Robert J. Tracy to David D. Lowman, "Rhyming Dictionary Log Entries," 11 September 1975, with attached memorandum for the record, "United States Personalities," 8 November 1963, Secret

Source: Robert J. Tracy to David D. Lowman, "Rhyming Dictionary Log Entries," 11 September 1975, with attached memorandum for the record, "United States Personalities," 8 November 1963, Secret Date: Sep 11, 1975 Collection: National Security Agency Tracking of U.S. Citizens – “Questionable Practices” from 1960s & 1970s Sep 25, 2017

Editorial Analysis

Original analysis by the DriftSeas editorial desk. The complete primary-source document, transcribed from the National Security Archive scan, appears in full below.

The “Rhyming Dictionary” as a Window onto NSA Domestic Surveillance

The brief memo dated 11 September 1975, signed by Robert J. Tracy, chief of NSA’s C52 section, is not a literary curiosity but a procedural snapshot of a little‑known data‑management system that the agency used to catalog biographical information on American citizens. The “Rhyming Dictionary” was a worksheet‑based log that recorded the first appearance of a name in the agency’s growing archive of U.S. personal files. When a clerk entered a new file item into the alphabetical index, she would check whether the name was a first‑time entry; if so, she made a note on the Rhyming Dictionary sheet, which later was key‑punched and merged into a master database.

The memo references an attached “United States Personalities” memorandum dated 8 November 1963—just weeks after the Kennedy assassination. That earlier document outlines the responsibilities of C32 technicians to select, file, and forward information on U.S. personalities appearing in signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercepts (the “SNUP” – Signals National Upper‑Level Processing). The pairing of the 1963 directive with the 1975 log‑procedure memo reveals a continuity of effort: the NSA was systematically building a biographic repository on American individuals for decades, a practice that only became public during the 1970s Church Committee hearings.

Context: From Cold‑War Paranoia to the “Questionable Practices” Era

The early 1960s were marked by heightened fear of subversion—both foreign and domestic. After the Kennedy murder, the intelligence community intensified scrutiny of political figures, activists, and even ordinary citizens whose communications intersected with foreign channels. The NSA’s C32 and C52 sections were tasked with extracting names from bulk intercepts and cross‑referencing them against existing files. By the mid‑1970s, the agency was formalizing the administrative steps required to keep the “first occurrence” log accurate, as evidenced by Tracy’s description of “step 6” in the filing workflow.

This memo surfaced in the National Security Archive’s 2017 release of the “Tracking of U.S. Citizens – ‘Questionable Practices’” collection, a batch of documents that sparked renewed scholarly debate about the scope of NSA domestic surveillance before the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) imposed stricter limits. The Rhyming Dictionary exemplifies the bureaucratic machinery that allowed the agency to flag and later retrieve any American name that ever appeared in its signals collection, long before modern data‑mining tools.

Actors and Their Revelations

Robert J. Tracy, as chief of C52, was responsible for overseeing the log‑keeping function. His terse explanation—“I hope this explains how the Rhyming Dictionary has developed over the years”—suggests an internal audience already familiar with the system, likely senior analysts or auditors. David D. Lowman, the memo’s recipient, was a fellow NSA officer, probably a supervisor tasked with ensuring compliance with filing standards. The 1963 memorandum bears the signature of the “Chief, C32,” indicating a chain of command that linked signal‑processing technicians (C32) with the archival unit (C52). The explicit reference to “PL 86‑36/50 USC 3605” underscores the legal veneer the agency used to justify the collection of U.S. person data under the guise of national‑defense statutes.

The language of the 1963 memo—“determine the need for the information,” “prepare the file item,” “verify the person’s name”—reads like a textbook on intelligence filing, yet it also betrays an awareness that the agency was creating a searchable index of American identities. The requirement to “end the file item with the proper and accurate file heading” hints at an early form of metadata tagging, a practice that would later become central to digital intelligence databases.

What the Document Reveals Beneath the Surface

While the memo is ostensibly about a clerical procedure, it implicitly confirms that the NSA maintained a master list of every American whose communications were intercepted, flagged by the simple act of being a “first occurrence.” The fact that a separate worksheet—named after a whimsical “Rhyming Dictionary”—was used to track these entries suggests the agency recognized the analytical value of novelty: a name appearing for the first time could signal a new target, a newly relevant organization, or a shift in foreign‑domestic interaction.

The declassification note—“Exempt from GDS, EO 11652, Cat —2—” and “Declassify Upon Notification by the Originator”—indicates the document was still considered sensitive in 1975, even as the broader public debate over NSA domestic spying was intensifying. The instruction to “HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY” reflects the compartmentalized nature of the information, reinforcing that the Rhyming Dictionary was a classified tool, not a routine administrative record.

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

The Rhyming Dictionary is a microcosm of the NSA’s pre‑digital data‑collection ethos: painstaking manual indexing, reliance on human judgment to flag “first occurrences,” and a bureaucratic chain that linked signal‑processing units to archival custodians. When the agency later migrated to electronic databases in the 1990s, the conceptual framework—cataloguing every U.S. person who crossed a signal‑intercept threshold—remained unchanged.

Understanding this procedural artifact helps explain why modern revelations about bulk metadata collection felt both shocking and familiar; the agency had long been building the scaffolding for mass surveillance, layer by layer, through mundane paperwork. The memo also illustrates how legal justifications (reference to 18 U.S.C. 3605) were woven into everyday filing instructions, a pattern that recurs in later debates over the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the FISA Amendments.

For historians, the Rhyming Dictionary log is a rare glimpse into the nuts‑and‑bolts of Cold‑War intelligence administration, reminding us that the scope of surveillance is often determined not by grand conspiracies but by the accumulation of countless small, bureaucratic decisions.

SECRET

Mr. David D. Lowman

Mr. Robert J. Tracy

Serial: C52/69/75
11 September 1975

Rhyming Dictionary Log Entries

1. Attached M/R, Subject: United States Personalities dated
8 November 1963, plus para. 2 this memorandum should assist in explaining
the entries into the run I provided you yesterday.

2. After the file items reached the area housing the U.S. Biographic
files, step 6 would be performed as follows: clerks responsible for filing
would enter a file item in its proper alpha sequence then determine if it
was a first occurrence in the file. If it was they would make a log entry
on a Rhyming Dictionary work sheet. This, at a later date, would be key-
punched and added to the master file.

3. I hope this explains how the Rhyming Dictionary has developed over
the years.

ROBERT J. TRACY
Chief, C52

Incls:
1. M/R (Subject: United States Personalities, dated 8 November 1963)
2. NSA Form H4702 Rev Jan 68 Rhyming Dictionary Log

Classified by DIRNSA/CHCSS (NSA/CSSM 123-2)
Exempt from GDS, EO 11652, Cat --2------
Declassify Upon Notification by the Originator

HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY

SECRET