6 Bases during the Cold War

away from HF for military purposes. But, the vulnerability of satellites has ledto renewed interest, particularly in connection with new technology, that is,“sounders,” solid-state transmitters and microprocessors which can allow forshifting frequencies in response to environmental changes. That interest isunderscored by the fact that HF uses the ionosphere for transmission, a mediumdifficult to permanently interrupt. Finally, in the context of military anxietiesabout nuclear “black-out” caused by nuclear blasts during war, mobile or proliferatedHF systems are considered one of the more robust types of communications.30Among the HF systems used during the Cold War were SAC’s GiantTalk/Scope Signal III for strategic bombers, the air/ground/air Global Commandand Control System network, the Mystic Star Presidential/VIP network and theDefense Communications System (DCS) “entry sites.”Very-low frequency (VLF) and low frequency (LF) are also considered relativelyreliable in a nuclear environment and can penetrate sea water as well.31Hence, for the U.S., a key system was GWEN (Ground Wave EmergencySystem), a grid of unmanned relay stations with LF transmitters and receivershardened to withstand electromagnetic pulse (EMP).32 When fully proliferated, itused a system of “automatic diverse routing” so as to maximize imperviousnessto interference even by a full-scale nuclear attack. Yet another robust systemwas “meteor burst communications,” using billions of ionized meteor trails toreflect very-high frequency (VHF) signals.33 This system would apparentlybenefit from the increased ionization caused by nuclear war.114 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. HarkavyAs an example of what was involved, we may look at some of the earlierglobal networks utilized by the U.S. for communicating with underwater submarines.Throughout most of the 1970s, the U.S. had eight Omega VLF facilitieslocated overseas. Some of these were phased out beginning in the late 1970s andsome were retained, despite their obsolescence, as backup systems. They werelocated at: Reunion (Mafate), operated by the French Navy; Trinidad andTobago; Liberia (Paynesword); Australia (Woodside); Argentina (Golfo Nuevo,Trelev): Japan (Tsushima Island); and Norway (Bratland).34Then there was the far larger global network of LORAN-D/C radionavigationsystems, which were also utilized in connection with aircraft navigation.And as a sub-set, this further involved the Clarinet Pilgrim system in thePacific, a shore-to-submarine network (four sites in Japan and one on YapIsland) that worked by superimposing data on the waves transmitted byLORAN-C. Some of these were operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, to a degreereflective of the mixed civilian and military navigation aid functions of theLORAN network (still earlier there were some systems designated as LORAN-A). And, as in the case of Omega, some were jointly operated with host-nationpersonnel. Among the numerous LORAN-C/D transmitters and monitoring stationsoverseas (there were many others in the U.S., including Alaska andHawaii) were those shown in the table.In the latter part of the Cold War, as a replacement for Omega and LORAN-C, the U.S. installed its new satellite-based NAVSTAR global positioningsystem for submarines, which among other things, apparently involved the capabilityto provide SLBMs with corrective guidance after they surfaced.NAVSTAR’s control segment consisted of five monitor stations to “trackpassively all satellites in view and accumulate ranging data from the navigationsignals.” That information was transmitted to the NAVSTAR Master ControlStation at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The other stations used fortracking, telemetry, control and passive monitoring were at Ascension, DiegoGarcia, Kwajalein and Guam, notably all islands controlled by the U.S. orthe U.K.Whereas most communications with submarines are conducted along the LFspectrum, combatants will usually use HF (the corresponding intelligence interceptionfacilities are HF direction finders, that is HF/DF). The U.S. had a considerablenumber of naval HF transmitters and receivers scattered about theglobe, most of them near major naval facilities or near bodies of water heavilytraversed by U.S. fleet units. They included those shown in Table 4.Regarding SAC “fail-safe” systems, involving “positive control,” meaningthe bombers went ahead in a crisis only if given “executive instructions,” therewas a global system of HF communications called “Giant Talk/Scope SignalPage 22