And Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You Free
– John 8:32 (and the lobby of CIA Headquarters, Langley Virginia)
A few other versions of the talk are here and here
Secret History Backstory Click Here
.
Master set of slides
Updated master version can be downloaded here
__________
(If you’re interested in the history of the tech scene in New York, Fred Wilson gives a cogent summary here)
__________
id=”Secret History Blog Posts”>The Secret History of Silicon Valley – Backstory
- Part 1: The Vietnam War
- Part 2: B-52’s and the Soviet Air Defense System
- Part 3: Bill Perry/ESL and the Cold War
- Part 4a: Undisclosed Locations
- Part 4b: The End of Innocence
- Part 5: Silicon Valley, the 2nd 100 years
- Part 6a: The Endless Frontier: U.S. Science and National Industrial Policy
- Part 6b: Stanford, Terman and WWII
- Part 7: Stanford, Terman and the Cold War
- Part 8: Stanford and the rise of Cold War Entrepreneurship
- Part 9: Stanford and Electronic Intelligence
- Part 10: Stanford and Weapons Systems
- Part 11: The Rise of Venture Capital
- Part 12: The First Valley IPO’s
- Part 13: Startups with Nuclear Missiles
- Part 14: Spy Satellites in Silicon Valley
- Part 15: Lockheed – Silicon Valley largest employer
- Part 16: Balloon Wars
- Part 17: The Secret History of Minnesota Part 1: Engineering Research Associates
Play/download the audio version of each post here
Sources I used for The Secret History of Silicon Valley. Thanks to the authors of this wonderful material. Special note; read everything Alfred Price has written for WWII and Electronic Warfare. Steuart Leslie, Charles Lecuyer and Rebecca S. Lowen for Stanford and the Cold War.
World War II Sources – Books/Websites
- Scientists Against Time – James Baxter
- Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science – Jennet Conant
- The Tizard Mission: The Top Secret Operation that Changed the Course of WWII
- A Radar History of WWII: Technical and Military Imperatives – Louis Brown
- A New Eye For the Navy: the Origin of Radar at the Naval Research Laboratory
- Confounding the Reich: The RAF’s Secret War of Electronic Countermeasures in WWII – Martin Bowman
- Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber Support Campaign – Martin Streetly
- Echoes of War, the Story of H2S Radar – Sir Bernard Lovell
- Boffin: A Personal Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio Astronomy and Quantum Optics – R. Hanbury Brown
- Radar Development to 1945 – Russell Burns
- The Invention that Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won The Second World War – Robert Buderi
- Wizard War, British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945 – R.V. Jones
- History of Air Intercept Radar and the British Nightfighter 1939-1945 – Ian White
- Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe: 1939-1945 – Werner Muller
- The Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich – Donald Caldwell
- Bf110 vs Lancaster 1942-1945 – Robert Forczyk
- Battle Over The Reich: The Strategic Bomber Offensive Over Germany: Volume One, 1939-1943 – Alfred Price
- The Nuremberg Raid: March 30-31 1944 – Martin Middlebrook
- Warriors and Wizards – development and defeat of radio controlled glide bombs – Martin Bollinger
- Defense of the Third Reich 1941-45: Steven J Zaloga
- Battle Over the Reich: The Strategic Bomber Offensive against Germany Volume 2 Nov 1943-May 1945 – Alfred Price
- Battle Over the Reich – Alfred Price
- Radar in WWII -Henry E. Guerlac Vol 1 and 2
- Japanese Radar and Related Weapons of World War II – Yasuzo Nakagawa
- Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare – Alfred Price
- Volume I: The History of US. Electronic Warfare to 1946 – Alfred Price
- The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
- Ticom Archive – Signal Intelligence in WWII
- European Axis Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 1
- Notes on German Cryptography and Cryptanalysis – TICOM report Volume 2
- German Supreme Command Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 3
- German Army High Command Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 4
- German Air Force Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 5
- Restricted Data – Nuclear Secrecy Blog
Cold War Sources — Books
- Volume II: The History of US. Electronic Warfare: Renaissance Years – Alfred Price
- Volume III: The History of US. Electronic Warfare: Rolling Thunder Through Allied Force, 1964 to 2000 – Alfred Price
- Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret NSA – James Bamford
- The Puzzle Palace: Inside the NSA – James Bamford
- Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security – William Burrows
- Secrets of Signals Intelligence During the Cold War and Beyond – M. Aid, C. Wiebes
- The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights Over China From Taiwan – Chris Pocock
- Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA– J. Jones, R. Jones, C. Andrew
- High-Cold-War-Strategic Air Reconnaissance and the Electronic Intelligence War – Robert Jackson
- Spy Flights of the Cold War – Paul Lashmar
- By Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War – W. Burrows
- Shadow Flights: America’s Secret Airwar Against the Soviet Union: A Cold War History – C. Peebles
- Secret Empire: Eisenhower, The CIA and the hidden story of America’s Space Espionage – P. Taubman
- The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology – Jeffery Richelson
- GCHQ: The uncensored story of Britain’s most secret intelligence agency -Richard J. Aldrich
- The History of Big Safari – Bill Grimes
- Spyplane: The U-2 History – Norman Polmar
- Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites – Dwayne Day
- Corona: America’s First Satellite Program – Kevin Ruffner
- Corona Between the Sun and the Earth: The First NRO Reconnaissance Eye in Space – Robert McDonald
- Meeting the Challenge: The Hexagon KH-9 Reconnaissance Satellite – Philip Pressel
- Critical to U.S. Security: The Development of the GAMBIT and HEXAGON Satellites – Gerald Haines
- Trust but Verify: Imagery Analysis in the Cold War – David Lindgren
- Spy Capitalism: Itek and the CIA – Jonathan Lewis
- America’s Space Sentinels: DSP Satellites and National Security – Jeffery Richelson
- Shades of Gray: National Security and the Evolution of Space Reconnaissance – L. Parker Temple
- NRO Satellite History – Quest
- Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance – Donald MacKenzie
- Achieving Accuracy: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles – Marshall McMurran
- From Polaris to Trident – The Development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology – Graham Spinardi
- When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the U.S. Navy – David Boslaugh
- The Computing Program of the Office of Naval Research, 1946- 1953
- From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer – Kent Redmond, Thomas Smith
- A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon – Neal Sheehan
- Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program – David Stumpf
- Command and Control:Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident – Eric Schlosser
- The Kremlins’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000 – Steven Zaloga
- Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces – Pavel Podvig, Frank von Hippel
- The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle – Marshall Michel
- Flying From the Black Hole – Robert Harder
- US Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems 1950-2004 – Mark Berhow
- SA-2 (S-75) Surface to Air Missile Simulator
- The Archangel and the OXCART: the Lockheed A-12 – J. Remak, J. Ventolo
- Design and Development of the Blackbird – Peter Merlin
- From Rainbow to Gusto: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird – Paul Suhler
- Radar Handbook – Merrill I. Skolnik
- EW 101: a first course in electronic warfare – David Adamy
- First in Last Out: Stories by the Wild Weasels
- Clashes – Air Combat Over North Vietnam 1965-1972
- The Eleven Days of Christmas: Americas Last Vietnam Battle
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram and/or
- The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security by Grant T. Hammond
- Threat Warning for Tactical Aircraft: A Technical History
- Beyond Expectations: Recollections of the Pioneers and Founders of National Reconnaissance
- Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in From the Desert – David Rosenberg
- Working on the Dark Side of the Moon: Life Inside the National Security Agency
- The Silent Arms Race: The Role of the Supercomputer During the The Silent Arms Race: The Role of the Supercomputer During the Cold War, 1947-1963
Military/University Alliance
- Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford – Rebecca S. Lowen
- The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America – Paul Edwards
- The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford – Stuart W. Leslie
- Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: WWII’s Battle of the Potomac – Gregory Hooks
- Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology and the State in Cold War America – Audra Wolfe
- Funding a Revolution – National Academies of Science
Post Cold War Sources — Books
- Analyzing the Chinese Military – Peter Mattis
- The Chinese Army Today – Dennis Blasko
- Chinese Aerospace Power – Andrew S. Erickson & Lyle J. Goldstein
- Peoples Liberation Army Navy: Combat Systems Technology, 1949-2010
- The Dragon Extends its Reach – Larry Wortzel
- China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress
- Chinese Air and Naval Power – blog
- Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. Josh Chin and Liza Lin
- Chinese Power and Artificial Intelligence. Edited by William Hannas and Huey-Meei Chang
- Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics: National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance. Jinghan Zeng
- Innovate to Dominate: The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State. Tai Ming Cheung
- The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. Kevin Rudd
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
- The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare – Christian Brose
Silicon Valley Sources – Books
Terman/Shockley/Fairchild/Intel/National/Chips
- Fred Terman at Stanford – Stewart Gilmore
- IEEE Oral History – Fred Terman Associates
- Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age – Michael Riordan & Lillian Hoddeson
- Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley– Joel Shurkin
- Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor – Christophe Lecuyer and David Brock
- The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce – Leslie Berlin
- Spinoff: A Personal History of the Industry That Changed The World – Charles Sporck
- The Intel Trinity – Michael Malone
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
Silicon Valley History
- Electronics in the West: the First Fifty Years – Jane Morgan
- The Origins of the Electronics Industry on the Pacific Coast– The Origins of the Electronics Industry on the Pacific Coast
- Revolution in Miniature: The History and Impact of Semiconductor Electronics – Ernest Braun
- Understanding Silicon Valley – Martin Kenney
- The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer – Jane Smiley
- How Silicon Valley Came to Be – Timothy Sturgeon
- The Inventor and the Pilot: Russell and Sigurd Varian – Dorothy Varian
- The Tube Guys – Norman Pond
- Making Silicon Valley: Innovation & the Growth of High Tech – Charles Lecuyer
- Dealers of Lightening: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age – Michael Hilzick
- The Big Score – Michael Malone
- Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 – AnnaLee Saxenian
- The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy – AnnaLee Saxenian
- Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company – Michael Malone
- Startup up Silicon Valley; How ROLM Became a Cultural Icon-Katherine Maxfield
- Make it New – A History of Silicon Valley Design
- The HP Phenomenon: Innovation and Business Transformation– House and Price
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
Venture Capital
- Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital – Spencer E. Ante
- Done Deals: Venture Capitalists Tell Their Stories -Udayan Gupta
- Semiconductor Timeline to 1976: Semi and Don C. Hoefler
- The Startup Game – William Draper III
- A Brief History of the World (of Venture Capital) – Nicolas Colin
Computing in Minnesota
ERA/UNIVAC
- ERA – The first computer company
- The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Research Associates, Inc. 1946-1955
- Sperry/Univac the first computer company
- ERA/UNIVAC 1103 1956 Reference Manual
- ERA Bogart 1957 Programmers Manual
- Atlas – and the early days of computing
- ERA Antenna Coupler Business
- ERA Spinoffs
- Univac computer genealogy
- Sperry Defense computer genealogy
- ERA/Sperry computer genealogy
- ERA/UNIVAC Pioneers Legacy Anthology
- ERA/Univac Photos
- Youtube – amazing Seymour Cray History
- Youtube Early Computer History Playlist
ERA/Remington Rand/Sperry Oral Histories
- John Parker – Oral History
- William Norris – Oral History
- Arnold Cohen – 1983 Oral History
- Arnold Cohen – 1987 Oral History
- Willis Drake – Oral History
- Arnold Ryden – Oral History
- Frank Mullaney – Oral History
- John Lindsay Hill – Oral History
- Sidney Michel Rubens – Oral History
Minnesota Computing History Resources
Books/Papers on Minnesota Computing
- Digital State, the story of Minnesota’s computing industry by Thomas Misa
- Generation of Wealth: the rise of Control Data by Donald Hall and Thomas Holloran
- IBM Rochester History
National Security Agency
NSA History
- The Early History of the NSA
- Organizations That Merged into the NSA
- The Origins of the NSA – 1940-1952
- The Quest for Cryptologic Centralization and the Establishment of NSA: 1940 -1952
NSA Computing History
- Pre-Computer Machine Cryptanalysis
- The Other Memex: The Tangled Career of Vannevar Bush’s Information Machine, The Rapid Selector
- Summary of OPS-20-G Machine Computing Lab WWII work
- 1944 Navy OPS-20-G Org Chart
- The autoscritcher and the superscritcher: aids to cryptanalysis of the German Enigma cipher machine, 1944-6
- 1946 Plans for the Naval Machine Computing Machine Lab at Dayton
- The 1946 Pendergrass Report Cryptanalysis and the Digital Computer
- Earliest Applications of the Computer at NSA
- The 5202 Machine
- Utilization of Analytical Machinery – 1952
- Planning for Atlas II – 1952
- NSA Review of IBM Tape Processing Machine – 1952
- Cryptanalytic Machinery at NSA – May 1953 – Arranged alphabetically.
