Title: Working on the Dark Side of the Moon: Life Inside the National Security Agency
Author: Thomas Reed Willemain, PhD
Reviewer: Allison Kay Hancock, PhD
Working on the Dark Side of the Moon: Life Inside the National Security Agency by Dr. Thomas Willemain takes the reader from the Hollywood presumptions of what the National Security Agency (NSA) is to the less than glamorous truth of an agency that is working with every asset for the greater good of America. Dr. Willemain has taken his experience and shared with all of us how math can mean the difference between life and death for those who work to protect – the Defenders of America, the common Soldier, Marine, Airman and Sailor. The intelligence community has come to life in this book and provides a perspective that will take the reader down the path of what it means to be an intelligence geek, or better said an intelligence guru.
Having worked alongside multiple branches of the US Military, most opinions formed of the NSA in the civilian and military realm are based on a super-hyped fictitious view formed from a Hollywood shaped reality. Dr. Willemain’s account, although heavily redacted, is a well written, concise account of an agency that prefers to remain opaque to those outside its organization. Dr. Willemain allows the reader to venture along with him through the halls and into rooms of seemingly spontaneous brilliance that are the conversations where his mathematical genius and statistical modeling are put to use to solve and support agency projects. The level of analysis and creative collaboration that he and his team are allotted while finding solutions to the agency’s needs is interesting as this is not an attribute commonly associated with government entities.
The reader can gather form the heavily redacted work that Dr. Willemain has followed protocols to ensure secrets remain secret. While a bit of a distraction at times, it is the redaction within his work that provides the titillation to the reader to desire to know more. After putting this book down, I spent numerous hours researching areas of intrigue that I was left with from Dr. Willemain’s work. A recommended read for those interested in a captivating look into the inner workings of the NSA.
