In August 1987, CSE published an internal, highly classified history of the agency from its founding in 1946 as the Communications Branch of the National Research Council (CBNRC) to its transfer in 1975 to the Department of National Defence and renaming as the Communications Security Establishment.The's authors were N. Kevin O'Neill, who had been Director of CBNRC/Chief of CSE from 1971 to 1980, and Ken J. Hughes, a senior COMSEC official. Both had been on the staff of the agency through the entire period covered by the history.Not long after the document was written, I and at least one other person formally requested that the releasable portions be made public under Canada's then new Access to Information law. That eventually did occur—after a delay of several years—but the released version was extremely heavily redacted, with perhaps 80-90 percent of the document withheld entirely and most of the rest riddled with additional redactions.Group and section names and most personal names were redacted. Target names were redacted. All mentions of NSA and GCHQ were redacted (except for one mention of GCHQ that slipped through). Even the name of Kevin O'Neill's co-author was redacted.There was some useful information left in the sections that remained, but the resulting document was mostly a testament to excessive secrecy.More than 25 years later, someone—I don't actually know who—requested a fresh release of the, and this time a much more significant part of the seven-volume document was released. (I obtained it through the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project .)There are still large portions redacted, including the entirety of Volume II, but a great deal of new and very interesting information about CSE's history was released. I drew on the new release for this discussion of CSE's experimental cable monitoring efforts in the 1970s, for example.An even more recent release to Wesley Wark (access request A-2018-00065) includes additional previously redacted material in Chapter 11. The rest of the release appears to be identical (although I must admit I haven't examined every word of it). I've changed the links below to copies of the Wark release. Many thanks, Wesley! Bonus: I've uploaded OCRed versions of the files.][28 MB PDF]1 Origins and Background2 SIGINT Policy and Committee Structure3 Organization and Establishment4 SIGINT Production Tasks5 Interception at StationsVOLUME II - SPECIAL COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS[Volume not released]6 Special Collection7 Signal Analysis8 CryptanalysisVOLUME III - SIGINT SUPPORT AND RELATIONSHIPS Part 1 - Chapters 9 to mid-11 (16 MB PDF) & Part 2 - Chapters mid-11 to 13 (15 MB PDF)]9 Tactical SIGINT and Support to NATO10 Intelligence Requirements and SIGINT Reporting11 Liaison with Collaborating Centres12 SIGINT Equipment and Engineering13 Mechanization and Computer Developments[26 MB PDF]14 Communications15 COMSEC in Canada before CBNRC16 COMSEC Policy and Committee Structure17 Development of COMSEC in CBNRC[24 MB PDF]18 Provision of COMSEC Advice and Support19 Production of Keying Material20 Use of Crypto Equipment in Canada21 Evaluation of Crypto Equipment22 Production of Crypto Equipment in Canada23 COMSEC Monitoring and Analysis24 TEMPEST[22 MB PDF]25 Financial Administration26 Security27 Personnel28 Training[5 MB PDF]Appendix - Chronological SummaryIndex