Operation Rubicon: sixty years of German-American success in signals intelligence

Abstract

ABSTRACT The story of Operation Rubicon provides a ‘missing link’ in the history signals intelligence. It connects the period of the Second World War, dominated by Bletchley Park and Arlington Hall, with the Snowden era. This special section examines signals intelligence in the latter decades of the twentieth century, arguing that the processes of covert interference that were used help us to understand sources and methods in our present times. It examines new material that has emerged in Europe that expands our comprehension of the intelligence co-operation between the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, focusing on the control of technology corporations, especially Crypto AG. It argues that, as a result of Operation Rubicon, all states with high-grade computing, even the Soviet Union, were probably secret beneficiaries of this process and derived substantial flow of intelligence as a result, mostly from the global south. However, the task of exploring the material generated by Operation Rubicon has only just begun, since most of the product remains classified.