Our History

Lt. Gen. Lincoln D. Faurer, USAF (Ret) former DIRNSA and second chairman of the NCMF Board of Directors, once remarked that it was insufficient to just say “thank you” to the cadre of volunteers that were the mainstay of the Foundation during its startup phase.

The original group of five who founded and chartered the organization, were former NSA retirees and senior officials, Major Gen. John E. Morrison, Jr., USAF (Ret), the Father of NSOC and the Deputy Director of NSA Operations; Bob Rich, former NSA Deputy Director; Milt Zaslow, former Chief of B Group; Jim Boone, former Deputy Director of R&D; and Bill Kvetkas, lawyer, CPA, and former programming and budget executive at NSA. They jointly foresaw the Museum as a future world-class institution due to three major development trends:

1 – They had witnessed the declassification and release of volumes of material, and saw an opportunity to make it available under one roof in a major research and study center,

2 – They believed the Museum served an important role in helping Intelligence professionals gain insights and lessons from past NSA successes and failures; and

3 – In the past decade, there had been an increasing public interest in cryptographic techniques.

These visionaries spent their careers in cryptologic service. A few had worked together since Arlington Hall Station, sharing in the exciting cryptologic successes of WWII. In addition, they had all worked in the Signals Intelligence and Information Assurance services during events such as the Suez Canal and Cuban missile crises, the capture of the USS Pueblo, and the EC-121 shootdown by North Korea during the Cold War. They had one common goal – to showcase NSA’s SIGINT, INFOSEC, ELINT, FISINT, and TELINT capabilities and their real-time value in times of crises like these.

Their work was tireless and their enthusiasm contagious.

In April 1996, they chartered the NCMF as a non-profit organization to support the Museum. By November, the first Board of Directors and executive committee chairmen for Acquisitions, Membership, Finance & Audit, Fund Raising, and Programs were nominated, and Bob Rich was selected as the Vice President and coordinator for the Executive Action Group.

One of the first achievements of this initial Board and Executive Committee leadership was the establishment of the Cryptologic Hall of Honor to pay special tribute to the pioneers of cryptology. This prestigious program was subsequently adopted by NSA in 1999 as the NSA/CSS Cryptologic Hall of Honor.

Jim Boone was the scholar among this group of pioneers, and the catalyst for a bigger and better space to maximize the new trends in cryptologic techniques and the rapidly changing field of computer technology. He used his close ties with the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture to commission the first construction plans for a new building.

In mid-1999, the Foundation submitted a proposal to NSA entitled, “Moving Toward a World-Class Museum.” Following its review, the NSA created a Senior Museum Steering Group to work with the NCMF Board of Directors to begin the serious planning of building a new National Cryptologic Museum. Frustrated by the slow moving gears of government, Jim left the team in 2002 to author a book entitled A Brief History of Cryptology. Prior to publication, he signed a contract with his publisher, the U.S. Naval Institute, to have all royalties donated to the Foundation.

In 2016, an agreement was reached with SECDEF to design, build, and operate the new Cyber Center for Education and Innovation, Home of the National Cryptologic Museum. The world-class center will include a revitalized museum, a research and rare books library, classrooms, and a conference center. In keeping with the Founding Fathers’ vision, it will provide unprecedented opportunities to share insights and knowledge to meet the nation’s critical need for next-generation cybersecurity.

As part of a policy of new openness for the U.S. Intelligence Community, and with the concurrence of the Department of Defense, the Director, NSA, had approved a proposal to establish a National Cryptologic Museum (NCM). It would serve the professional education of the Agency’s civilian and military workforce, and, as a rare unclassified facility for the Agency, afford other government employees and representatives, as well as the general public, a “view behind the curtain” that had traditionally concealed the highly secret mission of the Agency. That mission…. to secure the confidential communications of the government and armed forces and to seek to derive intelligence from the communications of other governments.

The Museum would have to be maintained, however, within allocated Agency resources and without competing against higher priority operational requirements. Still, modest as it was, the low-key ribbon-cutting was followed shortly by a growing stream of visitors, headed by foreign media representatives curious to see the marvelous Japanese “PURPLE” cryptosystem solved by American brainpower and examples of the mysterious German “ENIGMA” cipher machine, “broken” by the skills and ingenuity of Polish, French, British, and American cryptologists in World War II. The added attraction of a no-admission-fee quickly appealed to tourists and visitors and those promoting tourism.

Activities undertaken by the Foundation in support of the Museum have included the following:

• Direct acquisition of a considerable number of cryptologic artifacts for display in the Museum.
• Support for various Museum exhibits or displays.
• Support for advertising the Museum in the form of brochures describing the Museum’s content and the distribution of the brochures to local hotels, airports, and other places where tourists might be present.
• Acquisition for the NCM Library of the world-renowned David Kahn Collection of cryptologic literature. Advocacy of the Cryptologic Hall of Honor embraced by NSA and continued in an annual ceremony of induction of honored individuals.
• Financial support for the “Guide by Cell”  system that allows visitors to obtain information about exhibits using their own cell phone.
• Establishment of an In Memoriam Registry to commemorate those who served in U.S. cryptology and at the same time raise funds in support of the Museum.
• Support of various events and activities that occur at the Museum.

The Foundation also sponsors a continuing series of cryptologic programs featuring speakers on subjects of professional interest to its members, as well as an annual organizational meeting & symposium, which is scheduled to coincide with the biennial NSA Cryptologic History Symposium, also supported by the NCF.