In the Shadow of the Sphinx: a History of Army Counterintelligence

• True spy stories from World War I through the end of the Cold War

• Securing the Manhattan Project
• Handling denazification in post-war Germany,
• Grappling with the emerging threat of communism

Created in 1945, the Army Security Agency (ASA) possessed a sweeping charter to conduct all of the Army’s communications intelligence and communications security mission.  Organizationally, ASA was perhaps the most unique in the Army’s history.  It was literally an army within the Army.  Due to its vertical chain of command, the agency replicated in miniature all the functions of the larger Army, ranging from personnel recruitment and training to research and development.  From its headquarters at historic Arlington Hall Station, ASA directed an organization and operations that encircled the globe.  In 1977, the military intelligence’s largest pillar, the Army Security Agency, was discontinued.  ASA’s soldiers had fought in two major wars and had stood watch against the Soviet threat in Europe and along the Korean DMZ and Pacific Rim for more than 3 decades.   James L. Gilbert graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1967 with M.A. in History.  Following military service with the Army Security Agency, he served as historian and then command historian with the U.S. Intelligence and Security Command.  He is the author of Three Sands: A Boom Town, The Most Secret War: A History of Signals Intelligence in Vietnam, and In the Shadow of the Sphinx: A History of Army Counterintelligence.  Mr. Gilbert has also served as coeditor of U.S. Army Signals Intelligence in World War II: A Documentary History.