The Consolidation of Strategic Communications in the United States, 1950–1975

Open to the Public

This seminar will consider the strategic communications that connected political, military, and diplomatic officials during the Cold War.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Date: Thu, Apr 17, 2014 Time: 12:15pm - 02:00pm Location: Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

A White Alice station in Alaska. First built in the 1950s, the network was later absorbed into the Defense Communications System.

The National Security Act laid the legal foundation for America's military-political establishment in 1947. However, a network for global command still had to be built. War-surplus telecommunication could not fulfill the new relationships between the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, and commanders in the field, even in peace time. The Department of Defense gradually consolidated high-level circuits from the armed forces, but it created another competitor to them in the process. In 1960, the Defense Communications Agency charged civilians with an operational military role for the very first time.

This seminar will consider the strategic communications that connected political, military, and diplomatic officials during the Cold War. Although capabilities did expand rapidly, technology and management could not solve problems in strategy or policy. Experts in each domain made unforeseen demands of the other.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.