As historians attempted to move beyond these generalizations to ask how communications intelligence influenced specific campaigns and battles, the picture became more cloudy.
It also became apparent that the Germans and Japanese were themselves far from total failures at communications intelligence and deception.
But he based his judgment, he said, on detailed knowledge only about the communications intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency, which he then headed.
"A lot of people at the agency haven't been happy that communications intelligence was used to support a wrong conclusion," he said.
This network is an outgrowth of an agreement between London and Washington in 1948 to gather and share communications intelligence.
North Vietnam committed in, May 1959, to war in the South; this was confirmed by communications intelligence.
In the hour since Tampa had arrived on station at Point Hotel, the harvest of communications intelligence had been rich.
The operation along the Damascus highway, for example, the official said, produced no communications intelligence of significance.
An "A" rating, for example, might mean a thoroughly trusted source, such as your own communications intelligence operation.
The abuse of large-scale communications intelligence is something that can make an individual living in a democratic society feel very uneasy.