
The Cover A Titan II missile, one of the symbols of the Cold War, leaves a launch complex at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a firing test on September 12, 1962. The last liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile in American inventories, the Titan II was manufactured by the Martin Corporation for the Air Force and could deliver multiple nuclear warheads. Titan IIs remained in service from 1963 to 1987. |
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Legacy Resource Management The Legacy Resource Management Program was established by the Congress of the United States in 1991 under Public Law No. 101-511, §8120, to provide for stewardship over specified physical and paper historic records and some twenty-five million acres of land under Department of Defense jurisdiction. The legislation requires the department to integrate its traditional defense missions with the conservation of irreplaceable biological, cultural, archaeological, archival, historical, and geophysical resources. To achieve this goal, the Department of Defense has initiated a program giving priority to the enumeration, protection, and restoration of these resources in cost-effective partnership with federal, state, and local agencies and private groups. |
Coming in from the Cold: Military Heritage of the Cold War
summarizes the efforts that the Department of Defense (DoD) has
undertaken in response to the Congressional mandate to "inventory,
protect, and conserve" the heritage of DoD during the Cold War. These
activities were conducted by the Cold War Task Area, one of the major
study groups of DoD's Legacy Resource Management Program, established by
Congress in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 1991. In
deciding how to organize the project, and in identifying the major
issues to be addressed, the Cold War Task Area contacted DoD personnel,
scholars, and others knowledgeable about the Cold War and concerned with
its legacy. It then determined the types of cultural resources to be
studied and the kinds of information to be collected in order to record
the U.S. military's role during the Cold War, both at home and abroad.
It selectively sampled conditions in the field by making site visits to
representative military facilities in the United States and overseas.
The Task Area then devised a set of projects to survey, document, and
preserve Cold War resources. This Report describes those
investigations, sets out an action plan for the Task Area, provides a
general typology of Cold War resources, and offers recommendations for
the future.
Chapter I, "The Legacy Cold War Project," details the activities that
the Task Area undertook to define and establish a DoD Cold War Project.
The Task Area began by identifying the types of cultural resources vital
to preserving DoD's Cold War historic legacy, and then discovering the
preservation and management issues that apply to them. Based upon those
investigations, the Task Area initiated several projects in late FY
1993.
Chapter II, "Cold War Historic Resources," describes Cold War
historic resource types. Following the Congressional charge to consider
the "physical and literary properties and relics" from the Cold War in
the United States and overseas, the chapter examines those resources in
terms of the existing legal or regulatory constraints, examples of
resource types, and preservation and management approaches to each
category.
Chapter III, "Conclusion and Recommendations," restates the Cold War
Task Area's position regarding the preservation and management of DoD
Cold War assets. It also suggests actions for preservation and
documentation of Cold War resources, and in respect to the future role
of the Cold War Project.
The Appendices satisfy several purposes. They provide information
regarding the Task Area's investigative process in establishing the Cold
War Project. They also list projects underway within and outside the
Department of Defense to define and study Cold War resources. Appendix
IV includes the existing guidance promulgated by the Departments of the
Air Force and Navy for treatment of Cold War historic resources.
Finally, a brief narrative history of the mission of DoD during the Cold
War and a chronology of Cold War events aim to place the cultural
resources from the Cold War (whose identification and potential methods
of treatment are the primary subjects of this Report) within the broad
historical context.
The Legacy Cold War Project
| In November 1989, the world watched in disbelief as citizens of a divided Germany reduced portions of the Berlin Wall to rubble. Shortly thereafter, that chilling symbol of American engagement in the Cold War the guard's hut from Checkpoint Charlie - was hoisted into the air, lowered onto a flatbed truck, and driven away. With the momentous reunification of Germany, then the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Cold War seemed to be over. | ![]() This piece of the Berlin Wall - a
quintessential Cold War symbol - was transferred to Ramstein Air Base,
Germany, for public display. |
The end of the Cold War led the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to
rethink its global commitments, and to reorganize, downsize, and
reallocate resources. The Department also seized the opportunity to
ensure that the record and meaning of its activities during the Cold War
are preserved while the evidence remains fresh. Such powerful reminders
of the Cold War as Checkpoint Charlie, pieces of the Berlin Wall, and
documents from the Soviet archives, will help future generations
understand the Cold War, its origins, and its repercussions. These and
other artifacts, documents, properties, and sites constitute a
significant and invaluable record of our national experience and, as
such, they merit consideration and protection.
Along with its other goals, the DoD Legacy Resource Management
Program addresses the meaning and preservation of DoD's Cold War
history. Established by the Defense Appropriations Act of 1991, the
Legacy Program fulfills the Congressional mandate to "determine
how to better integrate the conservation of irreplaceable biological,
cultural, and geophysical resources with the dynamic requirements of
military missions." It executes its charter through nine separate
purposes. Among them is the responsibility to "inventory, protect, and
conserve [DoD's] physical and literary property and relics" associated
with the origins and development of the Cold War at home and
abroad.1 This initiative is
being carried out by the Cold War Task Area.2
Like other Legacy Program task areas, the Cold War Task Area
conducts research and provides information to the Legacy Program, the
Department of Defense, and assorted partnership agencies and
institutions. Legacy activities also include demonstration projects,
which are designed to test needs against methodologies and offer models
for future efforts. Along with the sponsoring service's Legacy
coordinator, the Cold War Task Area manager is a consultant for some of
the Cold War-related demonstration projects. This Report discusses the
investigations of the Cold War Task Area, offers an overview of Cold War
cultural resources and the management approaches that may apply to them,
and makes recommendations for future Cold War preservation efforts.
At the outset, it is important to note the limitations of the Cold
War Task Area mandate. It does not pretend to set regulatory compliance
policies or practices for the Department of Defense. Rather, the Cold
War Task Area hopes to further discussion within DoD regarding
stewardship of its Cold War resources, and anticipates that its findings
will help the Department to determine the appropriate means for
preserving and protecting those assets.
Furthermore, the Task Area is not attempting to write a history of
the Cold War, and legislative language cautions the Legacy Program to
design a project that will not duplicate efforts "already being carried
out by other capable institutions or programs."3 The history and an analysis of
the roles and missions of the military departments and national security
agencies during the Cold War not only interest those within DoD, but
also academics, journalists, and policy makers. Consequently, many
individuals and institutions are already engaged in interpreting the
events of the past half-century. The Cold War Task Area has defined its
mission so as not to replicate their work. It focuses principally on
the physical properties and artifacts associated with the Cold War that
are found on DoD installations. The Task Area is also working to ensure
that documents that will be used to write future histories, and records
that relate to physical properties and artifacts from the Cold War, will
be retained and made available for study.
Although the Task Area is not writing a traditional history of the
Cold War, it will provide a historical context in order to facilitate
decision-making regarding cultural resources. Thus, a chief priority
among its investigations is the publication of context studies of weapon
systems and military functions, described in terms of their time, place,
and utility. As a start, Appendix V of this Report contains a very
brief discussion of the role of DoD and the military services during the
Cold War, and a chronology of international events from 1945 through
1991. Only against the backdrop of the historical imperatives that
defined the Cold War can the vast construction efforts, weapon system
development, and the worldwide deployment of military men and women be
understood.
The Task Area began its work in the fall of 1991 with a series of
meetings of professionals from several disciplines to consider issues
relating to DoD's management of its Cold War resources. Thereafter the
Task Area consulted the military history offices, installation
engineers, real property managers, public affairs specialists, and
environmental services officers. Investigators visited key Cold War
facilities and landscapes in the states of Alaska and Hawaii and in
Belgium, England, Germany, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, and Scotland. They
also toured selected installations in the continental United States.
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Legacy Resource Management Program
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Task area staff consulted State Historic Preservation Officers and
representatives of Federal agencies including the National Archives and
Records Administration, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian
Institution, the Department of State, the Department of Energy, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Central
Intelligence Agency (Appendix I). The Task Area staff also prepared a
selected bibliography (Appendix VI).
In summary, the Cold War Task Area accomplished the following:
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§ Developed working definitions of historic resources
covered by the Cold War legislative mandate, i.e., physical and literary
properties and relics, with reference to standard definitions used by
the historic preservation and records management communities. § Surveyed current Cold War preservation activities conducted by
other responsible agencies and institutions (Appendix III). § Examined preservation and records management laws and regulations
applicable to Cold War-era resources. § Assessed overseas resources used or owned by the U.S. military
during the Cold War and their disposition. § Held a multi-agency Department of Defense-National Archives and
Records Administration Declassification Conference to determine the
current status of access to the documents of the Cold War and to offer
recommendations for improving access. § Co-sponsored a conference, Preserving the History of the Military Contracting Industry, with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (NASM), that brought together defense contractors, DoD, and NARA, NASM, and former Department of Energy (DoE) experts to discuss the current status of records held by defense contractors and to encourage public access to those records. |
COLD WAR TASK AREA, FY 1993-1994
From its initial investigations, the Cold War Task Area learned that
much remains to be accomplished in order to "inventory, protect, and
conserve [DoD's] physical and literary property and relics" from the
Cold War. The Task Area has begun to develop data collection and
preservation-related activities, from a management-oriented perspective.
