DCI SUPPORT OF CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT (COG) PROGRAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 3, 1980
• Content Type: MEMO

25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3 '5X8
Next 5 Page(s) In Document Denied
Iq
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
I
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
 25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3 '5X8
Next 1 Page(s) In Document Denied
Iq
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28 CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
i n a nuclear u dour leaders: be-
.'iJ z ~ p a y : to: the launch
Anyone driving by would
UvN ,'ALha, Calif.
D have to wonder about the unprotected cluster of
-snow-white dishes pointing skyward along the Bay
shore Freeway.
There. behind a cnain~link fence is one of the two or-
three U.S. military bases a president would'need dur-
ing- any international crisis or hint of a Russian sur-
vrise attack. =
It is the lone ground station from which the Defense
Department` controls the military.. communications
t satellites link;n,cr the president and America's distant
.forces a-.-,d diplomats. It also steers most of the coun-
try's electronic intelligence, -photographic.' xeconnai-
sance and missile warning satellites. ::::~-':
No leak, no secret document, no disgruntled crypto. -;
clerk was needed to find the spot_ Alt it took. was page
20 of the tin clasaifled posture statement which the Air i
-~
Force sent to Congress last February Tha Satellite'
Test Center at Sunnyvale?is a "single point of control"
for defense satellites, the statement reported. As a
consequence, it said, the Defense Department's "cur-
rentspace operations are vulnerable to disruption."
A high-ran king scientific adviser to Defense Secre-
tary Brown called it "unforg veable" that such a criti-
cal base is "within bazooka range of a highway."
Sunnyvale also happens to.lie in an earthquake haz-
?
and zone, with the San Andreas fault eight miles away,
But to this adviser, at least, earthquakes are less wor-
risome than bazookas and satchel charges. ?
Sunnyvale .is just one sample of a national security
weakness that has been troubling professional military - ;
people, arms control advocates and some people in the
White House - with good reason. -
The problem is that in a nuclear crisis, the president
cannot be sure of his ability to communicate with the
commanders of his missiles, submarines and bombers.
No one is claiming that the Soviet Union can strike
this country's command-and-control system with im-
punity, ]mowing for sure that the presidential "button"
can be disconnected. S.J. Buchsbaum, a member of the
Defense Science Board and chief of military communi %
cations for the Bell Laboratories, offered this much
reassurance: "While there are various severe vulnerabil-
ities that can end should tie fixed, even today the sys-
tem is suffficiently robust that it cannot be knocked out
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
However, Sen. Sam Nunn (D.-Ga.) said: "The deficien-
Lotion to Siwiet planners in a confrontation situation to be
the first one to strike." r1.nd retired Army Gen. Alexander
it1: Haig Jr., former NATO commander, said:. "I would The Joint Chiefs of Staff anticipate a "widespread l
place this area among the top priorities for prompt atten- of connectivity" between the president and his comma
-L more dovish precincts, Paul Warnke, who?was Presi
dent Carter's first nuclear treaty negotiator, said: "If you'
.
really had the kind of command and control that is tech-..
nically fessib're, you would have even less reason to build
the new 11_y missile." t. :......_. ;
Twenty years ago,-the country got the jitters about a.:::
.missile?gsp that turned- out to be-a myth.?The present..:'
situation sounds even more preposterous. How could a-na-
tion that ;viii spend $157 billion on defense next year - a
nation that invented the telephone: :fall prey to a mes-.-:-
Vic ge Adn. Robe.rt.t Kauhnan,.'director of.command
and control #or-.the-Nav told a House subcommittee in-?
Nlayi.
"It is a beautiful system in eacetime.. We have literally.
100 percent capability, of getting. the message to our sub-
marines in peacetime. But when we get into varying types
of wars, ranging. from conventional. through the gamut of
nuclear wars, we get varying degrees of degradations: ' .
- He-testified that the Navy's transmitting stations, in- ..
cluding one in Annapolis, are "as vulnerable as a hand
grenade on one of the antennas" Therefore, he said, the
Navy also fields a "jury-rigged system of overweight,
aging radio relay plane-,.
