Cryptonym: ZR

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Definition:
Referring to projects emanating from Staff D (signals and communications intelligence). Related, in an elastic sense, to CIA foreign intercept and code-breaking activities conducted to collect data for the NSA.
Status:
Speculative
Discussion:
ZR projects related to obtaining the information necessary to decode foreign communications - involving the use of phone taps and bugs, breaking and entering, burglary, strong arm actions against foreign couriers and ZRALERT's focus on hypnotism. ZR efforts routinely supported and enabled successful NSA communications intelligence. The ZRRIFLE program was located in Staff D, CIA's communications intelligence division.
Sources:

104-10322-10043: NOTE WITH ATTACHMENTS:AT THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINATION THERE WERE FIVE DOCUMENTS IN THE (OSWALD) 201 FILE

This routing sheet from 1962, related to another defector returned from the Soviet Union named Robert Webster, has a handwritten note saying "pls ZR Webster." Please wiretap him?

1993.06.22.16:59:56:210380: ALLEGATION OF A. EDWARD HORSEY THAT ONE AL GROAT WAS INVOLVED IN ASSAS

In a similar vein to the previous source, this one has a handwritten note to "ZR Ruby," referring to Jack Ruby. The note specifically references paragraph 3 of the enclosed FBI memo, which refers to the theory that Ruby had killed Oswald under a post-hypnotic suggestion. But since Ruby was already dead by this point, "ZR Ruby" can't refer either to wiretapping or hypnotizing him. Instead, it likely means reviewing previously-collected wiretaps.

State Secret, Chapter 1, by Bill Simpich

The above sources come from chapter 1 of Bill Simpich's State Secret. Scroll down to the section whose title begins "After the downing of the U-2..."

Peter Dale Scott, Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics, p. 18.

"The ZR cryptonyms...were normally assigned to CIA radio monitoring projects collecting data for the NSA."

Bayard Stockton, Flawed Patriot, found at http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/05/americas-james-bond-at-jmwave.html

"ZR was a digraph for Division D, Cryptological Procurement. It seems to have served purposely to confuse the Castro hit ops with Earl Harter’s closely held series of operations to procure cryptographic materials by breaking-and-entering target premises. Very few, even in D., knew what Harter’s boys did;….Precisely because Division D was so secure and already involved in matters gentlemen preferred not to know about, it was the logical administrative compartment in which to house CIA’s newest and touchiest activity, the projected assassination of political leaders whose further existence impinged on U.S. interests…"

Peter Dale Scott, Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics (2013), found at https://books.google.com/books?id=98ctAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=oswald+mexico+and+deep+politics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYycmO4M_SAhUT0WMKHaDvDv8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=zr%2Fbeach&f=false

"The ZR cryptonyms were normally assigned to CIA radio monitoring project collecting data for the NSA (Agee, 348, 351, etc.)

104-10224-10000: LYNCH, GRAYSON L., OP.

In the ZRJEWEL cryptonym, the ZR changed in the sixties to IU.

Contributors:
Bill Simpich • MFF • Peter Dale Scott • Jefferson Morley

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