This newly accumulated information will redress some of the deficits in
our present knowledge and management capabilities. However, the Task
Area does not see its responsibilities solely in terms of commissioning
inventories and studies, immediate and vital as are those needs. It
also aims to serve as a clearinghouse for information and activities
relevant to DoD and the nation's stewardship of its Cold War cultural
resources.
Furthermore, although its work focuses specifically on protecting the
material culture of the Cold War, the Task Area will not neglect the
human resources. The Task Area expects to bring together active duty
and retired military members, scholars, and professionals from the
fields of history, the natural sciences, archaeology, planning, historic
preservation, archival sciences, museology, political science,
sociology, and international and environmental law, as well as citizens
who have curiosity about and commitment to understanding the complex
meaning of America's rich but harrowing recent past. A dispassionate
historical accounting is difficult when the events remain so close and
visceral. At the same time, the data from which to draw conclusions in
the future can never be recaptured fully once the people, places, and
objects are gone. The Cold War Project will link its collecting and
inventorying activities with the individuals and events that give them
meaning. It will relate the hard political decisions and the buildup of
nuclear arsenals and military hardware during the Cold War to the social
and psychological experiences of those who lived through the period.
The term "preservation," as it understood currently, is a flexible
concept. The preservation ethic extends beyond efforts to return an
artifact or structure to its original condition, and to maintain it in
that condition in perpetuity. The Cold War Task Area, in keeping with
the contemporary, broad approach to preservation, does not recommend
that all resources from the recent past be restored and saved in
pristine condition. At the same time, it strongly suggests that samples
of buildings, sites, weapons, ships, aircraft, tanks, military systems
and equipment, and other properties and objects that typify important
aspects of the DoD Cold War experience and military mission, be
considered for preservation, employing a range of accepted professional
practices as described in Chapter II. Frequently, this may mean
preservation of the historical record pertaining to an object or
structure in lieu of the thing itself. Preservation via the
historical record may be accomplished by traditional documentary
research, through oral and video histories, and by collecting measured
drawings, film, videotapes, and photographs. As a result, the scope of
representative activities of the American military during the Cold War
can be captured.
| In order to evaluate the significance of Cold War-era assets, the Task Area will undertake theme and context studies that identify resource types and describe their functions over time. Also, these studies will include an inventory of the resource base, since an evaluation of significance also requires a knowledge of the amount and physical condition of similar assets. With sufficient data in hand, the Department of Defense will be better equipped to set policy and write instructions for the treatment of its Cold War resources. | ![]() Holy Loch, Scotland, the site of a Navy nuclear submarine base closed in 1990. Submarine berths, support buildings, and housing are no longer used, but the activities of the base have been documented for the historical record. |
Along with its activities directed at the preservation and management
of Cold War-related physical properties and artifacts, the Task Area is
concerned with collection and access to defense and national security
records. Much of the history of the period, and the uses and
modifications of its material culture, can be substantiated most
directly through the written record. Since these documents must be
preserved and made available for study, the Task Area will continue to
emphasize the importance of declassification and proper records
management.
In keeping with Congressional requirements, the Cold War Project is
also directed to study American resources overseas. It must be recalled
that traditionally the United States retreated into isolationism during
peacetime. However, the country emerged from World War II as a
superpower, a role it played on a global scale during the ensuing years.
Because of the significance of the United States' dominant geopolitical
position during the Cold War, the Task Area will explore further the
effects of alliances and international relations on U.S. military
activities during the period.
The activities by which the Cold War Task Area is fulfilling its
mandate, beginning in the fall of 1993, are as follows:
THEME AND CONTEXT STUDIES. The Task Area has begun studies on
selected themes or topics related to military activities during the Cold
War.4 Themes, or more
narrowly focused topics that relate to them, on such critical military
functions as offensive and defensive missions, testing, training, space,
intelligence, research and development, technological change, and
international activities, will be illustrated in terms of sites,
structures, weapon systems, artifacts, and the documentary record.
These studies will draw upon the expertise of DoD historians and
historians of technology, cultural resource and real property managers,
State Historic Preservation Officers, curators and collections managers,
records and information specialists, operators, and others knowledgeable
about a particular subject.
In late FY 1993, the Cold War Task Area initiated two studies: the
DoD Guided Missile Program study and the Germany Cold War study. During
the Cold War, the Army, Navy, and Air Force developed missile systems as
major implements of strategic deterrence and for defense. The missile
study will provide a historical overview and an elaboration of site
selection, facility construction, research and development components,
modifications, and deployment of guided missile systems by the military
services. The Army and Air Force missile programs overlapped in some
respects, but the Navy's procurement methods and deployment were unique.
Therefore, land- and sea-based systems will be treated separately, at
least for purposes of research.
The facilities built or leased by the United States in Germany (the
military and political
dividing line between East and West) during the Cold War, and the
activities that took place on these posts and air bases, are the subject
of the Germany Cold War studies. The first of these studies will be a
substantial photographic essay and an exhibition on Berlin, the city
that was the symbolic linchpin of American engagement in the Cold War.
Both the photo publication and the exhibition will describe and
illustrate activities and events that took place in Berlin, including
Clay headquarters, barracks, Tempelhof Airport, and other sites and
facilities used by Americans during the occupation and through the
ensuing Cold War years. These commemorations of the American military
presence on the front line during the Cold War have immediate historical
resonance, since closing ceremonies marking troop withdrawals take place
in early September 1994.
SURVEY. The Cold War Task Area is assisting DoD's cultural resource
managers who are surveying Cold War historic resources in the United
States and abroad by overseeing survey pilot projects.5 As a first step, a survey of
existing and dismantled missile sites will be integrated into the theme
study. It will include detailed information about the number, type,
modifications, deployment, and deactivation of missiles in the DoD
inventory during the Cold War. It will specify what remains, how many,
and in what condition, thereby aiding DoD and other agencies as they
make preservation decisions.
The Cold War Task Area also contributed to an effort whereby teams
from the U.S. Army Center of Military History Museum Division surveyed
Army historic artifacts at various sites in Germany (Appendix II). That
inventory will add substantially to the Germany Cold War studies and
once again allows DoD to make informed collection and conservation
decisions.
MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES. Many caretakers at DoD installations,
particularly those at bases that are closing, are anxious for specific
guidance regarding the management and preservation of their Cold War
assets. This Report is only a first step in that direction insofar as
it describes general types of Cold War cultural resources, the existing
preservation requirements under law, and possible preservation options.
The Task Area anticipates that more detailed studies will contribute
invaluable information and suggest methodologies that DoD cultural
resource managers can use to develop criteria and procedures for
identifying, evaluating, and protecting Cold War material culture. To
that end, it hopes to develop, beginning in FY 1995, concurrent with
theme study research, a data base that will serve as the basis for
determining rarity, condition, and significance of important Cold War
structures, artifacts, and archives.
The Cold War Task Area has, in the short run, contributed to interim
guidelines for the preservation and management of Cold War resources
that have been distributed to Air Force installations. On November 9,
1992, representatives of the Task Area attended a Navy-sponsored
cultural resource conference at which participants deliberated
strategies for the management of World War II and Cold War-era historic
structures. As a result of those discussions, the Air Combat Command
historic preservation officer wrote interim guidelines for the treatment
of Cold War historic properties on Air Force lands (Appendix IV). Those
guidelines, drafted with input from the Task Area and cultural resource
managers from other military departments, have been distributed
throughout the Air Force and may, in time, be broadened to encompass all
DoD installations.
In late FY 1994 the Task Area will begin to draw together and
circulate reports of field studies of Cold War resources. This
information network will engage cultural resource professionals in
exchanges regarding their methodologies, management problems, and
results.
RECORDS MANAGEMENT. In 1992, the Cold War Task Area chaired a
conference on records declassification.6 The Task Area has continued to
address declassification issues by monitoring policy initiatives by a
Task Force charged by a Presidential Review Directive with drafting a
new national security policy, and by a DoD/CIA Task Force reviewing
security practices at the DoD and the CIA.7 The Cold War Task Area is
supported in this effort by the Director of the National Coordinating
Committee for the Promotion of History.
Also, the Cold War Task Area assisted a 1993 Legacy declassification
demonstration project at the Naval Historical Center (Appendix II), and
initiated discussion of a joint service effort to develop and
demonstrate electronic record keeping as an aid to restoring and
declassifying historical records.
COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT. The Cold War Task Area is consulting with
DoD museum staffs and other appropriate agencies and organizations
regarding museum collections policies and curatorial techniques. The
Task Area Manager will coordinate with demonstration projects concerned
with museum collections and curation (Appendix II).
As mentioned above, the Task Area and the U.S. Army Center of
Military History have collaborated to produce a travelling exhibition on
American forces in Berlin during the Cold War. It will open in Berlin
at the time of closing ceremonies in September 1994 and will circulate
thereafter.
INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES. To contribute to widespread contemporary
interest in the Cold War from the perspective of the "other side," the
Legacy Program has sponsored an International Conference on Cold War
History and Records; scholarly exchanges between former Soviet and
American specialists; a project to locate, and possibly retrieve,
Judaica artifacts confiscated during the Holocaust and kept in Communist
bloc countries during the Cold War; and a Smithsonian Institution
exhibition on Soviet-U.S. relations during the Cold War (Appendix
II).
One of the Task Area's initial studies details the American presence
in Germany, and the Task Area expects to commission other studies on
international military activities. An investigation of Cold War
intelligence gathering, for instance, would necessarily describe the
worldwide tracking of Soviet activities.
The Cold War Task Area manager sits on a newly formed DoD Cold War
Historical Committee, which will assist in the development of feasible
international projects. The Committee will direct its first efforts at
building upon relationships between representatives from NATO and former
Warsaw Pact countries that grew out of the Legacy-sponsored
International Cold War Conference held in March 1994.8 Beginning in late FY 1994, the
DoD Cold War Historical Committee will work with the Task Area to
initiate a professional exchange program, and possible translations of
Cold War foreign-language materials from the Eastern bloc.
Cold War Historic Resources
| § The B-52 manned bomber, the mainstay of the Air Force's strategic bombardment mission during the Cold War, increasingly left the inventory as individual airplanes reached the end of their structural life. B-52s still perform combat missions, but the aircraft is coming to be seen as historic, typifying the military role during the Cold War. | ![]() HAWK missile site in Key West, Fla., closed in 1979. It remains abandoned and unused. |
§ In keeping with arms control
agreements with the former Soviet Union, many B-52s are being cut up,
and a small number has become static displays at Air Force bases and
aerospace museums around the nation.
§ In 1990 the Navy left Holy Loch Naval Support Activity, a base
originally dedicated to Fleet Ballistic Missile boats. Submarine
tenders at this facility near Dunoon, Scotland, serviced the American
submarines that prowled the North Atlantic in search of their Soviet
counterparts, and the Polaris and Poseidon nuclear submarines that
patrolled in support of the Navy's deterrence mission. Today all of the
shore facilities are in Scottish hands, boarded up and awaiting sale.
The last tender has been refitted and reassigned to the up an awaiting
sale. The last tender has been refitted and reassigned to the
Mediterranean, with female sailors now part of her crew.
§ The Army built a HAWK missile site in Key West, Florida, as
a link in the defensive perimeter it constructed during the Cold War.
The anti-aircraft facility, unusual because it was built as a permanent
installation, was intended to guard against attack from Cuba, 90 miles
away. In 1979 it closed and, although the property continues to be
maintained by the Naval Air Station, Boca Chica Field, to date no new
use has been found for the facility. It sits abandoned, collecting rust
and graffiti.
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Definitions of Terms Cultural Resource: Any real or personal property, record, or
lifeway that can be defined as follows: Historic or Pre-Historic Real Property: Any archeological or
architectural district, site, building, structure, or object, as well as
monuments, designed landscapes, works of engineering, or other property
that may meet the criteria for inclusion in the National Register of
Historic Places or an equivalent register maintained by a State or local
government or agency. Historic Personal Property: Any artifact, relic of battle
experience or other military activity, piece of military equipment,
weapon, article of clothing, flag, work of art, movable object, or other
item of personal property to which historical or cultural significance
may be ascribed through professional evaluation of historical
associations to persons, events, places, eras, or with military
organizations. Historic Records: Any historical, oral-historical,
ethnographic, architectural, or other document that may provide a record
of the past, whether associated with real property or not, as determined
through professional evaluation of the information content and
significance of the information. Community Resources/Lifeways: Any resource to which a
community, such as a neighborhood or Indian tribe, or a community of
interest, such as a preservation organization or veterans' group, may
ascribe cultural value. Such resources may include historic real and
personal property, such as natural landscapes and cemeteries, or have
references to real property, such as vistas or viewsheds which may help
define a historic real property, or may have no real property reference,
such as aspects of folklife, cultural or religious practices, language,
or traditions Environment: The aggregate of social, cultural, biological
and geophysical conditions that influence the life or condition of a
resource, community, people or lifeway. Sensitive: Highly responsive or susceptible to intrinsic
modifications by external agents or influences. Significant: Essential to understanding the meaning of some
larger element, e.g. in the significance of a single building to a
historic theme, or the significance of a single species of plant life to
a community. Stewardship: The faithful management of resources as assets which must be turned over to the next generation. |
Many such weapon systems, structures, sites, and equipment, so
crucial to carrying out the military mission during the Cold War, are no
longer in service. Some were retired because they became worn out or
technologically obsolete. Others closed because the end of the Cold War
reduced the need for a sizable military force and extensive surveillance
of Eastern bloc countries. Still others shut down in response to
changing political events, foreign and domestic. Yet these
three-dimensional pieces of history graphically illustrate elements of
the American military mission, including the evolution of its
technologies, international alliances, strategies, and tactics during
the Cold War.
In keeping with the Legacy Program's enabling legislation, Cold
War-related historic resources described in this Report are physical
properties (sites, structures, and landscapes), literary properties
(information and documents), relics (objects), and cultural resources
overseas. Each is examined below.
Physical properties and relics (hereafter the terms "objects" and
"artifacts" are used instead of "relics") are not necessarily
discrete types of material culture. However, they are discussed
separately because the Legacy legislative language names them
individually, and because the relevant legal frameworks and
administrative and management requirements for them often differ.
Internationally based Cold War resources include the other types, but
because unique factors apply to preservation of U.S. military facilities
overseas, they too are discussed separately.
Physical properties - sites, structures, and landscapes - help to
tell the story of the military presence at home and abroad. The
physical evidence of Cold War defense activities remains on military
landscapes from San Diego to Diego Garcia and from Honolulu to
Heidelberg. Many Cold War installations date from earlier periods and
are layered with history - reaching back, in some cases, to the American
Revolution. In comparison to older, often revered reminders of our
heritage, more contemporary properties are frequently thought to be of
lesser value and, consequently, are especially vulnerable when bases
close and drawdowns occur. Some are ignored because of their physical
location on minor installations far from main bases, forts, or stations.
Obsolescence, maintenance difficulties, and lack of conservation
facilities hinder the successful management of others. In addition,
lingering national security concerns effectively limit access to
classified information and, in some cases, entire installations
remain off-limits. Finally, limited federal control over the objects
and documents spawned by private industry's research and development
projects under DoD contracts, and a lack of awareness within private
industry of their potential historical value, restrict the flow of
information about the military's Cold War assets.
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Laws and Regulations
DoD cultural resource managers can draw upon an existing body of
law, regulation, and practice as they begin to evaluate resources for
historic significance. The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of
1966 (as amended), defines "historic property" or "historic resource" to
mean "any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure,
or object included in, or eligible for inclusion on the National
Register; including artifacts, records and material remains related to
such a property or resource."9
A common misunderstanding holds that requirements stemming from
the Act only apply to properties more than 50 years old. However, the
National Register criteria for evaluation found at 36 CFR 60.4 states
that ordinarily a property that has achieved significance within the
past 50 years shall not be considered eligible for the National Register
unless it is of exceptional importance. Approximately 3 percent of the
properties in the National Register of Historic Places were listed
before they reached 50 years of age, with missiles and nuclear
facilities, in the case of military properties, having received the
greatest attention. For instance, the X-10 Reactor at Oak Ridge
National Energy Laboratory, Launch Complex 33 at White Sands Missile
Range, a Thor space launch complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base, several
launch pads and the mission control center at Cape Canaveral, and Launch
Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center are among the Cold War assets
currently in the National Register. Others, such as a Minuteman II ICBM
system at Ellsworth Air Force Base, have been determined to be eligible.
Still others appear to be potentially eligible, such as SAC
headquarters and alert facilities, the "Looking Glass" 24-hour airborne
command post, and numerous testing and training facilities at Vandenberg
Air Force Base. The National Park Service has published technical
instructions for the evaluation of contemporary resources, Guidelines
for Evaluating and Nominating Properties That Have Achieved Significance
Within the Last Fifty Years.10
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Sites: Districts: Buildings: Structures: Landscapes: Objects: |
Programmatic agreements for facility planning and management are one
means by which DoD has met compliance requirements of the NHPA.
Programmatic agreements are developed among an agency, the State
Historic Preservation Officer, and the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation. They may apply to an installation, to a particular
structure type such as Nike missile sites or regional communication
facilities, or to a nation-wide endeavor. As an example, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, New England District, negotiated a Programmatic
Agreement in October 1991 which required the Corps to provide a map of
Nike sites on areas under review by the Defense Environmental
Restoration Pro ram, conduct an inventory of Nike-associated structures,
prepare a National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form, and
select and document one representative Nike site to HAER standards.
These actions were undertaken in consultation with State Historic
Preservation Officers.
