Newly Declassified: The Origins of the National Security Agency, 1940-1952

From the foreword:
It is a masterfully researched and documented account of the evolution of a national SIGINT [signal intelligence] effort following World War II, beginning with the fragile trends toward unification of the military services as they sought to cope with a greatly changed environment following the war, and continuing through the unsatisfactory experience under the Armed Forces Security Agency. ...
Mr. Burns has identified most of the major themes which have contributed to the development of the institutions which characterize our profession: the struggle between centralized and decentralized control of SIGINT, interservice and interagency rivalries, budget problems, tactical versus national strategic requirements, the difficulties of mechanization of processes, and the rise of a strong bureaucracy. These factors, which we recognize as still powerful and in large measure still shaping operational and institutional development, are the same ones that brought about the birth of the NSA.
From the introduction:
This study traces the evolution of the military structures from the early 1930s to the establishment of a unique agency to deal with COMINT [communications intelligence] - the National Security Agency - in 1952.