In order to
secure these sensitive communications the Americans designed and built the
Sigsaly device. The NSA
website says about Sigsaly:
‘The SIGSALY system was inaugurated on 15
July 1943 in a conference between London and the Pentagon (the original plan
had called for one of the terminals to be installed in the White House, but
Roosevelt, aware of Churchill's penchant for calling at all hours of the night,
had decided to have the Washington terminal moved to the Pentagon with
extensions to the White House and the Navy Department building.) In London, the
bulk of the SIGSALY equipment was stored in the basement of Selfridges
Department Store, with an extension to Churchill's war room, approximately a
mile away……….. With the coming of SIGSALY, the shortcomings of the less
than effective A-3 were now a thing of the past’.
This doesn’t appear
to be the whole truth. While it is true that the system was installed in July
1943 it didn’t work properly till late 1943 and it only become fully
operational in April 1944. Even after it was installed officials continued to
use the A-3 for most of their communications since the only Sigsaly link was available
at the Cabinet War Rooms and only a small number of officials had authorization
to use it.
This
information comes from the book ‘The
woman who censored Churchill’, p112-3. I’ve added this information in Intercepted
conversations - Bell Labs A-3 Speech scrambler and German codebreakers and German
intelligence on operation Overlord.
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