The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency

by James Bamford

The first book ever written on the National Security Agency from the New York Times bestselling author of Body of Secrets and The Shadow Factory.   In this groundbreaking, award-winning book, James Bamford traces the NSA’s origins, details its inner workings, and explores its far-flung operations. He describes the city of fifty thousand people and nearly twenty buildings that is the Fort Meade headquarters of the NSA—where there are close to a dozen underground acres of computers, where a significant part of the world’s communications are monitored, and where reports from a number of super-sophisticated satellite eavesdropping systems are analyzed. He also gives a detailed account of NSA’s complex network of listening posts—both in the United States and throughout much of the rest of the world. When a Soviet general picks up his car telephone to call headquarters, when a New York businessman wires his branch in London, when a Chinese trade official makes an overseas call, when the British Admiralty urgently wants to know the plans and movements of Argentina’s fleet in the South Atlantic—all of these messages become NSA targets. James Bamford’s illuminating book reveals how NSA’s mission of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) has made the human espionage agent almost a romantic figure of the past.  Winner Best Investigative Book of the Year Award from Investigative Reporters & Editors   “The Puzzle Palace has the feel of an artifact, the darkly revealing kind. Though published during the Reagan years, the book is coolly subversive and powerfully prescient.”—The New Yorker   “Mr. Bamford has emerged with everything except the combination to the director’s safe.”—The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Espionage, History, Nonfiction, United States

708 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 5, 2018

About the author

James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American bestselling author, journalist and documentary producer widely noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA).

Reviews

[M.T. Bass · Rating 4 out of 5]

The The Puzzle Palace suffers because it is locked in time. First published in 1984, it was no doubt a revelatory expose of the NSA, following on the Church Commission reports, but it really pales compared to what is happening today. The book does a great job of laying out the history of the organization going back to the work of original cryptologist, Herbert Yardley, in the early Twentieth Century, following through the Agency’s official establishment by President Truman in 1952, and the years of growth and public deception, as its employees happily eavesdropped on telegrams, telexes, and phone calls from all over the world. The narrative bogs down quite a bit with sections that just seem to list name after name after name of people who occupied this office or that in an alphabet soup of organizations. It’s not V. James Bamford’s fault, but what is really needed is a Puzzle Palace 2.0, which picks up on the government funding of Google in the 1990s and follows through the establishment of the 1.5 million square foot NSA Data Center in Utah.

[Jim Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book in May 1983 (hardcover edition) at the end of my Third Class year at USNA. I had already decided to become a Marine Corps Officer, but this book inspired me to focus on the Singals Intelligence field. My class of The Basic School in Quantico in December 1985 had only two slots for this field. The needs of the Marine Corps prevailed and future life events never aligned, so I never had the opportunity to achieve that dream. Nevertheless, this book sparked an interest.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history, for sure, but suffers for datedness. It ends with its publication in 1984 where email is a concept with limited use, but the history itself is well researched and an engaging telling of the story to that point. I would love to see this story continued to the post-9/11 era, updating the FISA Courts and the role of the NSA in the digital age. Alas, that story will be another 50 years away, at least.

[Doug Brunell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, but dry

This report on the NSA reads just like one would expect a report to read. A sense forest of names, dates, and more names and dates. It should be fascinating. How does one make the NSA boring?

You make a report into a book and hope no one notices.

Job kind of well done.

This history ends just at the end of the '80s when the country is really starting to go down the toilet. Imagine what could be written now.

[Ryan Nary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a bit technical and overly-detailed, especially in Chapter 3, "Anatomy," and shows its age at times (the author talks about the advent of "electronic mail," for instance), but still full of fascinating anecdotes (the Martin & Mitchell defections to the Soviet Union and the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by Israel during the 1967 war) and very well-researched.

[Chuck Emmer]

The Puzzle PalaceV. James Bamford

[Curtis L. Bagley · Rating 3 out of 5]

True to its name “The Puzzle Palace”.

Not too entertaining. Very informative. NSA should create a format to ehelp the reader remember the hundreds of names beginning in the early 1900’s to the present.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book. I would love to read an up-to-date version.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely dated. There are few good stories, but it spend a lot of time listing names, acronyms and intiialisms.

[James Steele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally liked the book. This was a re-read and because time has passed I found it more dated than the first time. Good information about the origins but a bit tedious at times.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A puzzling story of the Puzzle Palace.

[David Kritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for those wanting to learn more about the history of the NSA. The author placed historical accountings in an entertaining and engaging manner.