1. 1. Broadly understood, communications intelligence includes any information derived from the interception and analysis of any form of human communication. Most commonly, the term is applied to efforts to intercept and analyze the diplomatic, military, and commercial communications of foreign governments. As governments routinely use codes and ciphers to protect their messages, cryptanalysis (the solution of codes and ciphers) is an integral part of communications intelligence.
2. 2. For a survey of the army's communications intelligence effort, see David Alvarez,Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930-1945(Lawrence, KS, 2000).
3. 3. The documents were released to the author by the National Security Agency under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. In the immediate postwar period the instrument maintained its wartime title, "The Magic Diplomatic Summary." By the spring of 1946, the instrument was more commonly referred to simply as "The Diplomatic Summary." This article will use the latter title.
4. 4. The number and character of postwar Comint dissemination instruments remain uncertain. One such instrument, "Intelligence Summary-Red," reported diplomatic and political news and appeared weekly in the period August 1944-December 1945. It circulated to the State Department. Internal evidence suggests that the Red Summary was compiled by American editors from decrypts provided by the Government Code and Cypher School, the British communications intelligence organization later renamed the Government Communications Headquarters. The Red Summaries can be found in National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Maryland, Record Group 457, Historic Cryptologic Collection (HCC), box 192. There is some question as to whether the White House received the daily summaries or a selection of "raw" (verbatim) decrypts or both. For a discussion of how Comint was distributed to the wartime White House, see Alvarez,Secret Messages, 238-42.
5. 5. Alfred McCormack to Generals Bratton and Lee, 12 February 1942, NARA, HCC, box 1305.