A legal impediment to the preservation of Cold War weapon systems
comes from the provisions set forth in arms limitation treaties.11 Generally these treaties
permit the retention of a small number of weapons for historical
purposes and specify modifications to the hardware involved. A notable
example is Titan II Missile Site 8, since May 1986 the home of the Titan
Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona. It is the only existing Titan
II launch facility that was operational during the Cold War. The site
consists of restored above and below ground facilities and equipment of
the U.S. Air Force Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Site
Number 8 (571-7) of the 571st Strategic Missile Squadron, 390th
Strategic Missile Wing, headquartered at Davis Monthan Air Force Base,
Tucson, Arizona, from 1962 to 1984. The missile is an authentic Titan
II ICBM used for training. Original modifications to the site,
complying with treaty requirements, included cutting holes in the launch
duct to allow for satellite viewing for 30 days and inserting a
multi-ton cement block in the silo closure door to prop it open
permanently.12
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Abandoned Shipwreck Act 43 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2106 American Indian Religious Freedom Act 42 U.&C. § 1996, §
1996 note Antiquities Act 16 U.S.C §§ 431-433 Archeological and Historical Data Preservation Act 16 U.S.C. §§
469-469c Archeological Resources Protection Act 16 U.S.C. §§
470aa-470mm Historic Sites Act 16 U.S.C. §§ 461-467 National Historic Preservation Act 16 U.S.C. §§ 470-470w-6 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 25 U.S.C.A. §§ 3001-3013 |
Management and Preservation Issues and Approaches
The Legacy Cold War Task Area does not urge DoD to extend
National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) protection to all Cold War
properties. It does believe, however, that other means of safeguarding
these resources besides the legal requirements associated with National
Register listing should be considered for representative properties and
objects of recent history.
The evaluation criteria set forth for National Register nominations
are, nonetheless, useful in thinking about historical value. The
criteria call attention to properties associated with events that have
made a contribution to broad historical patterns, those associated with
lives of significant persons, those that embody "distinctive
characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction" or that
"represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may
lack individual distinction," and those that have or might yield
important historical information.13 Properties owned by DoD
might, for example, be valuable because of their technological
associations or their connection with the military mission. Moreover,
their importance should be considered on the state and local as well as
on the national level.
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As part of the process of determining historical value, Cold War
resources should be broadly catalogued according to property type and
function. Then a series of questions can be asked, such as: How central
were they to the military mission? How many were developed or
constructed? How much did the Defense Department invest in them? Does
a site or structure retain historical integrity? What, and where, are
similar or equivalent properties? If, after research is completed,
authorities decide that a particular site, structure, or landscape does
not merit preservation, its purposes, design, and use will have been
documented before it is modified for other uses or destroyed.
Recently completed studies of the communications/surveillance systems
that dot the landscape of Alaska offer examples of steps in or
approaches to the process of evaluation and preservation
decision-making. In the 1950s, the United States began construction of
an extensive defensive network in Alaska to warn of an attack launched
from the Soviet mainland. The technology of the time required a wide
distribution of radar and communication stations. As technologies
improved, the network consolidated into a handful of facilities that
served the same purpose at lower cost and with fewer personnel.14
This far-flung communications system stretching across our
northern borders turned Alaska into a time capsule of the technological
evolution of America's first line of defense during the Cold War. Over
the years, many sites have been abandoned or scheduled for demolition;
others are to be upgraded or modified to serve different purposes. Some
are undergoing environmental restoration. Although these changes have
and will continue to occur, extensive information regarding the use and
location of these Cold War systems is retained through a U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers survey of Army and Air Force weapon systems and
installations in the state (Appendix III). This data base will provide
the necessary inventory for any future discussion regarding the
retention of a particular site or facility.
Another project pertaining to the Alaskan defense network, a study of
the White Alice Communications System that was completed in 1988,
illustrates the cooperative nature of historic preservation activities.
When the Alaska Air Command scheduled the White Alice sites for
demolition, it was determined that they might be eligible for the
National Register. The command and the Alaska State Historic
Preservation Officer signed an agreement, with the acceptance of the
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, to produce a historical
overview of the system, an inventory of 19 White Alice sites, a
statement of significance of the system, a map locating the sites in
Alaska, and a bibliography of non-classified material relating to the
system. After the documentation was completed, most sites were
demolished.15
Physical properties, particularly those associated with
military activities, seldom remain untouched over time. The term
"continuity of use" refers to facilities whose essential function
remains the same despite changes, modifications, and upgrades made to
them.16 The significance
of many Cold War resources that have been modified and reused lies in
their function rather than their original historic integrity. The
history of their evolution can be captured through records research,
photographic studies, oral histories, or measured drawings tracing the
stages of change of the structure, site, or landscape.
A well-established, albeit comprehensive and expensive, model for the
documentation of structures and sites comes from the Historic American
Buildings Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record
(HABS/HAER) of the National Park Service. Numerous DoD sites around the
country have been recorded, including some from the Cold War.17 Drawings and photographs
provide analyses of sites and their changing use. Other types of
documentation are oral and video histories, such as the Smithsonian
Archives Videohistory Project whose videotapes include nuclear pioneers
on site describing their work, the RAND Corporation's monographs, and
the Naval Research Laboratory's recordation of rocketry and
photo-reconnaissance.18
As stated above, evaluation of significance hinges upon the
identification of number and types of resources as well as on physical
condition and intrinsic historical value. Depending upon the purpose
and scope of a project, different methodologies may be used to
conduct surveys of Cold War resources.
§ A thematic approach has been used by the National Historic
Landmark program to identify sites of national significance. For
example, studies have addressed a broad theme, such as medicine or man
in space, and a nation-wide survey identified existing resources of
national significance that relate to the theme. Although this survey
methodology may be useful for identifying Cold War resource types across
the nation, it does not take into account the significance of a resource
in state and local terms.
| § The National Register Multiple Property Nomination survey approach looks at groups of specific resources related by one or more elements, such as architectural style, historical event (i.e., mobilization for Vietnam), historically significant persons, or subject (i.e., weapon laboratories). Survey boundaries can be as narrow as an installation or as broad as a state, region, city, or country, or an era of history (Cold War). Once related buildings or structures are identified, they are evaluated further according to specific local, state, or national significance, as well as historical integrity, including physical condition and modifications. The goal is to reduce the number of buildings deemed significant, in order to responsibly and economically preserve the most appropriate representatives of the type. | ![]() HABS drawing of the Vertical Wind Tunnel at Wright-Patterson
AFB, OH, is a sample of a proven, long-standing documentation
approach. |
These and other approaches have been used in surveys of DoD
properties. For example, the Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska district,
conducted its survey along Multiple Property principles. It categorized
Army and Air Force resources in Alaska by property type: interceptor
airfields, intelligence airfields, DEW line, White Alice Communication
System, Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, LORAN, and others.
Working from a different perspective, a Legacy demonstration project at
the University of South Carolina developed a methodology useful for
surveying Cold War military assets in the state. It catalogues
resources according to function: offense, defense, training, research
and development, and others. DoD cultural resource managers should
choose a survey methodology suitable to individual needs, funding and
staff resources, and time constraints.
Once a finding of historical significance is made, an informed
decision regarding preservation is possible. The options for treatment
of Cold War-era historic resources may include any of the following:
DoD regulations do not contain a definition of objects that applies
to all the military departments. Rather, each service provides its own
definition spelled out within its museum regulations. In the absence of
a single body of instruction governing museums and objects, the Cold War
Task Area follows the American Association of Museums (AAM) definition
of "tangible objects" as those with "intrinsic value to science,
history, art, or culture." When these objects - aircraft, tanks, ships,
navigation equipment, bombsights, training devices, uniforms, models,
etc. - form a museum's collections, they may "reflect, in both scope and
significance, the museum's stated purpose."19
Laws and Regulations
Congress has established the legal framework for records
management under the Federal Records Act (FRA) and for the preservation
of significant sites, structures, and landscapes under NHPA. However,
federal law is less specific in regards to the inventory, protection,
and conservation of Federal objects.20
Nonetheless, some historic preservationists and curators
consider large objects such as aircraft, missiles, and ships to be
"structures" that are subject to historic preservation laws and must be
evaluated for eligibility for nomination to the National Register of
Historic Places. Several Navy vessels from the Cold War are listed in
the National Register. The U.S.S. Nautilus, for example, the
first nuclear submarine, dating from 1954, was retired to the Submarine
Museum in Groton, Connecticut, in 1986. It is one of only two
non-commissioned ships in the Navy assigned a commissioned crew. The
crew is responsible for maintenance, preservation, monitoring systems,
and security.21
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By and large, however, the Department of Defense has not considered
large objects or weapon systems to be "structures" subject to National
Register eligibility under Federal preservation law. As stated in a May
1988 General Accounting Office report, Aircraft Preservation:
Preserving DoD Aircraft Significant to Aviation History, DoD took
the position that only those aircraft maintained in their historic
settings were appropriate National Register candidates. Therefore,
aircraft housed in museums are ineligible for the Register.22
This thinking too is evolving. A National Register
Bulletin currently in draft, partially funded through the Legacy
Program, discusses the criteria in the context of aviation. Civil
aviation structures and some aircraft are already listed, and insofar as
the Bulletin will provide greater recognition of historic
aviation properties, it may encourage DoD to reconsider National
Register listing.23
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Navy: OPNAV (Office of the Chief of Naval Operations)
Instruction 5750.13 identifies the curator for the Navy (director of
Naval History) as manager of the Navy's historical properties; OPNAV
Instruction 5755.1A provides policy to Navy commands with existing
museums and guidance to those interested in establishing new
museums. |
Museum Administration
Just as DoD has not issued Department-wide regulations defining
"artifacts" and specifying rules for their preservation, neither has it
issued directives outlining museum practices on an inter-service basis.
