Black Ops

[Joseph McCollum]

>
> > BLACK OPS
> >
> >     I've been hearing a lot about "black ops" and "sleeper cells."  We talked about the latter.  The former means "black operations."  It seems a bit clumsy, like military trying to be hip-hop.  But it
should be recorded.
>
> "Ops" as a verbal abbreviation for "Operations" goes back a ways.  In World War II the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) had an
office known as "Ops B SHAEF" which was in charge of deception operations.

Would the Black part be related to Herbert Yardley's
Black Chamber?  I don't have the sources in front of me but it was America's cryptology agency which operated from ~1917 to ~1929.

They were fired by Secretary of State Stimson, who supposedly said, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."



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