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C00002 00002	e-t-a-o-n-r-i Spy and the F.B.I.    
C00012 00003	Kick the Mongrel   
C00027 00004	The Missed Punch   
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e-t-a-o-n-r-i Spy and the F.B.I.    

Reading a book got me into early trouble -- I had an F.B.I. record by age
twelve.  This bizarre incident caused a problem much later when I needed a
security clearance.  I learned that I could obtain one only by concealing
my sordid past.

A friend named Bob and I read the book "Secret and Urgent" by Fletcher
Pratt [Blue Ribbon Books; Garden City, NY; 1942] which was an early
popular account of codes and ciphers.  Pratt showed how to use letter
frequencies to break ciphers and reported that the most frequently
occurring letters in typical English text are e-t-a-o-n-r-i, in that
order.  (The letter frequency order of the story you are now reading is
e-t-a-i-o-n-r.  The higher frequency of "i" probably reflects the fact
that _I_ use the first person singular a lot.)  Pratt's book also treated
more advanced cryptographic schemes.

Bob and I decided that we needed to have a secure way to communicate with
each other, so we put together a rather elaborate jargon code based on the
principles described in the book.  I don't remember exactly why we thought
we needed it -- we spent much of our time outside of school together, so
there was ample time to talk privately.  Still, you never could tell when
you might need to send a secret message!

We made two copies of the code key (a description of how to encrypt and
decrypt our messages) in the form of a single typewritten sheet.  We each
took a copy and carried it on our persons at all times when we wore clothes.

I actually didn't wear clothes much.  I spent nearly all my time outside
school wearing just a baggy pair of maroon swimming trunks.  That wasn't
considered too weird in San Diego.

I had recently been given eyeglasses but didn't like to wear them, so I
kept them in a hard case in the pocket of the trousers that I wore to
school.  I figured that this was a good place to hide my copy of the code
key, so I carefully folded it to one-eighth of its original size and stuck
it at the bottom of the case, under my glasses.

Every chance I got, I went body surfing at Old Mission Beach.  I usually
went by streetcar and, since I had to transfer Downtown, I wore clothes.
Unfortunately, while I was riding the trolley home from the beach one
Saturday the case carrying my glasses slipped out of my pocket unnoticed.
I reported the loss to my mother that night.  She chastised me and later
called the streetcar company.  They said that the glasses hadn't been
turned in.

After a few weeks of waiting in vain for the glasses to turn up, we began
to lose hope.  My mother didn't rush replacing them in view of the fact
that I hadn't worn them much and they cost about $8, a large sum at that
time.  (To me, $8 represented 40 round trips to the beach by streetcar, or
80 admission fees to the movies.)

Unknown to us, the case had been found by a patriotic citizen who opened
it, discovered the code key, recognized that it must belong to a
Japanese spy and turned it over to the F.B.I.  This was in 1943, just
after citizens of Japanese descent had been forced off their property and
taken away to concentration camps.  I remember hearing that a local grocer
was secretly a Colonel in the Japanese Army and had hidden his uniform in
the back of his store.  A lot of people actually believed these things.

About six weeks later, when I happened to be off on another escapade, my
mother was visited by a man who identified himself as an investigator from
the F.B.I.  (She was a schoolteacher and happened to be at home working
on her Ph.D. dissertation.)  She noticed that there were two more men
waiting in a car outside.  The agent asked a number of questions about me,
including my occupation.  He reportedly was quite disappointed when he
learned that I was only 12 years old.

He eventually revealed why I was being investigated, showed my mother the
glasses and the code key and asked her if she knew where it came from.
She didn't, of course.  She asked if we could get the glasses back and he
agreed.

My mother told the investigator how glad she was to get them back,
considering that they cost $8.  He did a slow burn, then said "Lady, this
case has cost the government thousands of dollars.  It has been the top
priority in our office for the last six weeks.  We traced the glasses to
your son from the prescription by examining the files of nearly every
optometrist in San Diego."  It apparently didn't occur to them that if I
were a REAL Japanese spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from
headquarters.

