Free The Secret Sentry by Matthew M. Aid

SECOND COMING"
    The Dog Has Teeth: The Arrival of
General Ralph Canine
    Among those inside the U.S. intelligence community who were privy to AFSA’s secrets, the announcement of fifty-five-year-old
army major general Ralph Canine’s appointment as AFSA director in July 1951 came as a huge surprise, but it didn’t cause even
a ripple in the newspapers because few members of the press or public had any idea of what the agency did. Not only was General
Canine (pronounced keh-NINE) not a West Point graduate, but he also had very little prior experience in intelligence (he had
only served as the deputy chief of Army G-2 for ten months before being named to the post at AFSA), and he knew nothing whatsoever
about codes and ciphers. 1 He was promoted to lieutenant general and became the second— and last—AFSA director.
    Intelligence insiders had expected that Brigadier General Carter Clarke, a veteran intelligence officer with long experience
with SIGINT, would be appointed to the position. But Clarke, then commanding a logistics unit in Japan, wanted nothing to
do with the deeply troubled AFSA and nixed his own nomination, as did virtually every other senior army and air force intelligence
officer qualified for the post. So Canine got the job by default. He told friends that he had initially been “violently against”
becoming the head of AFSA, preferring instead to take retirement after thirty-five years of military service, including combat
duty in two world wars. But he had been convinced by colleagues in Army G-2 to take the job against his better judgment. 2
    Canine was “old army”—a tough and efficient chief of staff of a corps in General George Patton’s Third Army, where he was
famous for “kicking the ass” of recalcitrant division and regimental commanders. And that is exactly what Canine did at AFSA.
In much the same way that his counterpart at the CIA, General Walter Smith, rebuilt and reinvigorated his dormant intelligence
organization, so too did General Canine. In the six years (1951 to 1956) that he served as the director of AFSA and then the
National Security Agency, the hard-charging Canine made his organization a force to be reckoned with inside the U.S. intelligence
community. 3
    But even the resourceful Canine could not overcome the myriad problems that bedeviled his organization. Among other things,
SIGINT produced by AFSA still did not provide U.S. forces in Korea and its other customers with the intelligence (in quantity
and quality) they needed. The squabbling and feuding within AFSA itself was causing no end of problems for the agency’s managers,
who were struggling to help win the war in Korea as well as handle a series of potentially explosive international crises.
Senior army and navy officers at AFSA fought vicious internal bureaucratic battles with one another as well as their air force
counterparts. And all three of the military services refused to cooperate with the agency’s civilian customers at the FBI,
CIA, and State Department. To say that AFSA was dysfunctional would be an understatement. 4
    Canine had a real fight on his hands. Internally, he made sweeping changes in the agency’s management in January 1952. One
of those who would leave in the middle of this reorganization was Frank Rowlett. Like many of his colleagues, he found this
radical house cleaning to be the proverbial final straw. Angry and frustrated, in a fit of spite Rowlett accepted the offer
of a job helping the CIA build its own SIGINT organization. 5
    Canine fought off attacks from the military services and tried to defend the agency against the increasingly hostile criticism
of its customers, but ultimately he lost the battle. In November 1951, CIA director Smith struck a mortal blow. Smith knew
that the armed services would try to seize their shares of control of SIGINT if AFSA were to be dismantled, and he believed
that SIGINT had to be consolidated in the form of an entirely new entity. His bureaucratic