Task Force 157 (TF-157)

In 1970, the United States Navy created Navy Task Force 157 (TF-157), a super-secret intelligence unit. Housed in Alexandra, Virginia, with a $5 million dollar budget, TF-157 was hidden behind ten cover companies. Initially, the unit was comprised of seventy-five operators, posted around the world. TF-157's mission was to keep tabs on Soviet shipping and naval capabilities. They used spy ships, pleasure yachts crammed with electronics gear, to watch over sensitive points such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Panama Canal.

Other missions of TF-157 included assessing Soviet armaments for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), it helped to recover downed US and Soviet aircraft, or sunken ships, and it also reported that the Soviet Union shipped nuclear weapons to Egypt during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Task Force 157 provided secure communications for National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger when he made his first visit to China.

Although the unit provided exceptional results, due to its ability to acquire materials and personnel outside normal military channels, TF-157 went overboard with their spending. TF-157 was finished, when one of its contract employees, Edwin Wilson, got on the bad side of the unit commander, Donald Nielsen. Nielsen resented the fact that Wilson's interests seemed personal, rather than intelligence, and Wilson thought Nielsen would cancel the contract. Wilson then went to Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the head of naval intelligence, and offered to create a new intelligence unit that he would command, and which would take over TF-157's responsibilities. Inman, who already disliked TF-157, got angry when he heard Wilson's proposal and dissolved TF-157, declaring that it was out of control. This similar episode would be repeated in many of the other covert intelligence units.

Information provided courtesy of Peter Tomich

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