The NSA awarded contracts for secure phones.

The National Security Agency, as part of a move to tighten internal government security, awarded initial production contracts to three major communications companies for a new generation of scrambler telephones. The contracts total $190 million and call for production of almost 50,000 of the new secure telephones for government offices. The phone, dubbed the STU-III, will be made by AT&T; Technology Systems in Greensboro, N.C., Motorola Inc. in Schaumburg, Ill., and RCA Aerospace & Defense in Camden, N.J., the Pentagon said.