This old External Affairs file, “Destruction of Machine Cyphers,” only has a handful of pages in it, all dating from the early 1950s.
The documents in the folder refer to a set of instructions for destroying Typex machines in case an Embassy is evacuated in an emergency.
While the records do not include the full set of instructions, they list the tools needed to destroy the machines.
“Each office equipped with Typex should be in possession of a heavy hammer, a screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a pair of end cutting pliers. If your Communications Office does not have these tools, please place a requisition on the Department for them.”
Either the procedures for destroying the cypher machines were extremely complicated or — as seems more likely given the tools listed — fairly straightforward.
Brute force seems to continue to play an important role in emergency procedures for sensitive equipment.
In 2022, I took a group of students to Bletchley Park where we saw on display a UK GCHQ Field Office from Afghanistan.
The container was equipped with some emergency tools of its own: a pickaxe and a sledge hammer, readily available to destroy the sensitive equipment in case of evacuation.
** Essay Prize! Call for Papers **
The Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies is seeking submissions for its annual essay prize.
Cash prizes, sponsored by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, will be awarded for the best undergraduate and graduate papers on a subject dealing with intelligence, security, or law enforcement issues in any time period and in any country.
More information here: https://casis-acers.ca/casis-essay-prize/
New SIGNIT Briefing Books
Canada Declassified now features two new briefing books on Canada’s early Cold War signals intelligence history. (These are different from the document about tools, above.) The briefing books, prepared by Sam Eberlee, guide readers through two collections of recently released records:
1) The Commonwealth Signals Intelligence Conference (1946)
2) The Canadian-British SIGINT Communications Conference (1949-50)
Sam’s terrific introductions are below, and you can follow the links to the full briefing books including the particular documents Sam links to below.
The Commonwealth Signals Intelligence Conference, 1946
(By Sam Eberlee)
Canada developed new secret intelligence capabilities during the Second World War, including the infrastructure and expertise to intercept and decrypt Japanese and French signals traffic. The Canadians involved were part of a wider Allied effort, and signals intelligence work (SIGINT, or Ultra intelligence in British and Commonwealth parlance), did not cease in peacetime. Instead, American, British, and Canadian signals intelligence organizations were repurposed to meet Cold War needs. The documents in this briefing book shed light on Canadians’ thinking about the purpose and structures of permanent postwar Canadian and allied intelligence communities (CDSG00006).
In late 1945, Canadians were kept apprised of negotiations towards a UKUSA SIGINT agreement, which later became the nucleus of the Five Eyes alliance (CDSG00001). As these bilateral negotiations progressed, the British proposed a Commonwealth SIGINT Conference in February 1946. The first item on the agenda was to discuss, agree, and arrange “the participation of Commonwealth authorities in a British global SIGINT network under broad general direction of the UK” (CDSG00014). Canadians with knowledge of the Ultra secret objected to the proposed division of SIGINT labour “on an empire basis” (CDSG00039). Unlike their counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, and India, who were unaware of UKUSA, Canadian officials stressed the need to have direct relationships with both London and Washington in the field of SIGINT (CDSG00007). Sir Edward Travis, Director of the British Government Code & Cypher School, acknowledged Canadians’ “special position” and opened the Commonwealth Conference with “a full statement on the agreement and on relations between Canada, [the] USA, and the UK” (CDSG00015 & CDSG00025). In late 1945 and early 1946, the Canadians were also concerned about the idleness of SIGINT staff in Ottawa. They therefore requested interim assignments from their British and American allies, pending a more permanent allocation of duties after the February conference. Ottawa accepted some tasks delegated by London (the specific nature of these has been withheld under the Access to Information Act), but turned down others. For instance, Canadian codebreakers were unable to complete a Chinese-book breaking assignment from Washington due to the inexperience of their Chinese linguists (CDSG00029).
A delegation of four veterans of wartime intelligence work represented Canada at the 1946 Commonwealth SIGINT Conference. George Glazebrook and Gordon Gale “Bill” Crean of the Department of External Affairs were key architects of Canada’s postwar intelligence system. The formal conference program emphasized the “offensive” aspects of SIGINT work, notably the interception of foreign states’ communications. Crean was tasked with informally discussing “defensive” aspects of SIGINT work with UK counterparts, such as codes and ciphers to protect the secrecy of Canadian and allied communications. Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Drake was the designated head of a new peacetime signals intelligence agency, which became operational later in 1946. The Communications Branch of the National Research Council, Canada's national cryptologic agency, is today styled the Communications Security Establishment. The incipient CBNRC was also represented by Mary Oliver, whose knowledge and experience in SIGINT far exceeded the bounds of her wartime administrative assistant title. Canadian diplomat Hume Wrong observed that Oliver’s addition to the Canadian delegation “created a demand for equality of rights [from women] in Travis’s show” (CDSG00043).