According to Col. A.J. Ponnwitz, Head, Museums Branch, US Marine Corps,
"all museums share common concerns relating to compliance with local,
state, and federal regulations, particularly regarding the environment,
safety, access for the disabled, fund raising, and so forth." Yet,
"each museum is focused as well to its specific concerns." Col. Richard
Uppstrom, Director of the USAF Museum, adds: "Me several services of the
DoD have already made significant progress [in preservation], although
each has done so in their own way with little or at best informal
coordination."24
Professional standards at military museums are far from
uniform. Some, such as the Army's Air Defense Artillery Museum, Fort
Bliss, Texas; the Women's Army Corps Museum, Fort McClellan, Alabama;
the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia; and the U.S.
Navy Museum in Washington, D.C., are accredited by the AAM and,
therefore, meet the minimum national professional guidelines for museum
practices. Some major museums, such as the Naval Aviation Museum at
Pensacola, Florida; the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, Norfolk, Virginia;
and the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio,
are not AAM-accredited, but appear to meet the professional guidelines
for staff, funding, and facilities. Beyond these outstanding examples,
however, the standards for managing and caring for tangible objects in
the services vary widely.25
The Army's museum system, which spans the world, is
administered by the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH) in
Washington, D.C. Centralization allows the system to function under
relatively standardized procedures. Effectively, however, operational
control for Army museums resides in the major commands (MACOMS).26
In February 1994, the Office of the Air Force Historian assumed
policy and guidance responsibilities for the USAF Museum System. The
U.S. Air Force Museum located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base serves
as the point of contact for museum activities throughout the service.
Daily operation of local museums largely falls to major commands
(MAJCOMS).27
The U.S. Navy Museum, located at the Navy Yard in Washington,
D.C., comes under the jurisdiction of the Naval Historical Center.
Effectively, local museums report to local commands rather than to the
Naval Historical Center. The decentralized organization of the museums
is designed to "validate the requirement for these museums at the local
level and to assure that they are responsible to the requirements of
their parent commands and communities."28
The cultural and historical collections of the US Marine Corps
are administered by the Museums Branch of the History and Museums
Division, Headquarters Marine Corps. The Museums Branch operates two
museums and there are four additional Command museums throughout the
Corps.29
Collections Management Issues and Approaches
DoD museums hold large collections of Cold War-era objects and
have in the Past and plan in the future to mount exhibitions on the
Korean and Vietnam Wars, and on other Cold War-related themes. In
addition to artifacts on view in museums, the services have airparks and
outdoor displays throughout the world. The Army's Aberdeen Proving
Grounds showcases United States and Soviet tanks in use through the Cold
War period. The National Museum of Naval Aircraft in Pensacola,
Florida, has an extensive collection of naval aircraft dating from the
earliest days of naval aviation. The aircraft are displayed outdoors
and in covered, protected facilities. The USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio,
has a vast collection of Army Air Corps and Air Force aircraft. A large
number are kept in the hangars that serve as museum galleries, while
others are outside. One of the most serious conservation issues for all
service museums is the lack of adequate climate-controlled storage and
display space for collections, especially for large objects such as
aircraft.
At present there is no single DoD-wide data base of Cold War-related
artifacts, which would prove useful in mounting exhibitions and for
evaluating the number and significance of objects from the period that
have been or should be collected. There are, however, service-based
projects that are responding to this need. Army museum regulations, for
example, include a suggested classification system for cataloguing
artifacts, which might be expanded to track Cold War-era objects.30 A Legacy demonstration project
at the Naval Historical Center is constructing an automated data base
with descriptive, accountability, and location data on Navy art and
artifacts from World War II and the Cold War era. The USAF Museum
maintains a complete inventory of its holdings.
Many collection decisions are dictated by considerations of
availability and cost, too few, outside the flagship museums, by a
coherent collections policy drafted by professional staff. As an
example of the latter, in 1972, working toward an exhibition that would
include aircraft used by each of the services during the Vietnam War,
curators from the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum
determined that one of each of the great variety of aircraft flown could
not reasonably be obtained or cared for. As part of Project Update,
they prepared a list of the 12 most important types of aircraft, as well
as those airplanes associated with influential events or people. They
began building their collection around that list and, after nearly two
decades, it is almost complete - from the last jet bomber to leave
Vietnam (the Martin B-57B Canberra) to the "Jolly Green Giant" rescue
helicopter (Sikorsky HH-3H).31
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Management options for treating Cold War-era objects, both
large and small, may include any of the following:
|
§ Preservation in a museum, removed from the original physical
context. § On-site interpretation, through written and visual display, in the
original physical context. § Display and interpretation on the same installation, such
as a visitors' center or museum. § Drawings, technical materials, or scale models instead of the object, in a visitor's center or installation museum.32 |
Federally generated records, regardless of format, are protected by
the Federal Records Act33 as administered by the
National Archives and Records Administration. Federal records managers
create specific agency guidelines to manage the retention, dispersal,
and disposal of federal records. Federal records managers comply with
the requirements for safeguarding national security information
according to Executive Order 12356.34 These guidelines do not,
however, encompass all Cold War-era records that relate to government or
national security interests that are Federally generated and maintained,
or held by public or private entities. (Private holdings include
university archives and defense-related industries that contracted with
DoD).35
|
Textual Records Non-Textual Records |
The Cold War Task Area has not restricted its investigations to
records covered by FRA, but has considered a broad cross-section of
literary properties that describe American military activities and
materiel. They may be the types of documents usually cited in published
military and diplomatic histories, such as reports, correspondence,
memos, budget statements, policy papers, maps, and photographs. They
may be nontextual materials such as engineering drawings or building
specifications for real property. Together they offer evidence of the
history of military roles and missions and the design, construction,
management, maintenance, and alterations of Cold War sites, structures,
landscapes, and artifacts. Directly or indirectly, these records may
also document social issues such as race relations, gender roles, and
the support of families. While a great number of records are held by
government agencies or retired to the National Archives because they are
protected under federal law, others are privately held with fewer legal
protections.
Published Histories of the Cold War
DoD historical offices research Cold War-era topics as a matter
of course even though some of the studies were not conceived
specifically as Cold War histories. For example, the Joint Staff
History Office series, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy,
concerns the Cold War era, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff was
created. Similarly, many studies from the Center for Air Force History
cover the period since the Air Force became an independent military
department during the Cold War. Publications of timely interest include
Jacob Neufeld, Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air Force,
1945-1960, and Kenneth Schaffel, The Emerging Shield: The
Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960.
The U.S. Army Center of Military History is planning a series of
Cold War history volumes; the first is already underway. It has a
lengthy publication list of other materials relating to the
period.36 The Naval
Historical Center, Contemporary History Branch, holds seminars and
publishes monographs, many of which concern Cold War events. The Office
of History, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is working on two Cold
War-related volumes: Building for Peace: A History of the Europe
Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Its Predecessor
Agencies, 1945-1991 and History of the Mediterranean and Middle
East Divisions, 1952-1991.37
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Statutes Regulations |
Declassification
With the end of the Cold War, a rethinking of the American system
of classification - itself an artifact of the Cold War - is taking
place. According to the director of the Information Security Oversight
Office, General Services Administration, which administers the
classification system, "We have a finite number of real secrets. We
could declassify thousands of documents with the declassification of a
single secret."38
As of the date of this Report, the system to declassify
national security records is hopelessly clogged. The National Archives
estimates that it alone currently holds 130,000 cubic feet or 325
million pages of records containing classified information. At the
current rate and methods for review, if no further classified records
were acquired, the declassification process would take 8 to 10 years.
This estimate does not include those records still in the custody of DoD
and national security agencies.39
Reconsideration of classification procedures is currently
underway. On April 26, 1993, the Clinton administration issued a
Presidential Review Directive (PRD) on the system of national security
information classification (embodied in Executive Order 12356 of April
6,1982). The PRD ordered a sweeping review of Cold War-era rules on
government secrecy with the intent of reducing the number of highly
classified military and intelligence programs. It set up an interagency
task force to draft new rules on classification of national security
information through a revised Executive Order.
The PRD was followed by the establishment, on May 26, 1993, of the
Joint Security Commission, charged with a comprehensive review of the
security practices and procedures under the authorities of the director
of the CIA and the Secretary of Defense. The commission's
recommendations and implementing actions are intended to improve those
security practices and procedures in concert with the President's new
Executive Order on national security issues.
