Secrets in the Ether

In the summer of 1955, a high school graduate from Pennsylvania and a high school dropout from Florida enlisted in the U.S. Navy and were sent to separate boot camps in Maryland and Illinois for basic training. They were given aptitude tests and were selected for electronics schooling with the Naval Security Group (NSG), the U.S. Navy's top-secret military arm of the NSA, in Washington, D.C. Following extensive training at a secret intelligence base on the "Silver Strand" in Imperial Beach, just south of San Diego, the two received top-secret clearance. They were now officially "spooks," working in a highly secretive communications intelligence organization under oftentimes dangerous situations. Secrets in the Ether reveals the true story of the NSG and a number of its clandestine missions during the Cold War years. Beginning with an electronic reconnaissance war between the U.S. and the USSR in the South Pacific in 1957, it goes on to describe a secret mission conducted by the NSG during the French-Algerian war in 1959 in North Africa, and concludes with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In highlighting the dedication and devotion to duty of two "brothers" who served their country with the highest distinction and honor during some of the gravest times in the years following World War II, it casts a light on so many others who came before and after them, their contributions virtually unheard of, known only to a few agencies of the U.S. government. These operatives were primarily young enlisted men just out of high school, with an aptitude for math and electronics in the days when the sciences were not yet in vogue. Spooks operate in the ether and the shadows of the night. Virtually undetectable, they are the silent warriors of the naval service.

About the Author :
Robert Wood Mniick Jr. (BJ) was born in Plainfield Union, New Jersey. In 1955 BJ joined the United States Navy and became a Naval Intelligence operative (CT3), serving two two-year tours of duty on the island of Guam and in North Africa. Following his two tours in the Navy, in 1964 BJ graduated from Florida State University's School of Business with a bachelor's degree in business and finance. BJ enjoyed a lucrative career in Florida commercial banking, moving up the ladder to the top very quickly. He served as vice president of the Pan American Bank, N.A., in Miami; executive vice president of the Citizens National Bank in Orlando; and president of the Guaranty National Bank in Tallahassee. BJ retired from commercial banking in the late 1990s and created a consulting firm designed to assist the different kinds of financial institutions then undergoing the financial upheavals of that era. He continued consulting into his mid-seventies.BJ had a passion for sport fishing. He enjoyed fishing in deep waters, trolling for game fish in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and in the Gulf of Mexico. His secret dream-expressed only to close family-was to move to the Florida Keys and operate a small charter boat business catering to Wall Street bankers and others who loved deep sea fishing. BJ met Mary Alice Leonard while they were attending FSU. They were married in 1964 in Blountstown, Florida, and celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 2014. BJ and Mary Alice had two children: Mary Louise Minnick (Mimi) and John Alexander Minnick. Mimi and John and their children still reside in north Florida-close enough to the Gulf Coast to enjoy the salt air smell and the snow-white sand beaches. BJ began working on his Cold War memoirs with his cousin, Lindy Minnick, in 2016, continuing until his death in Blountstown in 2018. Marian Lindsey (Lindy) Minnick was born in Washington, D.C., to John Bradley Minnick and Frances Mackell Shears. She grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and graduated in 1968 from George Washington University's Columbian College, with a degree in philosophy. Lindy moved to California in 1973 and continued a forty-five-year career in computer hardware and software technical sales as a systems analyst. She was with Honeywell Information Systems for seventeen years on both the East and West Coasts; and then worked for Silicon Valley- and Boston-based companies, including Tandem, Wang Labs, Novasoft, Documentum, and EMC/Dell. Lindy retired in Hemet, California, in 2010, and pursued genealogy and family-history memoir writing. She currently resides in San Marcos, California, with her ginger cat, Sunshine. Lindy has two sons: Mike Redela, who lives in Encinitas, California, and Tony Yemma, who lives in San Francisco, as well as two grandchildren: Averi and Shane Redela. Lindy published her father's memoirs, Wishing Stones and Rubber Ice, in 2012, and is writing a third family memoir, Letters from Belize, about her uncle Bruce Morrill Minnick (1917-1999).