James Bamford

This article is about the American writer. For the Canadian stunt coordinator, see James Bamford (stunt coordinator).

V. James Bamford
James Bamford
Born	Natick, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation	Author
Nationality	American
Genres	writes about United States intelligence agencies

V. James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American bestselling author and journalist who writes about United States intelligence agencies, most notably the National Security Agency.

Biography

He was born on September 15, 1946 and raised in Natick, Massachusetts. He spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst during the Vietnam War, and used the GI Bill to earn his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts.

James Bamford is an expert on the highly secretive National Security Agency. His recent book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to The Eavesdropping on America, on which NOVA's "The Spy Factory" was based became a New York Times best-seller and was named by The Washington Post as one of "The Best Books of 2008." It is third in a trilogy by Bamford on the NSA, following The Puzzle Palace (1982) and Body of Secrets (2002), also a New York Times bestseller. Bamford has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting professor and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Harpers, and many other publications. In 2006, he won the National Magazine Award for Reporting for his piece "The Man Who Sold The War," published in Rolling Stone. A native of Massachusetts, Bamford served as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, and he later used the GI Bill to earn his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston. His first book, The Puzzle Palace (1982), was the first book published about the National Security Agency (NSA). The book was researched through extensive use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). As a super-secret agency, NSA was quite concerned about their unveiling to the world and accordingly, the government reclassified certain documents in an effort to stop publication. He published Body of Secrets (also about the NSA, 2001), and A Pretext for War (2004). Bamford lectures nationally and was a distinguished visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He also spent nearly a decade as the Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight. In 2006, he received the National Magazine Award for Reporting, the top prize in magazine writing. Most recently, he published his new book The Shadow Factory, once again about the NSA, but about its involvement in the 9/11 investigations and intelligence failures. The PBS show "The Spy Factory" was based on this book.

Bamford was a consultant for the defense of NSA whistleblower Thomas Andrews Drake.

Books

• Bamford, James (1982). The Puzzle Palace: a Report on America's Most Secret Agency. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0140067485. 
• Bamford, James (2001). The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization. Viking Pr. ISBN 0140231161. 
• Bamford, James (April 30, 2002). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Anchor. ISBN 0385499086. 
• Bamford, James (May 10, 2005). A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. Anchor. ISBN 140003034X. 
• Bamford, James (September 16, 2008). The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Doubleday. ISBN 0385521324. 

