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. |
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. |
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
CHAPTER I. The Legacy Cold War Project
The Legacy Resource Management Program Cold War Project
Cold War Task Area, FY 1991-1992
Cold War Task Area, FY 1993-1994
CHAPTER II. Cold War Historic Resources
Physical Properties
Objects
Literary Properties
U.S. Military Holdings Overseas
CHAPTER III. Conclusion and Recommendations
APPENDICES
I Cold War Task Area Activities, FY 1991-1992
II Cold War Demonstration Projects, FY 1991-1993
III Cold War Activities by DoD, Federal Agencies, and State Historic Preservation Officers
IV Interim Guidance. Treatment of Cold War Historic
Properties for U.S. Air Force Installations; Department of Navy Cultural Resources Program Note No. 7:
Historic Cold War Properties
V The Mission of the Department of Defense
During the Cold War; Cold War Timeline
VI Selected Bibliography
VII Glossary of Terms
VIII Glossary of Acronyms
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.
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:
§ 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.
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
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
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
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
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