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AT FORT MONMOUTH, NEW JERSEY: CONTEXT FOR COLD WAR ERA, REVISION OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES DOCUMENTATION, AND SURVEY OF EVANS AREA AND SECTIONS OF CAMP CHARLES WOOD by Mary Beth Reed Mark Swanson NEW SOUTH ASSOCIATES Stone Mountain, Georgia Subcontractor for Geo-Marine, Inc. and Rebecca Procter Marsha Prior June 1996 |
NUMBER 125 Geo-Marine, Inc. 550 East Fifteenth Street Plano, Texas 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District 819 Taylor Street Fort Worth, Texas
|
Impact of the Vietnam War, 1965-1973
The war in Vietnam was inherited from the French, who had tried to re-establish their colonial rule in Indochina after the Second World War. After the disaster at Dien Bien Phu, the French washed their hands of the affair and presided over the division of North and South Vietnam in the mid-1950s. Long time Nationalist and Communist, Ho Chi Minh, victor over the French, assumed governmental control in the north, while the French (and the Americans, who bankrolled the French) helped set up a Francophile Catholic, Ngo Dinh Diem, as leader in the south. Diem’s regime was corrupt and inept, and had to be supported by American advisors by the early 1960s. Diem’s successors were even worse. In 1965, General Westmoreland and other leaders like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara pushed for American ground troops to buttress the South Vietnamese regime, and President Johnson obliged. Soon there would be hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in South Vietnam.
American troop build-up in Vietnam continued until Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive in early 1968. Although Tet was almost as disastrous for the North Vietnamese as it was for the Americans, it was the big turning point of the war. It broke the will of Johnson and McNamara to prosecute the war, and soon ways were sought to hold the line, or at least extract American troops without the stigma of defeat. This was also the policy of the Nixon administration, which assumed control of the war effort in 1969.
Fort Monmouth, like all the other Army installations, was important to the war effort. One of the technological improvements of the war was in radio communications, especially field radios like the AN/PRC-25, and radios for field vehicles, like the AN/VRC-12 (Army Research and Development 1967). It was during Vietnam that electron tubes, the mainstay of electronics equipment for over 50 years, were completely replaced in most functions by transistors and integrated circuits. Work was also done on night vision devices, mortar locators, and air-traffic control systems (CECOM Historical Office 1994:17). Advances were also made in electronics equipment for aircraft. These included the Tactical Avionics Systems Simulator (TASS) created in 1965. This laboratory, complete with maneuverable cockpits and closed-circuit television, improved electronics systems used for Army aviation.
Work was also done on a remotely monitored battlefield
sensor system that could be used to safeguard large areas of the country
from Communist infiltration. This “McNamara Line” was too ambitious
to be practical, but similar sensors were used to established safe perimeters
around troop camps (Dr. Richard Bingham, personal communication 1995).
Some of these sensors were well-disguised: one type was encased in epoxy
and passed for dog feces (Dr. Stanley Kronenberg, personal communication
1995).
Even before American involvement in the war was over, Fort Monmouth began a series of changes that would lead to a complete Army overhaul in the late 1970s. First was the creation of the Electronics Technology and Devices Laboratory (ET&DL), created in 1971 from parts of the Electronics Components Laboratory and the old Institute for Exploratory Research (ECOM Information Office 1973:inside end cover). In 1972, the EWL moved its headquarters to Building 2705, behind the Hexagon in the Camp Charles Wood area (EWL ca. 1981). Finally, in 1974, the Signal Corps School was relocated to Fort Gordon, Georgia.
By 1977, another Army overhaul was planned, with the reorganization set to take effect within ECOM in January of 1978. In the course of this AMC-wide reorganization, it was decided to separate all research and development functions from materiel readiness functions (CECOM Historical Office 1994:9). To accomplish this, ECOM was to be split into three new research and development organizations: ERADCOM (Electronics Research and Development Command), CORADCOM (Communications Research and Development Command), and AVRADA (Avionics Research and Development Activity). ERADCOM was to handle electronics; CORADCOM, communications and automatic data processing; and AVRADA, attached to AVRADCOM, dealt with aviation electronics (ECOM Information Office 1977). The materiel readiness functions were taken over by CERCOM (Communications Electronics Materiel Readiness Command). CERCOM and CORADCOM remained headquartered at Fort Monmouth; elements of ERADCOM also remained on post, mostly limited to the Evans area and parts of Camp Charles Wood (CECOM Historical Office 1994:9; ERADCOM 1980). AVRADA also remained in the Charles Wood Area (Dr. Richard Bingham, personal communication 1995).