The go rnment-does- not call it a message gap. Its
euphemism is "connectivity shortfalls," a phrase which
surfaced in declassified testimony by Gen. Richard Ellis,
commander of the Air Force Strategic Air Command.
Ellis told the Senate Armed Services Committee eight
months ago that SAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the*
Defense Science Board and the staff of the Chief of Naval'
Operations had uncovered such."connectivity'shortfalls".. =
Where are these "connectivity shortfalls?" Here are
some. I have-compiled in unclassified documents and in-'
terviews*wita generals, scientists. and other.communica-,
' Lions specials. The Pentagon has not taken issue with'
a iiy of the findings.
? A president has 43 radio'and telephone paths for dis-:` '? _' From World War II came-more demonstrations of th
patching one-way nuclear strike messages to one or an- leverage of ir-formation over brute force: lessons like th
other of the U.S. strategic nuclear forces. But questions 1 _ $attle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Battle of th
exist about how many minutes any of these segments. - Bulge.'.
---would endure after a Russian strike. "One of the weak- i The invention of atomic bombs and long-range missile
'
t have
resses 'in the system is that the president doesn
very long TO make up his mind," said- Lt. Gen. Kelly
'Burke, chief of Air Force research and development.
this year only one penny out of every $1,000 of
-Even =o
,
the defers, budget will go for procurement of equipment
to strengthen the so-called Minimum Essential Emer-
gency Co : ,?-* ;nications Network, which is the most im-
po., tant cl-ter of channels among the president's 43 one-
way paths
.
? A president has much less standby equipment for the
t~to-~ca -r;-,:er5adoms and conference calls he would need
v
ers in the opening minutes of a nuclear war. The ch'
said this toss would be caused by the powerful electrom
netic pulses from a high-altitude- nuclear burst wh
would burn or upset electronic and computer circuits..`
c: ? The president has one $211-million "doomsday" co
?mand plane whose communications equipment is p
? rested against such pulses. But because of its maintena~
cycle, it can remain on alert at Andrews Air Force B.
only about' 15 days a month.
At the president's disposal the rest of the time is ane
her "doomsday" plane that has. about 2,000 openings
the hull that could admit. the damaging pulses. Boei
Corp., which made the plane, has estimated that up
~~?~ 11,500 of the "mission -essential. circuits in the' olc
model would either. sizzle up or suffer temporary failw
after a high altitude nuclear burst even half a confine
' away. .
Moreover, the Russians are aware of this. vulnerabilil
and can determine when the "harden-,d" plane is on aler
Of all "connectivity shortfalls,"- the most pressing
how to strengthen the radio links with Poseidon and oth
missile-firing submarines. A Navy officer said: "I supp-c
? you could find a combinatioq of [American] targets th
would knock out our ability to communicate with the su
marines . - .. I don't think the interruption would be p~
mannt." . ` . , .. ...:. ;
The fragility of submarine communications has this sicj
effect: At least some and probably all of today's U.S. mi
site submarines lack the kind of electronic, "positive ei
able" fail-safe that keeps the Minuteman land-based mi
siles in the president's personal grasp. The Navy- has i
rely on the discipline of its officers and a complicate
launch sequence that reportedly requires concerted attic
at half a dozen battle stations.
West Point cadets -learn that communications has bee
critical in warfare at least since the Battle of Canoe'i
216 B.C., when Hannibal 'destroyed' a Roman army by
' well-timed signal .`.o his Libyan cavalry to attack th
flanks of an advancing Roman wedge. -
-imposed new non-negotiable demands on the nation'
communications system. A recently declassified study b
Richard Foster of Stanford Research International in
? cluded this ugly finding about America's vulnerability a.
of 1962:
"For example, it requires only 17 weapons to essentiall,
destroy the national command or, as an optional target, 11
weapons to destroy the national communications and pit
to determine ;s hether the county really was under attack
and what to do about it. - -
'the national command out of contact with the forces."
Foster. who is r:~a':cirg simiiat-studies for the Carter ad
ministration, said it remains true that Washington and at
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP10M02313R000704030004-3
r. ~`.~-h-*~~i.,".?-~Y4eg-"S?,. ~~~ ~~'~~>?-""`~^-..y.y.,.,,'~ .' ~.ees'w