Inside The Ring: NSA Under Reagan -- Washington Times
The National Security Agency, the electronic spy and code-breaking service whose name frequently is mentioned with the words “super-secret,” recently declassified details of its history.
A former “top-secret” history produced in 1999 contains a section on how President Ronald Reagan realized the value of NSA’s unique electronic intelligence collection capabilities, and he sharply increased the agency’s funding and manpower.
The agency is in the midst of downsizing as part of the drastic cuts in defense and intelligence spending underway in the Obama administration.
“NSA’s total population rose by 40 percent during the 1980s,” states the history, which was made public last week by the National Security Archive. “Beginning with 19,018 in 1983, the Agency’s population peaked in 1990, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, at a total of 26,679. The dramatic rise was across the board, civilian and military, but was most pronounced on the civilian side.”
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My Comment: In today's world .... for the intelligence community the NSA is now indispensable.
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