The F.B.I. agent gave back the glasses but kept the code key "for our
records."  They apparently were not fully convinced that they were dealing
just with kids.

Since our communication scheme had been compromised, Bob and I devised a
new key.  I started carrying it in my wallet, which I thought was more
secure.  I don't remember ever exchanging any cryptographic messages.
I was always ready, though.

A few years later when I was in college, I got a summer job at the Naval
Electronics Lab, which required a security clearance.  One of the
questions on the application form was "Have you ever been investigated by
the F.B.I."  Naturally, I checked "Yes."  The next question was, "If so,
describe the circumstances."  There was very little space on the form, so
I answered simply and honestly, "I was suspected of being a Japanese spy."

When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned it quickly,
looked me over slowly, then said, "Explain this" -- pointing at the F.B.I.
question.  I described what had happened.  He got very agitated, picked up
my form, tore it in pieces, and threw it in the waste basket.

He then got out a blank form and handed it to me, saying "Here, fill it
out again and don't mention that.  If you do, I'll make sure that you
NEVER get a security clearance."

I did as he directed and was shortly granted the clearance.  I never again
disclosed that incident on security clearance forms.

On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that putting certain
provocative information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up
the clearance process.  But that is another story.
Kick the Mongrel   

In a previous account I told how reading a book on cryptography led to my
getting an F.B.I. record at the age of 12 and about subsequent awkwardness
in obtaining a security clearance.  I will now describe how I learned that
putting provocative information on a security clearance form can
accelerate the clearance process.  First let me describe the environment
that gave rise to this incident.

			White Faces in New Places

In 1963, after living in Lexington, Massachusetts for 7 years, my wife and
I moved to the Washington D.C. area where I helped set up a new office for
Mitre Corporation.  After three days of searching, we bought a house then
under construction in a pleasant new suburb called Mantua Hills, near
Fairfax, Virginia.  I hadn't noticed it during our search, but it soon
became evident that there were nothing but white faces in this area.  In
fact, there were nothing but white faces for miles around.

We expected to find some cultural differences and did.  For example,
people drove much less aggressively than in Boston.  The first time that I
did a Boston-style bluff at a traffic circle, the other cars yielded!
This took all the fun out of it and I was embarrassed into driving more
conservatively.

When I applied for a Virginia driver's license, I noticed that the second
question on the application, just after "Name," was "Race."  When filling
out forms, I have always made it a practice to omit information that I
think is irrelevant.  It seemed to me that my race had nothing to do with
driving a car, so I left it blank.

When I handed the application to the clerk along with the fee, he just
looked at me, marked "W" in the blank field and threw it on a stack.
I guess that he had learned that this was the easiest way to deal with
outlanders.

Our contractor was a bit slow in finishing the house.  We knew that there
was mail headed our way that was probably accumulating in the post office,
so we put up the mailbox even before the house was finished.  The first
day we got just two letters -- from the American Civil Liberties Union and
Martin Luther King's organization.  We figured that this was the postman's
way of letting us know that he was on to us.  Sure enough, the next day we
got the rest of our accumulated mail, a large stack.

It shortly became apparent that on all forms in Virginia, the second
question was "Race."  Someone informed me that as far as the Commonwealth
of Virginia was concerned, there were just two races: "white" and
"colored."  When our kids brought forms home from school, I started
putting a "C" after the second question, leaving it to the authorities to
figure out whether that meant "Colored" or "Caucasian."  (I doubt that
this actually confused anyone -- the entire school was lilly white.)

			Racing Clearance

About this time, my boss and I and another colleague applied for a special
security clearance that we needed.  There are certain clearances that
can't be named in public -- it was one of those.  I had held an ordinary
Top Secret clearance for a number of years and had held the un-namable
clearance a short time before, so I did not anticipate any problems.

When I filled out the security form, I noticed that question #5 was
"Race."  In the past I had not paid attention to this question; I just
thoughtlessly wrote "Caucasian."  Having been sensitized by my new
environment, I re-examined the question.

