. we've talked them into it.Consider the following long, but not necessarily Aristotelian, ·opus that appeared in anout-going NSA CRITICOMM message:

We suspect that a period (a full stop) mighthave been intended after the word producer inthe tenth line, but it wasn't evident in thecopy of the message we hold. Even if theperiod had been inserted, the latter sentence,containing at least 105 words, would still taxthe patience of the reader.

(U) In order to compose good, expositorysentences, our students are following theFACTS formula (the Fast, Accurate, Concise,True, and Simple way). That means they willbe trying their best to use the active voice(instead of "the great evader") and a lot ofconcrete, one-syllable words (we just can'tbring ourselves to say "monosyllabic" as opposed to "polysyllabic" in this context). Wehope we have burned i"(19 their memories theLensear write Formula which encouragesshort sentences, the active voice, and onesyllable words. If you ask them about it, the

1. 4. (c).L. 86-36

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An astute, post-publication (unfortunately)cOlllIllent written across this gem facetiouslynoted that "This wil hep with hesclarence." Also, we've made it known thatirregardless is a self-contradictory nonword, despite the regrettable fact that itis listed in Webster's New Collegiate Dic-tionary. - --

"SGT (John Doe) IS REQUIRED TO BE INDOCTERNATED FOR (special clearances) PRIOR TODEPARTURE FROM YOUR STATION."

Managers:When your people try to apply the rules ofgood grammar, spelling, and punctuation intheir day-to-day writing, they are nottrying to out-write you. They are onlydoing what they learned. So please--letthem.

4. A writer can quickly reveal himself as lessthan professional if he is· careless withspelling. Consider the following statementthat appeared in a real-world NSA CRITICOMMmessage:

SFCPF'I iPQKE


5. A cOlllIlla is required before and whenpresenting a ser ies of more than two items(matrix, row, and column). One of our students descr ibed in class how he was rebuffed by his supervisor for insisting onapplying this rule. We suggested he havehis supervisor call us to talk about it.We are still waiting for the call.

3. Billy Kilmer used incorrect grammar in hisbeer cOlllIllercial when he praised his beerfor having less calor ies. He should havesaid fewer c~ies because few(er) is usedwith things you can count and less is usedwith things you cannot count. ---r'If therewere fewer TVs, there would be lessnoise. ")

DOCID:


Managers: Are you with us?

In one of our classes in Expository Writing adiscussion on paragraph tone developed afterwe explained how the tone of separate paragraphs in a piece of writing, say in a SIGINTreport, ought to be consistent with thegeneral tone of the writing. We gave the exampleof reports forwarded to the NSAPAC REP VIETNAM(NRV) staff in Saigon, in 1971, by one of theten ARVN Special Technical Detachments (ASTO),which time and again reflected a tone of absolute terror. The perimeter of the site wasnot secure, and the ARVN people didn't seem tocare. When the reports from this ASTD camein, the staff was obliged, not without somepangs of conscience, to change the tone of thereports to fit the dispassionate, objectivetone of the monthly status report within whichthey were incorporated for forwarding to theDirector (the Vietnamization Improvement andModernization [VIM) report). One of the students, who obviously had after-the-fact sympathy for the plight of the writers of thosereports (US soldiers assigned to the ASTO),questioned the changing of the tone. After weexplained some of the unpleasant realities ofthe situation (we also apprised her of herhandicap as a caring human being), she conceded that the tone of that ASTD's reports hadto be changed and that our point on consistentand appropriate paragraph tone was well takenin the class.

ie+- All four of these properties, we haveinsisted, are essential for good paragraphstructure. But the one that usually causeslengthy discussions in class is TONE. Wethink this is good, because it tells us thatthe students are trying to be sensitive to"how it will sound" to the reader by steeringaway from unwanted tone. So they wrestle withanother set of "don'ts": "Don't be offensive••• bossy ••• contradictory ••• and so on."