The Canadians sailed to London aboard the Queen Mary, stayed at the Dorchester Hotel, and made the High Commission (Canada House) their headquarters in February-March 1946. The conference dealt with the technical nuts and bolts of SIGINT work, such as landlines and radio links between intercept stations and codebreaking centres. Commonwealth representatives also grappled with wider problems of how to achieve rapid exchanges of intercepted traffic and avoid “wasteful duplication” of intelligence labour among allies (CDSG00047). The full “Commonwealth SIGINT Technical Conference 1946” file released by Library and Archives Canada under the Access to Information Act is available as CDSG00053.
The Canadian-British SIGINT Communications Conference 1949-50 (London)
(By Sam Eberlee)
Canada joined the UKUSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) agreement in the late 1940s, which subsequently evolved into the Five Eyes alliance. Talks between Sir Edward Travis, Director of British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and his Canadian counterparts produced a GCHQ proposal for a Canadian-British SIGINT conference in 1949 (CDSG00054). The Canadians appreciated the need for dialogue and coordination. An allied division of intelligence labour meant that policy and budgetary decisions taken in London had implications for Ottawa, and vice versa. Canadian intelligence officers also had outstanding questions about the overall SIGINT program, such as how one hundred promised Canadian intercept stations fit into wider allied efforts. The Directorate of Military Intelligence wondered if the tripartite SIGINT program was too closely modelled on patterns of the last war, and if methods and infrastructure developed to intercept German and Japanese communications were well-suited to “Russian” signals (CDSG00055). The British proposed comprehensive bilateral talks about the whole field of SIGINT. But from the Canadian vantage point, the agenda was predominantly comprised of items which “could not be settled finally except on a tripartite basis with the Americans” (CDSG00061).
Canada’s Communications Research Committee (CRC), which oversaw SIGINT work, therefore preferred an American British Canadian (ABC) conference to bilateral discussions in London. Not only did a bilateral conference create risks of eventually “covering the same ground twice,” the Americans would “be bound to interpret” a preliminary Canadian-British conference as “an attempt to establish a common front” (CDSG00058). These points of disagreement nullified a first British proposal to host a Canadian delegation in July 1949. But the two sides eventually found common ground. The original British agenda consisted of eleven items, and the Canadians agreed that three of these could be resolved bilaterally, while a further five could be usefully explored in a Canadian-British forum. A conference date was set for January 1950.
The Canadian-British SIGINT Communications Conference was held in the Mayfair district of London, at the present-day Bahamas High Commission in the UK. Canada was represented by George Glazebrook of External Affairs, Director Edward Drake of the Communications Branch, National Research Council (now the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s national cryptologic agency), Wing Commander E.A. Hutton of the Air Force, and Colonel W.W. Lockhart of the Army. Logistically, the conference was no small undertaking at a time when Canadian officials had to make lengthy transatlantic voyages aboard the RMS Queen Mary (CDSG00066). Upon arrival, the Canadian delegation was joined by Mary Oliver, a veteran of wartime signals intelligence work and the first Canadian intelligence Liaison Officer to London. In addition to formal meetings, the two-week conference program encompassed cocktail parties at the Hyde Park Hotel and field trips to GCHQ’s premises at RAF Eastcote and the UK Joint Intelligence Bureau, the model for a postwar Canadian JIB (CDSG00070, CDSG00073 & CDSG00074).
While formal conference conclusions have been withheld under the Access to Information Act, documents in this collection provided glimpses of its outcomes. UK intelligence officers like Travis, Foreign Office Director of Communications Brigadier General Richard Gambier-Perry, Captain E.G. “Eddy” Hastings of the Royal Navy, and Sir Kenneth Strong of JIB (London) were all invited to visit Ottawa in personal or professional capacities. Follow-up meetings were scheduled for the autumn of 1950, after the Canadian trials of new British cypher machines for top secret “Ultra” communications (CDSG00080). Finally, the Canadians were anxious to share the conference's conclusions with US counterparts, to avoid perceptions of a common front within the North Atlantic intelligence triangle (CDSG00078). It is revealing and significant that postwar Canadians responsible for signals intelligence strove to maintain equal distance from London and Washington, despite their Commonwealth ties.
The full “Canadian-British SIGINT Communications Conference 1949-50” file released by Library and Archives Canada (A-2019-03089) can be accessed as CDSG00081, albeit with substantial redactions. The documents in this briefing book shed light on the alliance politics and personal relationships that defined the formative years of tripartite Cold War SIGINT cooperation.
Four Lessons from the Career of Peter Hancock
Peter Hancock, a Canadian diplomat and former instructor in the International Relations Program at the University of Toronto, passed away in December 2023. Dr. Dan Livermore offers these four lessons after reflecting on Hancock’s career.
NATO turns 75
When I started my dissertation and then book on NATO, the alliance seemed like a relic of the past. It was a “for historians only” topic, and certainly not something that made the news with any frequency. It is surreal to see the amount of news coverage of the alliance today, the 75th anniversary of the Washington Treaty.
I was on CBC’s The National last night (although I ended up doing more walking than talking in the segment.)
Newsweek also posted a video interview with me today, and a news story with quotes from me about NATO’s future, here.