MARTIN, WILLIAM

In June 1960 Martin, a  National Security Agency cryptographer, and his friend Bernon F. Mitchell disappeared while visiting Cuba. The pair were alleged to be homosexuals, and both had been assigned to the NSA’s  intercept site at Kamiseya in Japan when they had been in the U.S. Navy. They had visited Cuba in December 1959 together, where it is presumed that they made contact with the Soviets, but the statement they left, in a bank in Laurel, Maryland, gave no hint of their motives. Once in Moscow, they denounced the NSA publicly, claiming that the organization was reading the wireless traffic of more than 40 countries.