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Article: National Security Agency: Turning On and Tuning In Series: `NO SUCH AGENCY':EAVESDROPPING FOR INTELLIGENCE Series Number: 1/2
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- March 18, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The El Al cargo plane carrying 80 Hawk antiaircraft missiles had
already taken off from Tel Aviv, its cargo secretly bound for Iran,
when the telephone rang at the headquarters of the hyper-secretive
National Security Agency, 22 miles from downtown Washington.
At NSA, whose initials are sometimes said to stand for "No Such
Agency," duty officer Joseph A. Nogal picked up the receiver. The
man at the other end of the line was a senior Central Intelligence
Agency official, Charles Allen, then national intelligence officer
for counterterrorism.
It was 5 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1985, and Allen wanted NSA's Special
Operations Office to know that "a planeload of arms is now over the
Med en route to ...