- NSA Cipher Systems – 1953
- NSA Machines in Service of Cryptanalysis – 1954
- Brief Description of Analytic Machine – Sept 1954
- Mechanization in Support of COMINT – Phase I – 1954
- Mechanization in Support of COMINT – Phase II – 1954
- Mechanization in Support of COMINT – Phase III – 1955
- It Wasn’t All Magic The Early Struggle to Automate Cryptanalysis, 1930s–1980s – 2002
- History of NSA General Purpose Computers – 1964
- Growing Up With Computers at NSA – 1972 Panel
- Report of the Second Computer Study Group – 1973
- Influence of U.S. Cryptologic Organizations on the Digital Computer Industry – 1977
- Cryptology’s Role in the Early Development of Computer Capabilities in the United States -2015
- American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989 Book 1. The Struggle for Centralization 1945-1960
- American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989 Book II: Centralization Wins, 1960-1972
- American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945~1989 Book Ill: Retrenchment and Reform, 1972-1980
- American Cryptology during the Cold War; 1945-1989 Book IV: Cryptologic Rebirth, 1981-1989
- NSA Population Count CPU Instructions -1
- NSA CPU Instructions -2
- NSA Hamming Count CPU Instructions -3
- Seymour Cray at NSA
- Before Super-Computers: NSA And Computer Development
- NSA’s Key Role in Major Developments in Computer Science
- NSA Early History of Venona
- Soviet cables decrypted by NSA Venona Project
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Sources – Web
- Corona – first CIA film recovery spacecraft
- Corona, Lanyard and Argon records – GWU archives
- Gambit – Corona follow-on, film recovery spacecraft
- Hexagon – Gambit follow-on, last film recovery and ferret spacecraft
- AFTRACK – ELINT & COMINT payloads on Agena
- Project Upward – NRO and NASA collaboration
- SAMOS to the Moon – NASAs Lunar Orbiter and the NRO spy satellites
- Gambit/Hexagon History and Videos
- Midas – 1st Infrared Missile Warning program
- DMSP – real-time Military Weather Satellites
- GRAB and POPPY – NSA’s first ELINT satellites
- Military Polar Orbiting Meteorological Satellite Program
- Founders of National Reconnaissance
- Pioneers of National Reconnaissance 1960-2000
- NRO Special Collections – fun reading
Videos
ELINT Sources – Web
Air Force
Engineering/ELINT in the CIA/NSA
- CIA: Telemetry Analysis
- Engineering in the CIA; ELINT and Stealth
- Science, Technology and the CIA
- Stealth, Countermeasures and ELINT – 1960-1975
- CIA: Soviet ABM Defenses: Status and Prospects – 1970
- CIA: Quality ELINT
- CIA: Moon Bounce ELINT
- CIA: Hiding OXCART in plain sight
- NSA: A Dangerous Business- the US Navy and National Reconnaissance
- NSA tasking to CIA for ELINT
- First description of the NSA
- Intelligence programs listing
- Secret Spy-planes, Balloons and Satellites
ELINT Aircraft Losses
Analyst Demos
Oral Histories
- Computer History Museum Oral Histories
- IEEE Oral Histories
- ACM Oral Histories
- HP Memories
- HPMemoryProject.org
Photo and Movie Sources – Web
WWII Radar History/Photos/Radar Order of Battle
- www.gyges.dk
- http://www.luftarchiv.de/
- http://www.vectorsite.net/ttwiz.html The Wizard War
- http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/en/german_radar.html
- http://www.baermann.biz/pauke/index.php?catid=9&blogid=1
A-12 Oxcart
- The Oxcart Story –Frank Murray
Movie Clips