Documents held by military history offices are generally declassified
both in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
(mandatory review) and as part of the systematic review recommended in
Executive Order 12356. The production of non-classified service
histories from classified documents leads occasionally to
declassification of records, but most often to unclassified publications
that have drawn from non-sensitive portions of classified documents.
The military services have projects underway specifically to
declassify Cold War records. In addition to Project SAFE PAPER, which
declassifies 500 linear feet of Cold War-era documents per year, the Air
Force has assigned a special unit to declassify records relating to the
conflict in Southeast Asia at the rate of 600 linear feet per year. The
Army has also given priority to the declassification of documents from
the Vietnam War. In addition, the Army is seeking the help of NARA to
determine appropriate disposition for its electronic records, which
include some 200,000 computer tapes of currently unavailable material.
The Navy is conducting a Legacy demonstration project to develop an
economical and expeditious method for declassifying Cold War-era
records. The Navy is also declassifying Cold War-era materials in the
regular course of business.
Once records have been transferred to the National Archives or
otherwise retired, researchers may still be denied access to them
because the records have not been declassified. In fact, the majority
of Cold War documentation and much other DoD material remains classified
and accessible only with difficulty due to the complexities of the Cold
War-era declassification process, and the sheer number of documents
awaiting classification review.40
In accordance with Executive Order 12356, the National Archives
is required to systematically review for declassification national
security classified records in its possession that are more than 30
years old. Where systematic review cannot respond to urgent requests
for information, a mandatory review takes place. The actual
declassification guidelines are provided by the originating agency,
which often reserve the ability to determine the classification status
of certain types of information.41
Documents eligible for systematic review are considered for
declassification according to NARA priorities, including intrinsic
research interest and declassifiability. For example, if the
originating agency has not provided guidance, or if less than 80 percent
of the records are declassifiable because of continuing sensitivity, the
National Archives may choose to apply its resources elsewhere.42
Systematic review procedures generally employ one of two
methods. The first, page-by-page review, is a slow and labor-intensive
process that often requires sending documents back to the originating
agency. The second, bulk declassification, is based on an examination
of a sample of the records.
The mandatory review process is routinely used to respond to requests
for current records under the Freedom of Information Act.43 While bulk
declassification can be employed, FOIA requests often require the
excision by hand of still-classified portions. In addition, mandatory
review is often the only resort for researchers interested in records
considered low priority for systematic review by the National Archives
or for which agency guidance has not been written.44
Records Held by Government Contractors
Under the provisions of FRA, the National Archives promulgates
standards and guidelines for the management of records generated by
federal agencies. The National Archives has only limited authority to
accept records generated by non-federal entities. Standard government
contracts specify which documents produced by a contractor in
fulfillment of a contract must be delivered to the contracting agency.
Once delivered, these records become part of the agency's records and,
as such, are subject to federal appraisal and disposition
procedures.45
Some records and artifacts, such as models and test project
material generated by research and development efforts, are at risk for
loss or disposal because they are not contractually obligated to the
federal government. Some may be of proprietary value to the contractor
but may be discarded when they have no economic value or usefulness, or
when patent protection is moot, even though they are historically
valuable.46
Contractors may transfer records to the federal government via
the federal contracting agency, which may eventually transfer them to
the National Archives. Contractors may donate other records "that
provide evidence as to the function of government" to the National
Archives, subject to the approval of the Archivist of the United States.
While the National Archives cannot and should not accept donation of
all records from all federal contractors, the latter should be
encouraged to preserve their own archives.47
Rights and data clauses, which appear in virtually all research
and development contracts, yield documentation that some contractors
consider a costly nuisance even though historians consider them to be
valuable primary sources.48 In addition, since the
General Accounting Office retains the right to inspect DoD-related
records held by contractors until three years after final payment,
contractors try to limit the number of records retained in order to
minimize the likelihood of a DoD records inspection.49
Some contractor records are subject to federal regulations.
For example, government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facilities
have generated large collections of documents that are retained by the
contractors. In 1988, the Department of Energy's GOCO facilities came
under a DoE-wide mandate for information preservation. Because of their
unique status, GOCO records from all federal agencies are subject to
government-style record management practices, including retention
schedules.
The Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) also
follow government records management practices. Even though they are
not strictly federal records, FFRDC records fall into a category that
the National Archives may consider taking as a donation.50
Many major defense contractors maintain extensive archives that
are accessible to the public only by permission. A company may destroy
records and models when it considers them to have no further value, or
when a contract requires destruction of classified information. A
contractor may be permitted to retain national security information, but
then must shoulder the cost of protection, a burden that mitigates
against the retention of classified material.
Access to corporate records is limited according to a company's
proprietary rights under the Trade Secrets Act, non-disclosure
agreements among companies and between individuals, national security
considerations, space and logistics, and the nature of the research. In
some organizations, both the public relations and legal departments must
approve disclosure in response to outside requests for information. A
willingness to increase public access adds significantly to the cost of
historic resource retention.51 In addition, releasing
information may have security implications for foreign nationals, even
if not for domestic interests.
Other Significant Repositories of National Security Records
The Department of Defense Acquisition Historical Center
At the behest of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition), DoD is
developing plans for the Department of Defense Acquisition Historical
Center. The center is to become a central repository for information on
DoD acquisitions, with an emphasis on weapon systems. It will not
collect original documents, so as not to interfere with Federal records
management, but will focus instead on copies of records, electronic
forms, and other information sources.52
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with its 12
original signatory countries - Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great
Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
and the United States - was created to form a defensive alliance against
Soviet aggression. In fourteen articles, the North Atlantic Treaty
outlined its goals and implementation, its organization, and the
procedures for withdrawal. The treaty went into effect on August 24,
1949. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany
in 1955, and Spain in 1982. The forces that form the NATO defense are
drawn from member nations, stationed on military bases in various
countries within the defined boundaries and include air, ground, and
naval support.53
Records in two registries at NATO headquarters in Brussels,
Belgium, document all the major political, economic, military and
strategic matters undertaken or studied within the organization. They
also cover related matters of military support, defense production, and
military procurement; the building of defense infrastructure; civil
defense planning; and ntemal security cooperation.54 Unfortunately, relatively
little is known about the deliberations of this important Cold War body
and its posture in military and diplomatic crises because these records
are almost inaccessible under existing NATO procedures. A recently
completed study commissioned by NATO surveyed records from the
organization's inception through 1958. The Deputy Permanent
Representatives who are expected to meet to consider declassification
and release of the 1949-1958 documents, as discussed in the report, must
decide what is to be released and when, where the records will be held,
and how or if they will be made public commercially.55
Preserving Literary Properties
Paper and microform copies of documents are naturally volatile.
In recent years, a number of professional groups, including the National
Archives and the Society of American Archivists, have led efforts to
limit losses of these materials. The result is a wide range of
preservation options. In addition, today's records managers and
archivists face new challenges, some of them posed in the courts, in
storing and preserving electronically generated records, including
computerized files and data bases, electronic mail, and other relatively
ephemeral media.56
The storage of paper records, including photographs, maps, and
architectural drawings, requires controlled environments to protect the
materials from extreme fluctuations in temperature and humidity,
exposure to ultraviolet light, and natural hazards including fire,
flooding, atmospheric pollution, and vermin. Some DoD repositories
contain undifferentiated collections of artifacts, records, and art.
They are at special risk when housed in surplus, substandard space and
organized by non-professionals.57
Currently, the National Archives is addressing the competing
demands of document preservation and conservation of paper. Permanent
records demand a high-quality, alkaline buffered paper stock in order to
survive.58 This
high-quality paper may contain a small percentage of recycled material,
but for the most part requires new stock. At the same time, a draft
Executive Order has been circulated that describes efforts to reduce the
waste generated by the federal government as the nation's largest single
user of paper. Central to this effort is the use of post-consumer
paper, that is, paper that has been written or printed on, which under
current methods contains an acid level that makes it unsuitable for
permanent records. At this writing, the National Archives, the paper
manufacturing industry, and other interested parties are discussing
alternatives.59
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Electronic records stored on floppy disks and magnetic tape are
particularly vulnerable to destruction by dust, humidity, temperature
fluctuations, and static electricity. Data lasts only 5 to 10 years on
floppy disks. The shelf life of magnetic tapes varies considerably,
depending on the ingredients of the medium used, and generally should
last about 20 years. Neither were designed nor intended to be kept in
permanent archival storage.
The Center of Electronic Records of the National Archives accepts
electronic data if it Map denoting Cold War DEW line sites in Alaska, is
an example of a non-textual literary property is stored in formats that
fit the center's standards.60 Because technology changes so
rapidly, archived electronic records must be accompanied by technical
information about the original software and hardware used to generate
the data, as well as points of contact in the originating institution.
