PRESIDENTIAL-TRANSITION.PDF

2004 
TOP Sl!CR:E'ft/COMINT/tX1 
.' 
·'' 
eclassified and approved for release by NSA and CIA on 04-16-2013 
ursuantto E.O. 13526. MDR-68585 

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(U) Presidential Transition 2001: 
NSA Briefs a New Administration 
David A. Hatch 
(U) INTRODUCTION 
(U) The American electoral process retains 
many vestiges reflecting its eighteenth century 
origins. In the age of supersonic transport and e-
mail, U.S. citizens select their national leadership 
on a timetable derived from the speed of carriages 
and town criers. 
(U) The most contentious vestige in the 
process is the electoral college, a scheme which 
allots votes to each state on the basis of popula-
tion; the actual determinant of a presidential 
…

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the presidential transition briefing process. The 
issues for NSA were not small. For those in the 
new administration for whom this would be the 
first exposure to cryptology, a briefing would be 
an important factor in determining how they 
would interact with NSA 
(U / /FOUO} Even those with prior exposure 
to the intelligence community and NSA needed to 
know the recent ongoing changes occurring in the 
cryptologic community. 
(U) This is the story of the election of 2000, 
NSA's period of change, and its participation in 
the transition ac…

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(U) Frequently, the new president-elect has 
not been resident in the District of Columbia, and 
briefings had to be arranged in areas where 
secure spaces were not normally available. For 
example, both Eisenhower in 1952 and Nixon in 
1968 received briefings in New York City.5 
(U) In 1992 the CIA's Deputy Director for 
Intelligence traveled to Little Rock to brief 
President-elect Clinton on intelligence matters 
and set up headquarters in an inexpensive motel 
chosen specifically to avoid the visibility a first-
class establishment might have. Clinto…

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(U) THE ELECTION OF 2000 
(U) In one sense, the presidential campaign of 
2000 kicked off the day after the election of 
William Clinton in 1996, since he was constitu-
tionally prohibited from seeking another consec-
utive term. In practical terms, however, the cam-
paign began in mid-1999, as political parties held 
primary elections state by state. By mid-year 
2000, each party had decided on its candidate 
and the traditional nominating conventions in 
the summer seemed anticlimactic. 
(U) In August the Republican Party conven-
tion in Philadelphia…

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the Florida court order for the recount, ending 
any hope of changing the decision. 
(U) Only a day later, no options left, Vice 
President Gore conceded the election with a final-
ity. The forty-third president of the United States 
was to be George W. Bush. 
(U) NSA IN A TIME OF CHANGE 
(U//FOUO) The National Security Agency 
was heir to the brilliant cryptologic efforts of 
World War II and the half century after it. 
Founded in 1952, NSA had supported civilian 
and military decision-makers throughout the 
Cold War - it is not too much to say tha…

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Lieutenant General Michael Hayden 
(U) Immediately, however, he commissioned 
two studies, by inside and outside experts, to 
address the most serious shortcomings at NSA. 
Based on these two reports, General Hayden 
began far-ranging changes to NSA's structure and 
personnel on November 16, 1999. The first period 
in this process was entitled "the hundred days of 
change," although institutional reordering con-
tinued for months afterward in many areas. 
(U / /FOUO) These shifts, as General Hayden 
emphasized in numerous meetings with con-
stituency gro…

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mation for the military. ELINT also was undergo-
ing change and would require considerable 
investment.15 
(U / /FOUO) To deal with changes in SIG INT, 
NSA had proposed Project TRAILBLAZER, a 
testbed for analytic techniques. Analysts would 
try out new techniques and new technology on a 
selected target; those that proved themselves 
would be adapted more generally throughout the 
Signals Intelligence Directorate. 16 
(U / fl"OUOj Another major initiative, Project 
GROUNDBREAKER, was a multibillion dollar 
program to contract out for most of its nonmis…