All of my known forebears came from Europe, mostly from Bavaria and
Bohemia, with a few from England, Ireland, and Scotland.  A glance in the
mirror, however, indicates that there is Middle Eastern blood in my veins.
I have a semitic nose and skin that tans so easily that I am often darker
than many people who pass for Black.  Did I inherit this from a Hebrew, an
Arab, a Gypsy or perhaps one of the Turks who periodically pillaged
Central Europe?  Maybe it was from a Blackfoot Indian that an imaginative
aunt thinks was in our family tree.  I will probably never know.

As an arrogant young computer scientist, I believed that if there is any
decision that you can't figure out how to program, the question is wrong.
I couldn't figure out how to program racial classification, so I concluded
that there isn't such a thing.  I subsequently reviewed some scientific
literature that confirmed this belief.  "Race" is, at best, a fuzzy
concept about typical physical characteristics of certain populations.
At worst, of course, it provides a basis for more contemptible conduct
than any concept other than religion.

In answer to the race question on the security form, I decided to put
"mongrel."  This seemed like an appropriate answer to a meaningless
question.

Shortly after I handed in the form, I received a call from a secretary in
the security office of the Defense Communications Agency.  She said that
she had noticed a typographical error in the fifth question where it said
"mongrel."  She asked if I didn't mean "Mongol."  "No thanks," I said,
"I really meant `mongrel.'"  She ended the conversation rather quickly.

A few hours later I received a call from the chief security officer
of D.C.A., who I happened to know.  "Hey, Les," he said in a friendly
way, "I'd like to talk to you the next time you're over here."  I agreed
to see him later that week.

When I got there, he tried to talk me out of answering the race question
"incorrectly."  I asked him what he thought was the right answer.  "You
know, Caucasian," he replied.  "Oh, you mean someone from the Caucusus
Mountains of the U.S.S.R.?" I asked pointedly.  "No, you know, `white.'"
"Actually, I don't know," I said.

We got into a lengthy discussion in which he informed me that as far as
the Defense Department was concerned there were five races:  Caucasian,
Negro, Oriental, American Indian, and something else that I don't
remember.  I asked him how he would classify someone who was, by his
definition, 7/8 Caucasian and 1/8 Negro.  He said he wasn't sure.  I asked
how he classified Egyptians and Ethiopians.  He wasn't sure.

I said that I wasn't sure either and that "mongrel" seemed like the best
answer for me.  He finally agreed to forward my form to the security
authorities but warned that I was asking for trouble.

			A Question of Stability

I knew what to expect from a security background investigation: neighbors
and former acquaintances let you know it is going on by asking "What are
they trying to get you for?" and kidding you about what they told the
investigators.  Within a week after my application for the new clearance
was submitted, it became apparent that the investigation was already
underway and that the agents were hammering everyone they talked to about
my "mental stability."

The personnel manager where I worked was interviewed quite early and came
to me saying "My God!  They think you're crazy!  What did you do, rape a
polo pony?"  He also remarked that they had asked him if he knew me
socially and that he had answered "Yes, we just celebrated Guy Fawkes Day
together."  When the investigator wanted to know "What is Guy Fawkes Day?"
he started to explain the gunpowder plot but thought better of it.  He
settled for the explanation that "It's a British holiday."

An artist friend named Linda, who lived two houses away from us, said that
she had no trouble answering the investigator's questions about my
stability.  She said that she recalled our party the week before when we
had formed two teams to "Walk the plank."  In this game, participants take
turns walking the length of a 2 x 4 set on edge and drinking a small
amount of beer.  Anyone who steps off is eliminated and the team with the
most total crossings after some number of rounds wins.  Linda said that
she remembered I was one of the more stable participants.

I was glad that she had not remembered my instability at an earlier party
of hers when I broke my watch and bruised my ribs in a fall off a
skateboard.  The embarrassing cause of the accident was that I had run
over the bottom of my own toga!

