Signal intel

 

Why the NSA Told Henry Kissinger to Drop Dead When He Tried to Cut Intel Links with Britain

Henry Kissinger once tried to come between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s GCHQ, their signals intelligence (SIGINT) brothers from the other side of the pond, and the response from the U.S. intelligence agency was short and swift.

“The NSA simply said, ‘Drop dead,’” says the author of a new authorized history of GCHQ, who explains that the two intelligence agencies have a closer relationship with each other than they do with their own governments.

The world’s two leading signals intelligence agencies are so tightly bound together that they share virtually all of the material they gather with no questions asked. Over the years, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) has frequently protected the NSA from rivals within the U.S. including the CIA and Naval intelligence units—and even their respective presidents and prime ministers come second in the hierarchy of loyalty, according to Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency by John Ferris.