Documents on microwave weaponry for US government history — declassified NSA/CSS, CIA and Army releases obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, gathered here in one reading room. The set runs from the Radio Laws of the United States and the Communications Act of 1934 through Army Security Agency annual histories, the German radio-intelligence studies of Albert Praun, NSA's Cryptolog and The Next Wave journals, Sigint technical primers on antennas and the radio-frequency spectrum, British–US communications-security conferences, a Ford Library memo on Soviet interception of Washington microwave links, a 1976 press clipping on the Soviet microwave bombardment of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and the Army's Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons.

Every document below opens in its own page-by-page viewer, with the raw PDF one click away. The collection began with the NSA/CSS FOIA reading-room search that the original page linked:

NSA/CSS FOIA search: "microwave"

Featured document

The document the original page opened with: the 1972 compilation of the Radio Laws of the United States, released by NSA in 2015.

Document library

Covers of ten documents from the collection — click any cover to open its viewer.

All 47 documents from the original list that are archived on this site, in the order the original page listed them. Titles come from the old page's link text where it gave one, otherwise from each document's own cover page.

Radio Laws of the United States — 1972 edition, compiled by Gilman G. Udell, U.S. Government Printing Office (NSA release, 2015) 173 pp · PDF

The Next Wave, Vol. 17 No. 1 (2008) — NSA's review of emerging technologies: telephone security, veiled biometrics, format wars in recording history 32 pp · PDF

German Radio Intelligence, by Albert Praun (former Lt. Gen.) — Dept. of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, MS No. P-038; includes NSA memo and comments on the report 294 pp · PDF

Mechanization in Support of COMINT — Phase II, October 1954 186 pp · PDF

German Radio Intelligence, by Albert Praun — abridged copy of MS No. P-038 (a secret version, slightly expanded, exists under the same title) 267 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. IX No. 10, October 1982 32 pp · PDF

U.S. Army Security Agency — Annual Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1962 (ASA and subordinate units) 61 pp · PDF

Listing of NSA documents released to NARA, 2011 (accession titles) 10 pp · PDF

National Cryptologic Museum — library catalog 726 pp · PDF

The Next Wave, Vol. 20 No. 1 — 20th anniversary issue: 20 years of emerging technology, what's next? 36 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. IX No. 9, September 1982 32 pp · PDF

The Potentialities of COMINT for Strategic Warning — the Robertson Report 84 pp · PDF

Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons — U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command FOIA release, December 2006 20 pp · PDF

Air Intelligence Estimate — Directorate of Intelligence, Headquarters United States Air Force 93 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. XVIII, 1991 1st issue — "Joint: the future of intelligence?", "The Digital Dragon" 36 pp · PDF

A new concept in computing — explanatory paper on von Neumann's 1954 computing-scheme patent 10 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. X No. 9, September 1983 32 pp · PDF

Sigint Technical Primer III — the radio-frequency spectrum and communications modes 4 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. VI No. 10, October 1979 23 pp · PDF

NSA oral history OH-31-80 — Eugene Sheck, K Group staff officer during the 1967 USS Liberty incident (interviewed 11 August 1980) 65 pp · PDF

Ford Library memo, NSDM 266 — Soviet interception of U.S. government telephone conversations carried on Washington-area microwave links 15 pp · PDF

CIFAX cipher-facsimile equipment table, LCS (53)/N/R — function, crypto principle and development or production status of AFSAX and Mountebank systems 79 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. X No. 10, October 1983 — crisis management; Soviet military goals and arms-limitation negotiations; Telecom 83 24 pp · PDF

"Second Period" lecture — "Don't learn your COMSEC laws by accident" 47 pp · PDF

Report to the British and U.S. Chiefs of Staff by the British/U.S. Communication Security Exploratory Conference — combined assault codes, tactical systems, merchant-ship telegraphic systems 14 pp · PDF

Eugene G. Fubini — obituary notice for the physicist and Defense Department official who shaped NSA operations 2 pp · PDF

A Major COMSEC Challenge: Secure Voice 5 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. XII Nos. 6–8 — NSA's initiative on secure voice telephone 16 pp · PDF

U.S. Army Security Agency — Annual Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1961 52 pp · PDF

Sigint Technical Primer I — Antennas: how they work and what the different types can do (Jacob Gurin) 7 pp · PDF

RADAC R/PR 2 — report by the Research and Development Advisory Council to the Director, NSA, and the Director's decision of 19 July 1955 6 pp · PDF

British–United States Communications Security Conference, October 1950 — minutes and reports 187 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. IX No. 11, November 1982 — Central Research and the paper blob; COMSEC challenges 32 pp · PDF

Cryptologia, "a quarterly journal devoted to all aspects of cryptology" — extract reviewing books on the NSA and WWII codebreaking 4 pp · PDF

The Next Wave, Vol. 20 No. 2 — beyond digital: the future of advanced computing (Roadrunner, Graph500) 46 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, 1987 2nd issue 36 pp · PDF

Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series — "Dining at NSA" 5 pp · PDF

Army Security Agency report on the 1947 IRE National Convention — radar, FM reception, television, electronic digital computers, pulse-time communication 8 pp · PDF

Cryptolog, Vol. IX No. 1, January 1982 — HF: the rebirth; video encryption (EASCON 81) 31 pp · PDF

Dealing with the Future: The Limits of Forecasting 19 pp · PDF

The Next Wave, Vol. 21 No. 3 (2017) — mobile telecommunications technology 28 pp · PDF

Memorandum for members of the U.S. delegation, UK/US COMSEC Conference, September 1953 — UK paper on the status of UK cryptographic equipment 13 pp · PDF

NSA Technology Transfer Program — NSA Patent Portfolio, Office of Research & Technology Applications 51 pp · PDF

CIA reading-room clipping, Washington Star, 22 November 1976 — "Soviets Study Microwaves as Weapon": Soviet microwave bombardment of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow 1 pp · PDF

"Third Period" lecture slides, 26 April 1960 — history of cipher devices from the Alberti disk to Wheatstone and Bazeries 45 pp · PDF

The First Americans: The 1941 US Codebreaking Mission to Bletchley Park — David J. Sherman, Center for Cryptologic History Special Series Vol. 12 (2016) 64 pp · PDF

The Communications Act of 1934 with amendments and index thereto — recapped to January 1969 174 pp · PDF

Not yet archived locally

These links from the original list are not yet in the local archive; they point to the Wayback Machine copies of the original files.

• lightning — archived copy of the original link
• nsa-oh-1994-32-moody — archived copy of the original link
• work_against_tide — archived copy of the original link
• Communications_Security — archived copy of the original link
• 19760405_1970_Doc_FordLibrary_Memo — archived copy of the original link
• Doc31 — archived copy of the original link

Browse the full FOIA gallery, including releases not on the original list: /pdfs/FIOA/

References

1. NSA/CSS FOIA search: "microwave" — search.usa.gov
2. Original page: dailydialectics.com/FOIA/FOIA_microwave.php — Wayback Machine, 27 July 2023
3. FOIA document gallery on this site

Related: EMF Studies · Microwaves & Viruses · Surface Wave Military Tech