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Please check back often as this site slowly evolves into a guide to the places and systems which helped protect America's security during those perilous years of the Cold War. Some of these facilities are still serving their original purposes, some have new roles, some are disused and neglected, some have been demolished, and a few existed only as proposals.
Announcements of updates to this site (and lots more interesting information and discussions) will be posted on the Cold War Communications e-mail list. To join the list, go to the Onelist web site and follow the registration instructions. If you'd prefer to be notified individually of site updates, just send me an e-mail.
If you have information about Washington's Cold War infrastructure you'd like to share, or have any questions about the material posted here, I look forward to hearing from you. I'd also welcome your comments about the implementation of this web site.
E-mail: Albert LaFrance, Falls Church, Virginia
Save "The Cape"!!!Headquartered at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland, this unit provides communications vital to national security.
The 789th operates the "Mystic Star" or Special Air Missions Communications (SAMCOM) radio network, which keeps the President and other senior officials in contact while airborne.
In addition, the 789th manages the GLOBAL radio network. In a nuclear war, GLOBAL would transmit Emergency Action Messages from the National Command Authority to the U.S. nuclear forces. In peacetime, GLOBAL carries a wide variety of defense communications.
Read the Squadron's history.
These documents from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, highly classified for more than 30 years, discuss a proposal for a nuclear-bomb-proof command post 3,500 feet (1,067 meters) underground, in the vicinity of the Pentagon.
Mention the name "Western Union" and it's likely that most people will think of telegrams and money transfers. Less well known is the role played by The Western Union Telegraph Company in providing communications for national security during the Cold War. As a pioneer in data transmission and microwave radio communications, Western Union built and operated networks which carried important defense traffic.
Because Western Union no longer exists (except as a brand name for money-transfer services), little information is available about the company's defense-related communications systems. At least two of these systems were present in the nation's capital area: the Washington Area Wideband System (WAWS), and the Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN).
As its name implies, WAWS was limited to the Washington DC area; it linked various defense and intelligence-community facilities. AUTODIN was far more extensive, providing service to military installations around the world.
The Western Union microwave network consisted of a chain of stations which reaching east and west across much of the country, with several branches going north and south.
The Bell System's nationwide network made the company an obvious choice to provide vital defense communications links during the Cold War. AT&T constructed many dedicated facilities to meet the stringent reliability demands of its national-security customers.
A former relocation facility for the U.S. Congress, concealed within a luxury resort hotel. The bunker remained top secret from its construction in 1960 until its existence was revealed by the Washington Post in 1992.