The 1990s were the era of the cypherpunks, the Clipper chip, and, as the author alludes to, some fairly inane export restrictions on cryptography. This was not some innocent time.

If you want to go further back, there's the Church Committee (which concluded that security agencies were way out of control and had to be reined in).

You're passing judgement based on a life time of learnings. How much did this person know at the time? Arm chair quarter backs always seem to have the right answers.

If I’m coming across as accusing that he made the wrong decision, I don’t mean to say that. The story he’s telling suggests he made a difficult decision under the impression that it was urgent and important.

What I am saying is that in hindsight, this seems like the wrong decision, and I would hope a maker of crypto software would realize that.