The US Army's Advent communications satellite (early 1960s)

[LittleBird]

OK. Would you accept the phrase "influence the design of" rather than "design" ? Or would they just take whatever system they were given ?

And that's my question. SAC had a lot of influence on the USAF in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s. They essentially controlled the Air Force. So I wonder what their interests/requirements were for communications. How did that influence the types of comsats USAF wanted to build? It seems like SAC didn't really demand comsats for the first half decade or so.

In particular, how much did SAC want beyond the ability to send the Emergency Action Message which afaik is one-way, and which seems to have been carried via AFSATCOM  on various missions starting iirc in 1970s with  SDS and FLTSATCOM (and then SCT on DSCS III).

Did they need/want two-way comms ?

    Peter Cook:  Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too.
    Jonathan Miller: Goodbye, sir — or is it — au revoir?
    Peter Cook: No, Perkins.

[Blackstar]

The CRM-114 Discriminator was able to receive signals from many sources.

[LittleBird]

The CRM-114 Discriminator was able to receive signals from many sources.

Indeed. One would hope so really.

Was fascinated to see how much we do know now about Wing Attack Plan R: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-08-15/us-nuclear-war-plan-option-sought-destruction-china-soviet-union-viable-societies

and the means by which it would have been disseminated:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-02-25/how-strategic-air-command-would-go-nuclear-war

[Jim]

OK. Would you accept the phrase "influence the design of" rather than "design" ? Or would they just take whatever system they were given ?

And that's my question. SAC had a lot of influence on the USAF in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s. They essentially controlled the Air Force. So I wonder what their interests/requirements were for communications. How did that influence the types of comsats USAF wanted to build? It seems like SAC didn't really demand comsats for the first half decade or so.

In particular, how much did SAC want beyond the ability to send the Emergency Action Message which afaik is one-way, and which seems to have been carried via AFSATCOM  on various missions starting iirc in 1970s with  SDS and FLTSATCOM (and then SCT on DSCS III).

Did they need/want two-way comms ?

Global High Frequency System

[LittleBird]

OK. Would you accept the phrase "influence the design of" rather than "design" ? Or would they just take whatever system they were given ?

And that's my question. SAC had a lot of influence on the USAF in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s. They essentially controlled the Air Force. So I wonder what their interests/requirements were for communications. How did that influence the types of comsats USAF wanted to build? It seems like SAC didn't really demand comsats for the first half decade or so.

In particular, how much did SAC want beyond the ability to send the Emergency Action Message which afaik is one-way, and which seems to have been carried via AFSATCOM  on various missions starting iirc in 1970s with  SDS and FLTSATCOM (and then SCT on DSCS III).

Did they need/want two-way comms ?

Global High Frequency System

Thanks-I see it's been renamed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Global_Communications_System

[LittleBird]

OK. Would you accept the phrase "influence the design of" rather than "design" ? Or would they just take whatever system they were given ?

And that's my question. SAC had a lot of influence on the USAF in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s. They essentially controlled the Air Force. So I wonder what their interests/requirements were for communications. How did that influence the types of comsats USAF wanted to build? It seems like SAC didn't really demand comsats for the first half decade or so.

An interesting point is that while SAC had an international ground based HF system, as per Jim's posting, from 1950s at least, the external drivers on SAC may have changed by late 60s. This would be relevant to the AFSATCOM era and later.

It sounds as if Macnamara  and later on Kissinger [*] and Nixon became dissatisfied with their limited options under SIOP. The more one had to accomodate the idea of changing it on the fly, the better the comms you'd need.

See e.g. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB173/index.htm and especially docs 9a and b:

Kissinger's search for "more discriminating options than the present SIOP," which would be appropriate for the "kinds of situations which the President might actually face in a crisis," led to a request for Nixon's approval of a new National Security Study Memorandum, NSSM 64. The request, which Kissinger signed on July 8, 1969, did not explicitly mention the SIOP or "discriminating options" but nonetheless tasked the Defense Department to evaluate how well U.S. strategic forces would stand up to strategic nuclear attacks in terms of their "capability to deter and respond to less than all-out or disarming Soviet attacks" as well as a "a range of possible war outcomes." Other problems to be studied were force mixes, command-and-control improvements, and possible changes in the criteria for strategic sufficiency.

and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-08-15/us-nuclear-war-plan-option-sought-destruction-china-soviet-union-viable-societies e.g.

Major recommendations on SIOP guidance would have reached Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara but no paper trail is presently available on that point. While McNamara saw an assured destruction force as adequate for deterrence, the SIOP did not include such an option because of its heavy emphasis on counter-force. Indeed, assured destruction was antithetical to the SIOP because it assumed just enough forces for retaliation against a smaller target set. Years later, McNamara told author Deborah Shapley that had the circumstances arisen, he and the president could have improvised: “we had complete presidential control over [the SIOP]” and “we knew how, on a rough basis, to cut back on the strike options.” Yet, he conceded that he “never did modify the SIOP to reflect realistic alternatives.”[17]

[* Kissinger of course was particularly interested in this question, cf his 1957 book https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/henry-kissingers-tactical-nuclear-shadow]