This documentation should also list how the data was gathered and
managed and the purpose for which it was created.61
Although the National Archives accepts electronic records,
professional archivists still recommend "hard" paper copies of any
electronically produced materials worthy of preservation. Therefore,
those within DoD who generate information must consider questions
relating to the long-term preservation of their documents, selecting the
appropriate media their memoranda, reports, and communications.62
In order to contain Soviet aggression and to defend its allies, the
United States stationed thousands of military men and women overseas
during the Cold War. They were supported by an army of civilians.
Although the size of the American presence waxed and waned with changing
geopolitical events, the numbers of personnel remained high until the
Cold War ended and the United States began the steady process of
reduction, realignment, and withdrawal. Left behind in the process of
base closure are facilities those built by, lent to, or rented to
Americans, since almost none were owned by the U.S. government.
Part of the history of an abandoned overseas installation or
redeployed unit can be retrieved from the voluminous documents that deal
with such matters as real property and military operations, which
existing federal law and regulations require DoD to maintain. It may
also be captured through artifacts that might exemplify Cold War
technology or an organization's lineage and traditions. Services'
regulations instruct base commanders to notify their service museum
authority about items of historical interest in their possession,
especially when disposal is under consideration. Before bases close,
the services frequently send teams to survey and evaluate artifacts.
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Unlike documents and artifacts, the sites, structures, and landscapes
that contribute physical evidence to the record of DoD's activities
abroad during the Cold War - such as listening posts and communications
stations, quonset huts that housed a range of military functions,
training areas, aircraft hangars, dry docks, nuclear submarine ports,
underground command centers, and logistical facilities, as well as those
churches, homes, and day care centers that provided social support to
families - do not remain in American hands.63
Laws and Regulations
It is not the purpose of this Report to describe the highly
complex and variable legal arrangements that govern U.S. forces
overseas. As a general matter, in the case of physical properties and
sites that it occupies abroad, the American military is subject to
Status of Forces Agreements, treaties, and the Overseas Environmental
Baseline Guidance Document and Final Governing Standards.
A Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) is a document that establishes
the legal rights and protocols of U.S. military forces stationed
overseas. There is not one standard agreement for all countries where
U.S. forces are stationed. Rather, agreements are negotiated between
the United States and individual host countries.
To clarify American responsibilities for units stationed abroad, the
Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Environment)
launched a task force to develop DoD-wide guidelines for properties of
host nations.64 As a
result, on October 1, 1992, DoD issued the Overseas Environmental
Baseline Guidance Document (OEBGD), which is designed to ensure
compliance with U.S. and host nation standards for active overseas
installations. The OEBGD applies to all DoD installations overseas when
"the host countries' environmental standards do not exist, are not
applicable, or provide less protection to human health and the natural
environment than the baseline guidance."65 Although it contains a
protocol for natural and cultural resources, the OEBGD does not provide
specific instruction for protection and management of Cold War resources
abroad.
Management and Preservation Issues and Approaches
Some artifacts from the Cold War that are important to foreign
and U.S. governments alike have already been preserved. For example,
the last guardhouse constructed for Checkpoint Charlie is housed today
in a private German museum, although it will soon be transferred
elsewhere. Two cars from the Berlin Duty Train are in the Fort Eustis
Transportation Museum. The "Command Car" is displayed in Berlin.66
Anglo-American ties have long been strong. Therefore the
possibilities for preservation of American Cold War sites in the United
Kingdom may be promising.67 Representatives of the
Cold War Task Area discussed a program of Joint sponsorship with the
British and U.S. branches of the International Council on Monuments and
Sites (ICOMOS) to document sites in England that are significant to both
countries. They might be found to be eligible for the Historic
Buildings and Monuments Commission (English Heritage), the British
version of the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Even if sites
are not maintained in this manner, their documentation would preserve an
important piece of Cold War history.
Preservation of U.S. holdings may be more difficult in Asian
countries than in Europe. In Japan and Okinawa, for example, the
scarcity of land and the pressure for its reuse makes retaining U.S.
structures or landscapes in situ after the United States has
left, unlikely.68
Here, as elsewhere, the memory of regional and ethnic animosities and
historic events may override American preservation efforts. In Korea,
for instance, DoD occupies land previously held by the pre-World War II
Japanese military occupation.69 The ancient hostility
between Japan and Korea complicates any potential effort to preserve
these sites.70
In most cases, the United States cannot control the disposition
of overseas physical properties that housed its activities during the
Cold War. Typically, artifacts and documents are transferred with a
unit or wing to its new location, or are retired to a museum or archival
facility. However, the sites, structures, and landscapes cannot be
moved. Usually, therefore, the only option is to survey and document
overseas installations, recording the history of both DoD and the host
country in the process.
In one such effort, a team from the Naval Historical Center deployed
to the U.S. Naval Activity near the Holy Loch, Scotland, slated to close
as a nuclear submarine port. The team collected paper records, computer
disks, photographs, oral histories, artifacts, and other textual and
non-textual materials and produced a videotape of the interviews.
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Through this type of documentation, DoD makes a record of its
activities in parts of the world it has vacated. What the military
leaves in its wake will be the places; what it takes will be the
stories, photographs, drawings, documents, and objects that tell
historians, and therefore the American people, something about their
past during a perilous epoch during the 20th century.
Those of us reading this Report in 1994 recall the years of
anxiety, out in the cold. Some who were children in the 1950s remember
crouching down along school hallways or under desks during practice air
raid drills, with hands over our heads to "protect" ourselves. The
dreadful knowledge that we and our enemy faced each other across
stockpiles of weaponry capable of destroying the planet, with only the
threat of retaliation to deter their use, left psychological scars upon
more than two generations of Americans - and presumably also on those on
the "other side." The lives of many adults now in their prime have
spanned the years of the Cold War and its hot spots, from World War II
(the "good war") to the inconclusive Korean War, and through the
divisive Vietnam War, with its lengthy emotional aftermath that
unsettled the American military's certainty regarding its mission and
the willingness of society to support it. The jubilation that greeted
the dissolution of Soviet Communism signaled the close of an era and the
sense, at least temporarily, that with the end of the nuclear standoff
that marked the Cold War, the world might become more peaceful.
We are not the only generation to have lived in troubled but
interesting times, or whose story will be sifted and retold well past
our own lifetimes. At the outset, this Report stated that the Cold War
Task Area is not writing a history of the Cold War. That will be the
province of historians, journalists, sociologists, policy makers, and
Ph.D. candidates who will chum out Cold War books and monographs far
into the 21st century. The assignment for the Legacy Cold War Project
is to aid in the preservation of the raw materials from which those
volumes will be produced.
Congressional language directs the Legacy Program to establish a
project to "inventory, protect, and conserve the physical and literary
property and relics of the Department of Defense, in the United States
and overseas, connected with the origins and the development of the Cold
War." Legacy's congressional charge is seconded by the Secretary of
Defense and senior officials in the military departments concerned with
broadly defined issues of environmental security, as well as by DoD
cultural resource managers, historians, and curators who are faced daily
with the necessity to preserve, manage, and dispose of Cold War assets
at a time of massive military drawdown.
At this time of rapid change, objects are disappearing or being
discarded, buildings are being tom down, and records are being lost or
thrown away. The people responsible for DoD's material culture are
confronted with a daunting task in deciding how to protect and preserve
the evidence of the military's role during the Cold War - the structures
built to store and maintain the equipment, train the forces, and house
their dependents, the ships, aircraft, tanks, and their prototypes,
radar and electronics, launch complexes, logistical facilities, bombs,
missiles, machine guns, training simulators and combat training ranges,
research and manufacturing facilities, test sites and proving grounds,
spy satellites and listening posts, special operations bases, and
command/ control/communications sites. Commanders and resource managers
must sort out legal requirements and make professional judgments, with
little time or information by which to evaluate the historical
significance of these and other Cold War resources, or clear instruction
that allows them to make management decisions.
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Responsible caretakers throughout DoD are already beginning to
survey and evaluate portions of their Cold War heritage. The Cold War
Task Area is acting to provide direction and coordination of these
efforts in order to avoid duplication and unnecessary expense. It hopes
that these joint endeavors, engaging cultural resource professionals
from all the services, will allow the Department to examine and account
for its Cold War holdings in a coherent way, and may also lead to the
development of new or modified management tools where they are
needed.
The purpose of this Report is to provide a general description of
Cold War cultural resources, possible management and preservation
options for treating them, and an overview of the activities taking
place within and outside DoD to inventory and protect Cold War assets.
It recommends an approach to the preservation of Cold War material
culture, reiterated below, and has developed an action plan for the Cold
War Task Area designed to aid in the implementation of that approach.
Finally, the Task Area offers the following suggestions, intended to
enhance cooperation among the military services, as well as between DoD
and other federal agencies, with the goal of producing a consistent,
interdependent, and productive DoD-wide preservation effort.
Suggested Actions for Preservation and Documentation of Cold War
Resources
§ Preservation. The Cold War Task Area maintains that it is
inappropriate and unnecessary for all Cold War cultural resources - the
military hardware or other property developed or constructed during the
period - to be evaluated according to the requirements for National
Register eligibility. It does recommend, however, that DoD make every
effort to identify important types of resources from the Cold War. They
can then be considered for preservation, based upon the range of options
discussed in Chapter II of this Report. As a result, the function and
design of the major resource types from the Cold War will be documented
for the historical record, and an informed evaluation will underlie any
preservation decision.