Articles

Articles

Date	Publication	Title
1/31/07	The New York Times	"Bush Is Not Above the Law"
12/12/06	The Washington Post	"'Curveball' And A Slam Dunk"
8/20/06	The New York Times Book Review	"Intelligence Test"
8/10/06	Rolling Stone	"The Next War: Iran"
4/1/06	The Atlantic Monthly	"Big Brother is Listening"
1/9/06	The New York Times	"Where Spying Starts and Stops"
12/25/05	The New York Times (Week in Review Section)	"The Agency That Could Be Big Brother"
12/1/05	Rolling Stone	"The Man Who Sold The War"
3/28/05	The American Conservative	"Breeding Terror: The Intelligence Community Analyzes a Counterproductive War"
2/20/05	The Washington Post Book World	"We’re Watching Them"
6/13/04	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"This Spy For Rent"
5/9/04	Los Angeles Times Book Review	"Secret Warriors: The Great Game"
2/29/04	The Washington Post Book World	"Sowing the Whirlwind"
7/4/03	The New York Times	"The Labyrinthine Morass of Spying in the Cold War"
4/27/03	The Washington Post Book World	"A Look Over My Shoulder: Richard Helms at the CIA"
3/23/03	Los Angeles Times Book Review	"Ike as Spymaster: Secrets on High"
12/15/02	The Washington Post Book World	"Shadow Warriors"
11/24/02	The New York Times (Week in Review Section)	"How To (De-)Centralize Intelligence"
10/24/02	USA Today (Op-Ed Section)	"Maintain CIA’s Independence"
9/17/02	USA Today (Op-Ed Section)	"Untested Administration Hawks Clamor for War"
9/14/02	The Guardian (London)	"What Big Ears You Have"
9/8/02	The Washington Post Book World	"Strategic Thinking"
9/8/02	The New York Times (Week in Review Section)	"War of Secrets"
8/29/02	USA Today (Op-Ed Section)	"Bush Wrong to Use Pretext as Excuse to Invade Iraq"
8/27/02	The New York Times (Week in Review Section)	"Washington Bends The Rules"
7/19/02	USA Today (Op-Ed Section)	"Linguist Reserve Corp Answers Terror Need"
6/2/02	The Washington Post (Sunday Outlook Section)	"Intelligence Failures"
2/7/02	The New York Times	"A Former CIA Cowboy and His Disillusioning Ride"
1/20/02	The Washington Post Book World	"The Wrong Man"
12/01	Nieman Reports (Harvard)	"Is The Press Up to The Task of Reporting The Stories of September 11?"
9/18/01	The New York Times	"Of Atomic Secrets, Loyalty and Bitter Deceit"
8/28/01	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Guard the Secrets, Then Catch the Spies"
8/9/01	The Guardian (London)	"The Cover-Up"
8/8/01	The Guardian (London)	"Attack on the USS Liberty"
3/18/01	The New York Times Magazine	"My Friend The Spy: Robert Hanssen is Accused of Deceiving the FBI. If so, He Deceived Me Too."
4/12/01	USA Today (Op-Ed Section)	"Rethink Spy Missions"
4/5/01	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"The Danger of Spy Planes"
11/14/99	The Washington Post (Sunday Outlook Section)	"Loud and Clear: The Most Secret of Secret Agencies Operates Under Outdated Laws"
8/26/99	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Spy Stories"
8/20/98	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Our Best Spies are in Space"
3/3/96	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Has a 30-Year Mystery Unraveled?"
1/29/95	The New York Times Book Review	"The View From the KGB"
2/9/92	The New York Times Book Review	"Of Cabals and Coups"
9/9/88	The New York Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Reagan’s Done Nothing to Stop the Spies"
8/7/88	The New York Times Book Review	"A Mole Without Portfolio"
7/3/88	The Washington Post Book World	"Where Secret Armies Clash By Night"
6/26/88	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"A Pentagon of Impurity"
6/88	Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute)	"Book Review, Merchants of Treason"
5/29/88	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Fighting the Drug War, Congress Opens Door to Intelligence Misdeeds"
3/6/88	Los Angeles Times Magazine	"Taking on The Mob"
2/21/88	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"FBI: If It’s Under Cover, It May Be Out of Control"
11/29/87	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Carlucci: Big Man About Intelligence"
10/18/87	The Washington Post Book World	"The Nugan Hand Affair: Banking on Espionage"
10/11/87	Los Angeles Times Magazine	"They Also Serve Who Watch and Listen"
6/14/87	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Ghosts of CIA Haunt Hearings"
2/8/87	The Washington Post Book World	"Bankrolling International Murder and Extortion"
2/8/87	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"An Aspirin for the CIA, But Major Surgery Needed"
1/18/87	The New York Times Magazine	"Carlucci And The N.S.C."
1/4/87	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Reagan CIA: Arrogance Instead of Oversight"
11/9/86	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Satellites Show a World of Secrets, to Rival Powers and Now the Press"
10/5/86	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"CIA Gets Billing Again in Nicaragua, as Covert Action Becomes the Norm"
9/28/86	Los Angeles Times Book Review	"Shootdown, The Target is Destroyed"
8/3/86	The New York Times Book Review	"When Ideology Was Thicker Than Money"
7/13/86	The New York Times Book Review	"Keeping Intelligence Smart"
7/6/86	Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed Section)	"Searching for Security, Casey Fires at the Press"
5/24/86	The Boston Globe (Op-Ed Section)	"U.S. Satellite Photos of Plant Should Have Been Released"
5/86	Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute)	"Naval Review Issue, The Walker Spy Case: Navy Medicine, Maritime Terrorism"
4/6/86	The Washington Post Book World	"The Spy Plane That Flew Into History"
6/9/85	The Washington Post Book World	"Stansfield Turner and the Secrets of the CIA"
4/21/85	Los Angeles Times Book Review	"Black Box: KAL 007 and the Superpowers; KAL Flight 007: The Hidden Story"
1/13/85	The New York Times Magazine	"America’s Supersecret Eyes in Space"
1/8/84	The Washington Post Magazine	"The Last Flight of KAL 007: How the U.S. Watches The Soviets in the Far East"
12/4/83	The Washington Post Magazine	"Big Brother is Listening"
10/83	Boston Observer	"How We Know What We Know About KAL 007"
9/9/83	The Boston Globe (Op-Ed Section)	"Victim of the Long Electronic War"
12/82	The New York Times Book Review	"On the Trail of a Mole"
11/6/82	The Nation	"How I Got the NSA Files . . . How Reagan Tried to Get Them Back"
8/9/82	Newsday (Viewpoints Section)	"The UN: A Gold Mine for U.S. Intelligence"

References

External links

• Booknotes interview with Bamford on Body of Secrets, September 16, 2001.
• The Spy Factory, PBS and WGBH-TV, Nova program series. February 3, 2009.
• James Bamford on National Public Radio in 2008
• James Bamford on National Public Radio in 2005
• James Bamford on National Public Radio in 2001
• James Bamford. The Man Who Sold the War, Rolling Stone Magazine, November 17, 2005.
• "Crypto man", Profile by Michael Scherer, Salon.com, December 2005
• "John Rendon, Bush's General in the Propaganda War", interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, November 21, 2005 (video, audio, and print transcript).
• Hour-long interview about The Shadow Factory and NSA spying with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, October 14, 2008 (video, audio, and print transcript).
• Scott Horton. James Bamford's interviews, The Weekend Interview Show (December 3, 2005)
• Jenny Asarnow. James Bamford KUOW-FM Speaker's Forum (April 19, 2007)
• James Bamford interview (February 9, 2008)
• Kevin Zeese. "James Bamford: Inventing a Pretext for War", Democracy Rising (May 23, 2005)
• Steve Clemons. John Rendon and the U.S. propaganda, The Washington Note, (November 21, 2005)* William Sweet. "NSA Spying & FISA Court", IEEE Spectrum Radio Interview (February 20, 2006)
• Section on James Bamford, Center for Cooperative Research.
• Report on a James Bamford talk at Berkeley, Lew Rockwell.com, (February 11, 2002)
• James Bamford. Washington Bends the Rules, New York Times, (August 27, 2002)
• CHRISTOPHER DICKEY (January 9, 2009). "The Surveillance-Industrial Complex". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/books/review/Dickey-t.html.