The investigation continued full tilt everywhere I had lived.  After about
three months it stopped and a short time later I learned that the
clearance had been granted.  The other two people whose investigations
were begun at the same time did not receive their clearances until several
months later.

In comparing notes, it appeared that the investigators did the background
checks on my colleagues in a much more leisurely manner.  We concluded
that my application had received priority treatment.  The investigators
had done their best to pin something on me and, having failed, gave me the
clearance.

The lesson was clear:  if you want a clearance in a hurry, put something
on your history form that will make the investigators suspicious but that
is not damning.  They get so many dull backgrounds to check that they
relish the possibility of actually nailing someone.  By being a bit
provocative, you draw priority attention and quicker service.

After I received the clearance, I expected no further effects from my
provocative answer.  As it turned out, there was an unexpected
repercussion a year later and an unexpected victory the year after that.
But that is another story.
The Missed Punch   

An earlier account described how I came to list my race as "mongrel" on a
security clearance application and how the clearance was granted in an
unusually short time.  I will now describe a subsequent repercussion
that was a byproduct of a new computer application.

			Mongrel in a Star-chamber

In early 1965, about a year after I had been granted a supplementary
security clearance, I received a certified letter directing me to report
to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Suitland, Maryland
very early in the morning on a certain day four weeks later.  To one whose
brain seldom functions before 10am, this was a singularly unappealing trip
request.

My wife somehow got me up early on the appointed day and I drove off in my
TR-3 with the top down, as usual, even though it was a cold winter
morning.  I hoped that the air would stimulate my transition to an
awakened state.

When I arrived and identified myself, I was immediately ushered into a
long narrow room with venetian blinds on one side turned to block the
meager morning light.  I was seated on one side of a table on which there
were two goose-neck lamps directed into my eyes.  There was no other light
in the room, so I could barely see the three inquisitors who took
positions on the opposite side of the table.

Someone punched on a tape recorder and the trio began taking turns at
poking into my past.  They appeared to be trying to convince me that I was
in deep trouble.  While the pace and tone of their questions were clearly
aimed at intimidation, they showed surprisingly little interest in my
answers.  I managed to stay relaxed, partly because I was not yet fully
awake.

They asked whether I had any association with a certain professor at San
Diego State College, which I had attended for one year.  I recognized his
name as being one who was harassed by the House Un-American Activities
Committee during the McCarthy Era.  He was an alleged Communist.  I
answered that I did not know him but that I might have met him socially
since he and my mother were on the faculty concurrently.  They wanted to
know with certainty whether I had taken any classes from him.  I said that
I had not.

They next wanted to know how well I knew Linus Pauling, who they knew was
a professor at Caltech when I was a student there.  I acknowledged that he
was my freshman chemistry professor and that I had visited his home once.
(I did not mention that Pauling's lectures had so inspired me that I
decided to become a chemist.  It was not until I took a sophomore course
in physical chemistry that I realized I wasn't cut out for it.)

I recalled that Pauling had been regularly harassed by certain government
agencies during the McCarthy Era because of his leftist "peacenik" views.
He was barred from overseas travel on occasion and the harassment
continued even after he won his first Nobel Prize but seemed to diminish
after the second one, the Peace Prize.

The inquisitors wanted to know how often I got together with one of my
uncles who lived nearby.  I acknowledged that we met occasionally, the
last time being a few months earlier when our families dined together.  It
sounded as though they thought they had something on him.  I knew him to
be a very able person with a distinguished career in public service.  He
had been City Manager of Ft. Lauderdale and several other cities and had
held a number of positions in the State Department.  It occurred to me
that they might be planning to nail him for associating with a known
mongrel.

The questions continued in this vein for hours without a break.  I kept
waiting for them to bring up a Caltech acquaintance named Bernon Mitchell,
who had lived in the same student house as me.  Mitchell had later taken a
position at the National Security Agency, working in cryptography, then
defected to the Soviet Union with a fellow employee.  They were apparently
closet gays.