BHeM;' SPQKB4009885

Managers:When your people try to write in clear,simple, and direct language, don't assumethat.they are undereducated. They're onlydoing what they learned. So please--letthem.

chances are good they will be able to reciteto you the clear and simple "something special" lead that an obscure reporter wrote onthe death of Samuel Clemens in 1910, whichmust have caught the breath of all who readit: "Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are orphanstonight. Mark Twain is deadl" Notice thenumber of one-syllable words.

The Paragraph

(U) We have practically ordered your peoplenever to settle for a paragraph that doesn'thave the standard properties of UNITY, COHERENCE, ADEQUATE DEVELOPMENT, and CONSISTENT ANDAPPROPRIATE TONE. Unity calls for one centralidea and a single topic sentence; coherence-the paragraph form--is the writer's sequenceof thoughts from one sentence to the next,which he achieves through the use of connectives or transitional words and phrases; adequate development--the SUbject matter of theparag r aph--i nvolves the who, what, when,where, and why, whether accomplished throughdefinition, comparisons and contrasts, causeand effect logic, or analysis and classification; and, tone deals with not what the writersays, but how he says it.

(U) We encouraged your people to use parallelism correctly and wisely in their writing,to incorporate an effective blend of periodicand loose sentences, to show their maturity inthe use of subordinate clauses, and to includein their list of writing "don'ts" the principle that smothered verbs (strong verbs turnedinto weak nouns, such as -ization, -ment, and-ure words) and passive voice constructionsfrequently go hand-in-hand. The poorly written sentence "The specialization of many professions is necessitated by the complexity ofour society" is best recast to read "Many professions must specialize because our societyis complex." The finest sentence that we'vecome across at the school so far, in terms ofsound structure, clear and simple content,and, yes, downright beauty, was written by astudent in her autobiography project. Shewrote, "When I was little, my father oftensaid that I was the best door slammer thisside of the Mississippi River." Is there anywonder why we abhor the likes of the sentence"The possible appearance of a new communications network was observed •••• "?

aCID:

Nov 83 * CRYPTOLOG * Page 1B

(1) Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go, u.s. Departmentof the Interior ,-aureau-ofLand Management,page 7; US Government Printing Office, 1978,0-269-955.

(U) Having stated our case, we fully intendto continue to orchestrate drum rolls andtrumpet blares for the cause of gettingmanagers to cooperate in making clear, simple,direct, brief, and appropriate writing happenat NSA.

If we want all Agency personnel to speakand write plain English, perhaps we shouldfirst teach Agency personnel English. Ifwe want Agency management to write concise, active, decisive memos, perhaps weshould first teach Agency management to beconcise, active, and decisive. Let us attack the problem, not just the symptom.

L-__~~~__~~ ~~__-JI We also shudderto think of the possible unthinkable consequences of gobbledygooked guidance (from NSA)and gobbledygooked responses (from field elements) on matters about current developmentsin the world in general and in Eastern Europeand the Middle East in particular. The solution to NSA Crostic No. 35 (Cryptolog, OCtober

'98ll

cODtaiPr a poignant comment f. r om. I 11 . Plain English that aptly sup-ports all we've been trying to say here. P.L. 86-36

EO 1.4. (c)EOI. 4. (d)P.L. 86-36

Gobbledygook

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"It's a sad day of affairs •••• •

"I am very much annoyed to find you havebranded my son illiterate; This is a dirtylie as I was. marr ied a week before he wasborn"; "Unless I get my husband's money prettysoon, I will be forced to live an immortallife"; and ·1 am glad to .report that my husband who is missing is dead."

(5) that illogical, incongruous, or inappropriate metaphors should be avoided.

(2) that roundabout expressions, such as "Itis believed ••• " and "There is/are ••• " makefor weak writing because they tend to repeat, they are often vague, and they leavethe reader with no way of knowing what ismeant, thus forcing him to work for nothing;

(4) that circumlocutions, such as "Owing tothe fact that ••• ," "Concerning the matterof ••• ," and "In reference to ••• " are nothing more than deadwood; and

(1) that it is foolish to use high-soundingwords, such as utilize, implement, initiate, viable, optimum, and terminate;--

"(We should be) starting out with a cleanfoot. " (Let' scalI th is one a combined, instead of a mixed, metaphor.)