§ Data bases. To aid in drafting management tools and disseminating
information regarding Cold War resources, the information gathered from
inventories and research studies should be compiled and stored
electronically and made generally available.
§ Declassification. The Legacy Cold War Task Area commends the
declassification efforts currently underway within some offices of DoD,
but urges others who have been less active to initiate or step up their
efforts. It recommends that the military departments and national
security agencies faced with increasingly strict requirements to
declassify records join in a multi-agency effort to coordinate their
procedures, possibly under the auspices of the Office of the Secretary
of Defense.
§ Contractor records. Regarding records still held by defense
industry contractors, further efforts should be made to promote
corporate commitments to archival programs based on professional
archival standards; to capture the records of defense-related industries
as they reorganize, disband, etc.; and to support tax incentives for
defense industries currently undergoing reductions who save or donate
defense records.
§ Document collection and storage. For a variety of reasons, many
records that explicate the military's roles and missions during the Cold
War are not retired to Federal records centers. The services keep many
records in many different places. Real property records, for example,
tend not to be retired routinely along with the operational or
historical records that explain the use of facilities. Contractor
records, personal papers, and Cold War collections such as the old
Current News are not covered by the FRA. In other cases, records
are simply lost or thrown away. An archive storage facility for these
disparate types of Cold War materials would contribute to their
retention and usability.
§ Collections management inventory and data base. An electronic
database should be created to include description, location. and
accountability data of Cold War-related artifacts found in DoD
collections.
§ Overseas studies and surveys. Because DoD exercises far less
control over the preservation of overseas sites than those in the United
States, it cannot require that foreign-source documents relating to
facilities used by the United States be retired to the National
Archives. DoD funding to pursue studies and surveys of installations
and artifacts related to the U.S. military presence overseas during the
Cold War should be given high priority.
§ Partnerships for East-West projects. Partnerships should be
pursued between DoD and other federal and outside agencies active in
Cold War studies to consider strategies for protecting NATO and Eastern
bloc records. Similarly, the instigation of partnerships among the
Departments of State and Defense and international bodies may permit
consideration of the preservation of overseas Cold War facilities in
which the United States has an interest.
§ Cold War Project administration. The Cold War Task Area
recommends that the Cold War Project, which Congress required the Legacy
Program to establish by 1993, continue to encourage and coordinate
broad-based scholarly, environmental, and cultural resource management
activities related to the legacy of DoD during the Cold War. Depending
upon the fiscal and staffing resources allocated to it, the Task Area
could provide an umbrella for actions taken to further the
recommendations above. It would:
The Cold War Task Area makes its suggestions in the spirit of helping
to clarify the issues that DoD faces as it deepens its commitment and
broadens its program of good stewardship of Cold War historic
resources.
Sponsored Conferences
Cold War Working Group Meeting, Fort Myer, VA, October
28, 1991
Cold War Context Meeting, Washington, DC, June 25, 1992
Department of Defense-National Archives and Records Administration
Declassification Conference, Washington, DC, October 20-21, 1992
Preserving the History of the Military Contracting Industry: A
Conference Co-Sponsored by the Legacy Resource Management Program,
Department of Defense; National Archives and Records Administration; and
the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Santa
Monica, CA, November 19-20, 1992
Presentations
Society of American Archivists, Philadelphia, PA,
September 1991
National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO),
San Francisco, CA, October 15, 1991
National Council on Public History, Columbia, SC, March 11-15, 1992
NCSHPO Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, March 21-23, 1992
Organization of American Historians, Chicago, IL, April 2-5, 1992
Society of American Archaeologists, Pittsburgh, PA, April 7, 1992
DoD Legacy Pacific Regional Workshop, Honolulu, HI, April 14-16,
1992
Society for History in the Federal Government, Washington, DC, April 14,
1992
Department of Defense Cultural Resource Conference, F.E. Warren Air
Force Base, WY, May 4-5, 1992
National Guard Historians Meeting, Helena, MT, May 11-12, 1992
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Environment) Thomas Baca, June
19, 1992
NCSHPO Board Meeting, Juneau, AK, July 17-21, 1992
TAMS Meeting, Washington, DC, July 21-23, 1992
TAMS Meeting, Fort Belvoir, VA, September 18, 1992
US/ICOMOS meeting, Miami, FL, October 9, 1992
Joint American Historical Association-Organization of American
Historians-Society of
American Archivists, Committee on Archives, Washington, DC, October 19,
1992
Army Cultural Resource Planning Meeting, Ft. Benjamin Harrison, ID,
November 5, 1992
TAMS Meeting, San Antonio, TX, December 1, 1992
US/ICOMOS Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, January 16, 1993
NCSHPO Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, March 31, 1993
Organization of American Historians, Anaheim CA, April 17, 1993
National Council on Public History, Valley Forge, PA, April 29-May 1,
1993
Sponsored Meetings
National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of
History, April 16, 1992
Montana State Historic Preservation Office, Marcella Sherfy, SHPO,
Helena, MT, May 12, 1992
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Environment) Staff, May 28,
1992
DoD History Offices, June 1992:
Office of the Secretary of Defense History Office
Joint Chiefs of Staff History Office
Center of Military History
Center for Air Force History
Naval Historical Center
National Archives and Records Administration, July 9, 1992
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, July 13,
1992
New York State Historic Preservation Office, Julia Stokes, deputy SHPO,
July 19, 1992
Alaska State Historic Preservation Office, Judith Bittner, SHPO, July
22, 1992
National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office, Anchorage, AK, July, 22,
1992
University of South Carolina historian Dan Bilderback, August 17,
1992
National Archives and Records Administration and National Air and Space
Museum, Smithsonian, September 16, 1992
Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, Jim Garrison, SHPO, January,
1993
Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, Ray Luce, SHPO, April 5,
1993
Texas State Historic Preservation Office, Amy Dase, April 17, 1993
Conferences Attended
National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual
Meeting, San Francisco, CA, October 16-20, 1991
Beyond the Cold War, An Academic Conference, Madison, WI, October 20-21,
1991
American Association of Museums Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, April
27-29, 1992
Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec,
September 12-16, 1992
The Atomic West Symposium, Seattle WA, September 25-28, 1992
National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Meeting, Miami, FL,
October 6-10, 1992,
Navy Cultural Resource Conference, Norfolk, VA, November 9, 1992
Site Visits
Alaska, July 21-August 2, 1992
Carlisle Barracks and Museum, PA, October 5-6, 1992
Japan and Korea, September 24-October 2, 1992
Key West, FL, October 12, 1992
Belgium, England, Germany, and Scotland, October 23-November 13,
1992
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, April 5-8, 1993
Archives Visited
Air Force Photographic Archives, National Air and Space
Museum
Army Combat Art Archives
Army Corps of Engineer Photographic Archives
Navy Combat Art Archives
Navy Photographic Archives
Cold War Demonstration Projects, FY 1991-1993
Demonstration projects serve as tools to survey,
inventory, and explore a variety of Cold War resources owned by DoD and
others. Many of the projects will be used as case studies to provide
guidance for further research. Others, when completed, will provide the
public and historians with previously unseen documents and
histories that can be used to better understand the Cold War. The
Legacy program partially or completely funded 26 Cold War-related
demonstration projects between FY 1991-1993. A number of the projects
involve significant partnerships between DoD and other agencies and
organizations. Unless otherwise noted, all projects were funded late in
FY 93 and, therefore, are just beginning.
Cold War Activities by DoD, Federal Agencies,
and
State Historic Preservation Officers 1991 - 1993
Office of the Secretary of Defense
A history of the Pentagon building by Dr. Alfred Goldberg, The
Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, has recently been published by
GPO. A conference of former East Bloc military archivists is in the
planning phase as a partnership among DoD, CIA, and Department of State
History Offices and the National Archives and Records Administration.
It will be funded as a Cold War demonstration project for the Legacy
program. The conference would explore research possibilities and build
joint projects.
Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District
A Cold War resource management plan is being developed for Alaska in
consultation with the State historic preservation officer and the 11th
Air Force. The report, expected by December 1993, will have four
components: an inventory of all sites in Alaska (approximately 200),
brief descriptions of each, discussion of historic context, and
recommendations for each site. The Corps may continue with historic
reports on special historical topics, either on types such as the DEW
line or missile systems, or on activities such as fighter-intercept.
Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District
The Key West Naval Air Station is the subject of a Section 106
compliance survey. The Corps is looking at buildings built prior to
1946 to determine the eligibility for the National Register, but is also
paying special attention to the Cold War significance of the structures
and station itself, mainly stemming from the Cuban Missile Crisis. The
report will include a short history of the Key West Naval Air Station,
building inventory forms, and photographs.
Army Corps of Engineers, New England Division
The Corps of Engineers has completed a comprehensive survey of Nike
missile sites in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Vermont) as part of a programmatic agreement for portions of
the Defense Environmenta