Fritz (Frederick A. O.) Schwarz to Members of the Senate Select Committee, "The Executive Session on Friday, September 19," 19 September 1975, Top Secret
National Security Archive
A 1975 NSA memo to the Senate shows the agency fighting to hide citizen files while Congress pushes for public hearings—an early flashpoint of today’s privacy battles.
Source: Fritz (Frederick A. O.) Schwarz to Members of the Senate Select Committee, "The Executive Session on Friday, September 19," 19 September 1975, Top Secret Date: Sep 19, 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.
A Secret Briefing for a Secret Committee
On September 19, 1975, Fritz Schwarz, a senior NSA official, sent a top‑secret memorandum to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The note was a logistical roadmap for an upcoming executive session that would decide whether the Senate should hold public hearings on the agency’s monitoring of international communications. The timing is crucial: it came just weeks after the Watergate scandal had driven Congress to examine the covert activities of the intelligence community, and it precedes the famous 1976 Church Committee hearings that would later expose the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs. Schwarz’s memo is not a report of operations; it is a negotiation table, listing the committee’s proposals side‑by‑side with the NSA’s informal rebuttals. In doing so, it reveals the agency’s instinct to contain embarrassment while protecting the technical capabilities it had amassed during the Cold War.
The NSA in the Mid‑1970s: From Cipher‑Breaking to Citizen Files
The document sits at the intersection of two larger historical currents. First, the NSA’s expansion from a wartime signals‑intelligence outfit into a peacetime surveillance behemoth. By the early 1970s it was routinely tapping undersea cables, intercepting international telegrams, and, as the memo admits, maintaining “75,000 files on U.S. citizens” that were later destroyed in 1974. Second, the post‑Vietnam, post‑Watergate climate of heightened civil‑rights awareness, which made any hint of domestic spying politically toxic. The memo’s Table of Issues shows the committee pushing for public hearings that would at least acknowledge the existence of those citizen files, while the NSA argues for a complete blackout, fearing litigation under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act.
Who Is Speaking, and What Their Stances Reveal
Schwarz writes on behalf of Director Lew Allen, a career signals officer who would later become a key figure in modernizing the agency’s computer infrastructure. The memo’s tone is conciliatory yet defensive: it acknowledges the “questionable practices” but frames them as technical by‑products of a larger foreign‑intelligence mission. The NSA’s informal responses are strikingly specific—e.g., insisting that no NSA officials appear before Congress because “they are not as well compartmented as at CIA.” This reveals an internal culture that prized secrecy over accountability and perceived congressional oversight as a threat to operational security.
The committee’s proposals, attributed to senators such as Frank Church, reflect a burgeoning demand for transparency. The memo notes that Church could issue a “highly limited statement” if the Defense Secretary agreed to declassify certain material. The very fact that the Senate was negotiating the scope of public disclosure underscores how unprecedented the situation was: no prior congressional hearing had ever forced the NSA to confront its domestic data‑collection practices.
Reading Between the Lines: What the Memo Does Not Say
While the table lists “75,000 files” and cites names like Senators Church and Goldwater, it also hints at a broader pattern of inter‑agency sharing. The NSA notes that “other agencies, such as the CIA, had almost unlimited access to them.” This suggests a network of intelligence collaboration that extended the reach of surveillance beyond the NSA’s own technical capabilities. Moreover, the mention of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice, yet no action taken, points to a possible institutional reluctance to prosecute intelligence officials—even when statutory violations (e.g., under the Federal Communications Act) were alleged.
The memo’s discussion of the “delivery to NSA of all international paid telegrams” illustrates how a World War II‑era agreement was repurposed in the 1960s to feed the agency a flood of unfiltered data. By noting that the original 1945 promise to protect telegraph companies “no longer applicable,” the NSA implicitly admits that its legal justifications were being stretched, a point the committee was prepared to challenge.
Legacy: Why This Memo Still Matters
Schwarz’s memorandum is a microcosm of the tension that would define the 1970s intelligence reforms: the clash between a technically sophisticated, self‑protective agency and a Congress determined to reassert democratic oversight. The issues it raises—massive domestic data banks, inter‑agency data sharing, and the legal gray zone of foreign‑communication interception—resurface in today’s debates over bulk metadata collection and the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. By exposing the NSA’s own acknowledgment of “questionable practices,” the memo foreshadows the eventual public revelations of the 1970s and the later Snowden disclosures.