In fact, the inquisitors never mentioned Mitchell.  This suggested that
they may not have done a very thorough investigation.  A more likely
explanation was that Mitchell and his boyfriend represented a serious
failure of the security clearance establishment -- one that they would
rather not talk about.

After about three and a half hours of nonstop questioning I was beginning
to wake up.  I was also beginning to get pissed off over their seemingly
endless fishing expedition.  At this point there was a short pause and a
rustling of papers.  I sensed that they were finally getting around to the
main course.

"We note that on your history form you claim to be a mongrel," said the
man in the middle.  "What makes you think you are a mongrel?"  "That seems
to be the best available answer to an ill-defined question," I responded.
We began an exchange that was very much like my earlier discussion with
the security officer in the Defense Communications Agency.  As before, I
asked how they identified various racial groups and how they classified
people who were mixtures of these "races."

The interrogators seemed to be taken aback at my asking them questions.
They asked why I was trying to make trouble.  I asked them why they would
not answer my questions.  When no answers were forthcoming, I finally
pointed out that "It is clear that you do not know how to determine the
race of any given person, so it is unreasonable for you to expect me to.
I would now like to know what you want from me."

The interrogators began whispering among themselves.  They had apparently
planned to force me to admit my true race and were not prepared for an
alternative outcome.  Finally, the man in the center spoke up saying,
"Are you willing to sign a sworn statement about your race?"  "Certainly,"
I said.  They then turned up the lights and called for a stenographer.

She appeared with notebook in hand and I dictated a statement: "I declare
that to the best of my knowledge I am a mongrel."  "Don't you think you
should say more than that," said the chief interrogator.  "I think that
covers it," I replied.  The stenographer shrugged and went off to type the
statement.

			Punch Line

With the main business out of the way, things lightened up -- literally.
They opened the venetian blinds to let in some sunlight and offered me
a cup of coffee, which I accepted.  We had some friendly conversation,
then I signed the typed statement, which was duly notarized.

My former tormentors now seemed slightly apologetic about the whole
affair.  I asked them what had prompted this investigation.  After some
glances back and forth, one of them admitted that "We were putting our
clearance data base on IBM cards and found that there was no punch for
`mongrel'."

I thought about this for a moment, then asked "Why didn't you add a new
punch?"  "We don't have any programmers here" was the answer.  "We got the
program from another agency."

I said, "Surely I am not the only person to give a non-standard answer.
With all the civil rights activists now in government service, some of
them must have at least refused to answer the race question."  The
atmosphere became noticeably chillier as one of them answered, with
clinched teeth, "You're the only one.  The rest of those people seem to
know their race."

I was surprised to learn that nearly everyone believed in the mythical
concept of racial classification.  It appeared that even people who were
victims of discrimination acknowledged their racial classification as part
of their identity.

It was clear that the security people believed I had caused this problem,
but I felt that it was the result of a stupid question and the common
programmer's blunder of creating a categorization that does not include
"Other" as an option.  They apparently found it impractical to obtain the
hour or two of a programmer's time that would have been needed to fix the
computer program, so they chose instead to work with their standard tools.
This led to an expenditure of hundreds of man-hours of effort in gathering
information to try to intimidate me into changing my answer.

I never did find out how the security investigators coped with the fact
that I remained a mongrel, but in 1966 I discovered that something very
good had happened: the "race" question had disappeared from the security
clearance form.  I liked to think that I helped that change along.

Unfortunately, almost the same question reappeared on that form and most
other personnel forms a few years later, under the guise of "ethnic"
classification.  I believe that putting oneself in an official "ethnic"
classification makes no more sense than choosing a race.  During the
intervening 20 years I have consistently answered this question the same
way as the earlier one.

I now invite others to join me in self-declassification, with the hope and
expectation that one day the bureaucrats and politicians will be forced to
quit playing with this issue and will come to realize that the United
States of America has become a nation of egalitarian mongrels.  I believe
that we will all be better off.