Those gems are not any worse (or, if you like,any better) than the Golden Oldies taken fromletters received at a welfare department inTennessee some years back (you old-timersmight remember them):

"The state of the art, as it exists today •••• "

After analyzing the following real-worldstatements, we couldn't come up with a reasonably good answer to the question, "What ·happened to the quality control system?"

(3) that we condemn the use of the expression"It is felt that ••• " because it has threeinherent strikes against it--it is roundabout, it is passive, and it is false (onedoesn't feel an argument or a contention;one thinks it or one believes it);

(U) We have described to your people inconsiderable detail the perennial enemy ofgood writing, namely gobbledygook orfederalese--the old obscure wr iting that isusually meant to impress rather than to express. We have convinced them (we hope)

aCID:

iii

EO 1.4. (c)P.L. 86-36

S"8SIU!'f SF 6K'fJ

SESaB'f SP~E


Reminiscences of an .nterce t Operator(U)

CIRCA 1.£1

DOCID: 4009885

PUZ~ZLE(U)5-4:3

1. (5) beneath; (4) description of thebridge that arched the flood; (3) colorof blood; a Square in Moscow.

2. (5) seat; presidency, (4) wealthy; (3)- bin ein Berliner I-

3. (5) malice; (4) mince' lemon meringue,for example; (3) between Aug & OCt.

4. (5) Gertrude of -Rose is a rose is arose is a rose- fame; (4) word after-love- or before -egg-; (3) Latin being.

5. (5) actor Charles or ballplayer Cletus;(4) stable for cows (a Briticism); (3)Johnny , Confederate soldier.

6. (5) what Rembrandt and Titian did andused; (4) Middle Eastern pocket bread;(3) form of bribe allegedly -to insurepromptness- that Ambrose Biercedescribed as ·salary we pay to otherpeople's help.-

.7. (5) raised platform on which performances are presented; kind of coach; (4)obtains; (3) -Ready, , gol-

8. (5) Joseph COnrad, LeCilwalesa, MadameCurie, and Pope John Paul II among others; (4) sit for an artist; (3) a pieceof bread or other food soaked in milk orbroth before being eaten; gift for Cerberus.

9. (5) Greek mythological creature, halfhuman & half bird; police car adjunct;(4) strap for making a horse go -Whoal-;(3) anger. .

10. (5) length of a boxer's extended armwhen throwing a punch, (4) part of thefoot; kind of bishop; curvature; (3)short cheer; Hur's last name.

11. (5) Jones the engineer; (4) affirmativevotes; (3) Black, Red or Yellow.

DEFINITIONS

If you've found all the correct words ,andpicked out all the right letters, when youread down the column of boxes on the left andthen the right, you should see that the 22letters you've written in those squares spellout a 3-word phrase that should be familiar toyou. (The second word is divided between thebottom of one column & the top of the other.)

by'Wt\TT ZIZNAME:'

PI

11.

5.

2.

10.

4.

ill

7

8

9.

6


In the diagram below each row is dividedinto 5 unequal segments, the center 3 of whichare labeled (5), (4), and (3). The digit inparentheses tells you how many letters thereare in the word being defined in the list ofDEFINITIONS in the right column; each group ofexplanatory terms has a number correspondingto the row of the diagram and a subsort showing the number of letters in the word beingdefined.

(The solution will appear in the nextissue of Cryptolog.)

3.

1.

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When you have figured out the 5-letter wordbeing defined, write it in the appropriate boxunder the (5). Now try to find a 4-letterword that matches the (4) definition given anduses four of the five letters in the word youjust wrote. The letters can be rearranged.NOw take the omitted letter and write it inthe small square on the left end of theappropriate row. Next, take 3 of those 4letters to make a word that matches the (3)definition, putting the dropped letter in thesquare at the right end of the row.

Nov B3 * CRYPTOLOG * Page 21

PH1AR 84-S3-45650

aCID: 4009885

'fillS BOSl.1MBN'f SON'fA:INS SOBEWORB MA'FERIAf.

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