In short, the September 19, 1975, memo is not just an administrative note; it is a snapshot of a pivotal moment when the United States began to confront the paradox of a surveillance state built for foreign threats but capable of turning its gaze inward. Its language, the issues it enumerates, and the defensive posture of the agency together illuminate the origins of contemporary privacy battles and remind us that the struggle over intelligence oversight is as old as the technologies that enable it.
Doc ID: 6571846
MEMORANDUM
TO : Members of the Senate Select Committee
FROM : Fritz Schwarz
DATE : September 19, 1975
SUBJECT: The Executive Session on Friday, September 19
The executive session will focus on the proposed public hearings next week about monitoring by the National Security Agency (NSA) of international lines of communications. This monitoring has included some questionable practices in the past regarding U.S. citizens, and NSA's technology and size provide it with the capability, unless better controlled, to engage in such practices in the future.
General Lew Allen, the Director of NSA, will brief the Committee for about 30 minutes on the functions and operations of NSA. We will then address the issue of what can appropriately be presented in public hearings.
This executive session has been preceded by staff negotiations with NSA on what can be made public. Attached at Tab A is a Table which provides a summary of the matters still at issue, along with the arguments on both sides.
Attached at Tab B is a sample of some of the names from NSA's biographic files and watch list and some examples of the product disseminated to other agencies.
You are also receiving a briefing book with more extensive background materials. The Table of Contents should be self-explanatory.
cc: William Miller Curtis Smothers
Doc ID: 6571846
TOP SECRET/COMINT
Page 1
NSA HEARINGS ON MONITORING OF INTERNATIONAL LINES OF COMMUNICATION (ILC)
| Issue | Select Committee Proposal | NSA Informal Response |
|---|---|---|
| I. Procedural | ||
| A. Public Hearings | There should be public hearings that discuss NSA in very general terms and what NSA has done improperly regarding U.S. citizens (domestic targets), not about how NSA does it, nor about foreign targets. | There should be none. Sen. Church could issue a highly limited statement about NSA practices regarding U.S. citizens, after negotiating declassification of some material with the Secretary of Defense. |
| B. NSA Witnesses | Some NSA officials should be witnesses. Officials with as much sensitive information as NSA officials appear before Congressional committees -- e.g., Secretary Schlesinger, Director Colby, Admiral Rickover. | No NSA witnesses. NSA officials prefer anonymity since: (1) they are not as well compartmented as at CIA; (2) they know many technical details. |
| II. Substantive | ||
| A. Practices | (Disclose) | Do not disclose at all: |
| 1. 75,000 files on U.S. citizens; others on U.S. organizations. | 1. The one-time existence of the files. 2. Files existed on, e.g., Senators Church and Goldwater, Art Buchwald, Gregory Peck, et al. (See Tab B) 3. Substantive information was in them. 4. They were used by NSA and other agencies. 5. Other agencies, such as the CIA, had almost unlimited access to them. 6. They were destroyed in 1974. |
1. Disclosure of the existence of the files, and especially of specific names; will lead to litigation under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. [Biographic identification] |
Both sides have agreed that certain parts of the files (the non-substantive information) were used in helping break codes, and we do not propose disclosure of that aspect of the files.
Doc ID: 6571846
TOP SECRET/COMINT
Page I-A
Issue Select Committee Proposal NSA Informal Response
- Delivery to NSA of all international paid telegrams by telegraph companies.
Disclose:
- Volume (155,000 telegrams/month to NSA analysts).
- Use from 1965 on was for all NSA uses, including the "watch list" activity of 1967-73 (see II.A.4, below), "economic" intelligence.
Do not disclose at all: When the program was set up in 1945 the U.S. Government (including President Truman) promised to protect the companies from public disclosure.*
- The fallacy of this position is:
- The operation and purpose of the program changed in the mid-1960s. Instead of the companies selecting out messages containing cipher traffic or addressed to or from a foreign embassy, the companies began supplyin NSA with magnetic tapes containing all their international paid messages. And, NSA began to use this material not only for diplomatic intelligence, but also for all its intelligence collection activities -- including the watch list and "economic" intelligence. As a result, the agreement in 1945 was no longer applicable.
