History of CBNRC

In August 1987, CSE published an internal, highly classified history of the agency from its founding in 1946 as the Communications Branch of the National Research Council (CBNRC) to its transfer in 1975 to the Department of National Defence and renaming as the Communications Security Establishment.

The History of CBNRC's authors were N. Kevin O'Neill, who had been Director of CBNRC/Chief of CSE from 1971 to 1980, and Ken J. Hughes, a senior COMSEC official. Both had been on the staff of the agency through the entire period covered by the history.

Not long after the document was written, I and at least one other person formally requested that the releasable portions be made public under Canada's then new Access to Information law. That eventually did occur—after a delay of several years—but the released version was extremely heavily redacted, with perhaps 80-90 percent of the document withheld entirely and most of the rest riddled with additional redactions.

Group and section names and most personal names were redacted. Target names were redacted. All mentions of NSA and GCHQ were redacted (except for one mention of GCHQ that slipped through). Even the name of Kevin O'Neill's co-author was redacted.

There was some useful information left in the sections that remained, but the resulting document was mostly a testament to excessive secrecy.


Second release

More than 25 years later, someone—I don't actually know who—requested a fresh release of the History, and this time a much more significant part of the seven-volume document was released. (I obtained it through the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project.)

There are still large portions redacted, including the entirety of Volume II, but a great deal of new and very interesting information about CSE's history was released. I drew on the new release for this discussion of CSE's experimental cable monitoring efforts in the 1970s, for example.

[Update 3 December 2019:

An even more recent release to Wesley Wark (access request A-2018-00065) includes additional previously redacted material in Chapter 11. The rest of the release appears to be identical (although I must admit I haven't examined every word of it). I've changed the links below to copies of the Wark release. Many thanks, Wesley! Bonus: I've uploaded OCRed versions of the files.]


VOLUME I - BASIC SIGINT
[28 MB PDF]

1 Origins and Background
2 SIGINT Policy and Committee Structure
3 Organization and Establishment
4 SIGINT Production Tasks
5 Interception at Stations

VOLUME II - SPECIAL COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
[Volume not released]

6 Special Collection
7 Signal Analysis
8 Cryptanalysis

VOLUME III - SIGINT SUPPORT AND RELATIONSHIPS
[Part 1 - Chapters 9 to mid-11 (16 MB PDF) & Part 2 - Chapters mid-11 to 13 (15 MB PDF)]

9 Tactical SIGINT and Support to NATO
10 Intelligence Requirements and SIGINT Reporting
11 Liaison with Collaborating Centres
12 SIGINT Equipment and Engineering
13 Mechanization and Computer Developments

VOLUME IV - COMMUNICATIONS AND BASIC COMSEC
[26 MB PDF]

14 Communications
15 COMSEC in Canada before CBNRC
16 COMSEC Policy and Committee Structure
17 Development of COMSEC in CBNRC

VOLUME V - COMSEC TECHNIQUES AND MATERIAL
[24 MB PDF]

18 Provision of COMSEC Advice and Support
19 Production of Keying Material
20 Use of Crypto Equipment in Canada
21 Evaluation of Crypto Equipment
22 Production of Crypto Equipment in Canada
23 COMSEC Monitoring and Analysis
24 TEMPEST

VOLUME VI - ADMINISTRATION
[22 MB PDF]

25 Financial Administration
26 Security
27 Personnel
28 Training

VOLUME VII - CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX AND INDEX
[5 MB PDF]

Appendix - Chronological Summary
Index