Among the ERADCOM elements located at Fort Monmouth were the Combat Surveillance and Target Acquisition Laboratory, the Electronics Technology and Devices Laboratory, and the EWL (Moye 1985:1). The old Marconi Hotel in the Evans area (Building 9001) became headquarters for the Combat Surveillance and Target Acquisition Laboratory (Evans Area ca. 1980). The Electronics Technology and Devices Lab was headquartered at the Hexagon, in the Charles Wood Area. The EWL was also headquartered at Charles Wood, Building 2705 (ECOM Information Office ca. 1980; ERADCOM 1980).
By 1981, the separation of research and development from materiel readiness functions was perceived to have been a mistake. In May of that year, CERCOM and CORADCOM were combined to form CECOM (Communications-Electronics Command). Fort Monmouth headquarters was transferred to CECOM, even though many parts of the installation still answered to other commands (CECOM Historical Office 1994:9-11; Klein et al. 1984:1.13). The creation of CECOM began the process by which many of the commands formed in 1978 were again merged into one unified command (Dr. Richard Bingham, personal communication 1995).
In October of 1985, ERADCOM was deactivated, and two of
its three laboratories at Fort Monmouth--the Combat Surveillance and Target
Acquisition Laboratory and the EWL-- passed to CECOM (Moye 1985:1).
The third and largest laboratory at Fort Monmouth, Electronics Technology
and Devices (ET&DL) became part of the Laboratory Command (LABCOM)
in that same year (Dr. Richard Bingham, personal communication 1995; CECOM
Historical Office 1994:11; ERADCOM 1980:1-14). For the remainder
of the Cold War era, Fort Monmouth would fall under CECOM jurisdiction.
Research in the 1970s and 1980s
During this period of reorganization, it should be remembered that electronics work always remained at Fort Monmouth. Rarely was physical equipment moved around as a result of command changes; labs simply reported to different commands (Dr. Richard Bingham, personal communication 1995). Unfortunately, more is known about changes in command than about the research that went on during this same period. Not only are the research projects often very specialized, but, because they are more recent, knowledge of their function is often more restricted than the earlier work at Fort Monmouth.
Much of the information about recent research has come
out of the EWL, whose mission has been to provide the Army with electronic
warfare devices. This includes everything from sensors, direction-finding
devices, emitter locators, jamming devices, and various computer-driven
processing devices. Some of the most prominent devices have been
“Teampack,” a ground-based radio locator that identified and located mobile
non-communications emitters. Another is “Guardrail V,” an airborne
radio and direction-finding system. In addition to these and other
warning systems designed to be used in combat, the EWL has also done research
in missile detection, targeting by radio location, ultraviolet instruments,
and various laser technologies (ECOM Information Office ca. 1980).
The EWL and other labs at Fort Monmouth are even believed to have had some
research input into the Strategic Defense Initiative, more commonly known
as the “Star Wars” defense, popularized during the Reagan years (Dr. Richard
Bingham, personal communication 1995).
Fort Monmouth has been in the technological forefront of this nation’s defense since its inception during World War I. At no point were its achievements more valuable than during World War II, when radar sets designed at Fort Monmouth gave this country a decisive edge over the Axis powers, especially the Japanese. Without a pause, Fort Monmouth’s technological advances continued into the Cold War, even making it the center of an important political controversy for a brief period in the early 1950s. The McCarthy era, however, was only a momentary disturbance in an otherwise remarkable chain of accomplishments. In addition to new electronic devices designed specifically for combat, installation scientists also made great contributions to the space-race and nuclear technology.
The most revolutionary innovation associated with Fort Monmouth occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s with the work done on transistors and the discovery of the auto-sembly method of circuitry manufacturing. These innovations made it possible to create the first practical computers in the 1950s. With every year, these computers became smaller and more powerful until, in the late 1970s, the first desktop-size “personal computers” went on the market. This development, like few others, sparked a revolution in the way people live and work—and the way nations fight. It has been so important that it has been dubbed nothing less than the “Third Industrial Revolution,” second in importance only to the first revolution in late eighteenth-century Britain and the development of commercial electricity in the late nineteenth century. Throughout the Cold War era, researchers at Fort Monmouth discovered, designed, and improved on technological innovations that have helped keep the United States in the vanguard. Fort Monmouth’s role in this achievement assures its historic significance.
Page updated December 30, 2003
page created December 27, 2000
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