- Alternatively, if the 1945 agreements were still applicable, then they very likely were illegal under Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act (47 U.S.C. § 605), which made it unlawful for personnel of communications common carriers to divulge the existence or content of communications traveling via these carriers; and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, as interpreted in 1967, because this was an unreasonable "search and seizure" of messages as to which there was a justifiable expectation of privacy. As for the Presidential approval in 1945, the Defense Department has admitted that President Ford did not know of the program and there is no evidence yet that any President since President Truman knew of it. The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation of this, but has taken no action yet. The Committee staff resolved Department of Justice concerns at a meeting on September 18, 1975. And, if the investigation continues and leads to indictments, the program will be made public anyway.
Doc ID: 6571846 Issue Select Committee Proposal NSA Informal Response
- U.S.-South American Telephone Intercepts
a. Some intercepts for mainly economic purposes from late 1973 until 9 July 1975.
Disclose:
- Fact of intercept, without naming the specific links (e.g., ....................................................EO 3.3b(3) PL 86-36/50 USC 3605
- This was easy to do even for a ham radio operator since the calls were carried by radio waves.
- When a frequency was intercepted, every telephone call had to be listened to and at least partly recorded.
- The value was marginal. (NSA admitted this by terminating the intercept.)
Do not disclose: NSA does not want to reveal that it was collecting economic intelligence. Parties would review their past calls to see what U.S. intercepted.*
- The intercept was terminated.
Knowledge of termination would lead people to use these telephone links rather than telegrams.**
b. Some intercepts from late 1976 to June 1973 mainly to gain information about the drug watch list.
Both sides agree to disclose:
- Fact of this intercept.
- Mainly for drug purposes. ..........................................................................EO 3.3b(1)
Disclose also:
- Every telephone call had to be listened to and at least partly recorded.
Do not disclose further: Reasons unknown.
- Response: The specific links would not have to be identified. ** Response: No one could be sure that NSA would not resume this.
Doc ID: 6571846
| Issue | Select Committee Proposal | NSA Informal Response |
|---|---|---|
| 3. Non-Voice Intercepts: Watch List Activity (including MINARET). |
Both sides agree to disclose: 1. Fact of. 2. Existence of U.S. names. Over 1,200 total. 3. Informal procedures initially. 4. Communications between 2 U.S. citizens might have been analyzed and disseminated. 5. It was terminated. |
|
| Disclose also: 1. Some of the names possibly put on the watch list, such as the Women's Liberation Movement, to demonstrate that such individuals/entities were put on the list without justification. 2. Some of the product disseminated to other agencies to demonstrate the wide reach of the process. |
Do not disclose this because: 1. There would be litigation under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. 2. See 1. above. Also, this would be an invasion of individuals' privacy. |
|
| B. Structure 1. Budget of over $1 billion (or 2 times CIA's) and manpower of 40-60,000. |
Disclose since: 1. General range, not specific. Also, this does not give a trend, but only one point in time. |
Do not disclose since: 1. Might somehow tell other countries of NSA's capabilities. |
Doc ID: 6571846 VERY SENSITIVE LA
COLLECTION OF MESSAGES AND BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION CONCERNING U.S. CITIZENS AND GROUPS
Biographic Files NSA collected and maintained substantive information on prominent individuals, totaling about 75,000 U.S. citizens. The card file in- formation was destroyed in 1973, but the list of names is still stored in a computer. (The computer also stores past reports to other agen- cies containing the substance of messages mentioning such people.)
Some of the names contained in the files were:
Art Buchwald Tom Wicker Arthur Burns Leonard Woodcock Gregory Peck Joanne Woodward. Otis Pike Whitney Young Thomas Watson
The following members of the Senate Select Committee were also in the files:
Howard H. Baker, Jr. Charles McC. Mathias Frank Church Walter F. Mondale Barry Goldwater Richard S. Schweiker
Watch List Starting in the early 1960s, increasing in scope in 1967, and continuing until 1973, NSA maintained a list of U.S. citizens and groups (totaling nearly 1,200). International messages to or from these individuals or groups were collected and analyzed by NSA. Some of the individuals/entities on the watch list were:
Muhammed Ali Women's Liberation Movement Roy Innis Women Strike for Peace Donald Sutherland Quaker Action Group
Product of Communications Intercepts Examples of the product disseminated under Project MINARET to other agencies within the Executive Branch include:
EO 3.3b(3) PL 86-36/50 USC 3605
NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE
National Security Archive, Suite 701, Gelman Library, The George Washington University, 2130 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20037, Phone: 202/994-7000, Fax: 202/994-7005, nsarchiv@gwu.edu