“I’m writing a traditional bureaucratic history,” Larry Valero said after pointing out that there are no spy stories to be found in his dissertation, that his text is in no way indebted to James Bond; but its topic and era might commonly raise such questions for those students not familiar with intelligence history.  Valero’s dissertation, written under the direction of Professor Christopher Andrew, is titled  “Discrete Aspects of U.S. Intelligence Policy and Organization 1944-53.”  “The reasons for those dates,” he said, “is that in ‘44 we have the first proposal for a central intelligence organization, and in ‘53', coming right after the end of the Korean War, we have the centralization of what is called signals intelligence with the establishment of the National Security Agency.”  Valero anticipates defending the dissertation to his committee in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge sometime during the spring. 

 He highlighted that research of this kind largely relies on the analysis of primary sources, and that he has done archival work on both sides of the Atlantic.  His research has been most extensive in the U.S., with visits to such institutions as “the National Archives, the Truman, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower libraries, the Manuscript Collection at the Library of Congress, the U.S. Military History Institute at the U.S. Army War College, the Bowen Collection at Georgetown University, the National Security Archive at George Washington University, the Manuscript Collections at the Yale and Princeton Libraries, and the National Crypotologic Library at Ft. Meade, Maryland. In Britain,” he said, “I have worked at the Public Record Office near London, and the Churchill Archive Centre in Camridge,” 

 “The reason archival research on American intelligence often occurs in part in Britain is because of the high degree of cooperation between the two countries; it is the closest kind of intelligence alliance in the world.  We have had an agreement in place since 1946 to the present day called the UKUSA Agreement; it was preceded by the BRUSA Agreement, which involved wartime collaboration.  Both agreements have to do with signals intelligence, better known as code breaking–the interception and decoding of encrypted messages.” Valero noted that often “intelligence is considered the missing dimension in international relations,” because so much of the information is classified; “and signals intelligence is the most secretive of all intelligence operations.  That’s because so much time, effort, and money goes into code breaking.” 

 This fact made getting information very difficult for Valero.  “Finding declassified information on signals intelligence is nearly impossible.  Most primary documentation on the subject is still classified, especially the Cold War material.  Only a handful of documents are declassified, and the ones available are often are heavily redacted, or blacked out; however, secondary source material tends to make up for the redacted material missing from the primary documents.”     

 Valero’s expertise in intelligence history made him a strong candidate for teaching A300, “U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1945” for the Department of History, and he was happy to have been invited to IUB.  He said the faculty in that program welcomed him, his students were strong, and that his family’s experience living in campus housing was wonderful due to the diverse demographics of its residents.  

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