By Neil Harris
THE BIGGEST empires, the most
warlike imperialist powers, all have a lot of administration to deal with;
there are wages to pay and pensions to calculate. The more powerful the imperialism the more
complex it gets and America’s
is the most complicated of all. Mass
murder leaves a paper trail of invoices and receipts.
Diplomats have a lifestyle to
maintain and there is, after all, a big difference between postings to Kabul and Paris. Over the years
this has led to many arguments over the cost of accommodation, schooling and
relocations as well as danger rates in war zones. The US State Department even
has an Office of Allowances to deal with the paperwork.
The New
Worker has tracked down a table of these allowances but, of course, if we
were just following the activities of diplomats, this would make pretty dull
reading. However this expertise determines the payments for all US personnel posted
abroad and the State Department also provides diplomatic cover to others who
stand in the shadows: agencies that are unwilling to advertise their activities
and want their people to have diplomatic immunity when things go wrong. These
range from the military attaches to the CIA, with a lot of other interesting
organisations besides. In some areas of conflict like Iraq or Afghanistan,
these can make up half the embassy staff.
While the allowances are calculated by the
State Department, the “lead agencies” are the real employers and their details
are on the list, although what they were up to is not – just a place name. Once
a posting has been analysed, there is a reluctance to remove it even though it
may be out of date; the cost of living reviews just become less frequent until
they stop altogether. In the case of Britain, these tables of allowances
give us a snap shot of our “special relationship” with America, as
well as an insight into the Cold War. It’s well worth speculating just what
these employees and “diplomats” were actually up to.
Some are fairly dull: representatives of the
“Department of Homeland Security” are posted to Liverpool,
Southampton and Felixstowe where they check
shipping containers as part of the Container Security Initiative. Post 9/11
this scheme investigates cargo destined for the US from 58 ports around the world
and also includes Thames port and Tilbury.
Likewise, the American Battle Monuments Commission has postings to look after
American war dead in cemeteries at Brookwood and Cambridge.
By far the largest number of postings are “air
force” (USAF), reflecting our Cold War status as America’s largest aircraft carrier.
However “air force” doesn’t necessarily mean that these are fliers; the “ghost
diplomats” include experts seconded to units or particular operations, Air
Attaches or intelligence agencies “liaising”.
Some postings are general; “Wiltshire” or
“Oxfordshire”, counties with long and varied military connections including
Porton Down (germ warfare) and Salisbury Plain (army manoeuvres and research).
Others like Plymouth
and Portsmouth
are obvious military cities as well as being sites for BAe Systems Marine and
Aerospace divisions. BAe Systems plays a big role in all of this; “Wiltshire”,
for example, includes the site of Qinetiq’s advanced air simulator at Boscombe
Down, currently working on the Joint Strike Fighter project with BAe.
Greenham Common is on the list, a regular
posting during the Cold War as, from 1951 until it closed in 1993, it housed
the long range nuclear bombers of Strategic Air Command, as well as becoming
the home of the Tactical Missile Wing’s Cruise missiles and Pershing II
ballistic missiles in the 1980’s.
Lakenheath and Mildenhall are postings as they
remain to this day the two main USAF bases of Strategic Air Command in Britain.
Lakenheath now hosts fighter wing, while the support and reconnaissance
commands (spy planes) are at Mildenhall along with the Special Operations and
Intelligence squadrons.
RAF Fairford, now on “care and maintenance”,
was until recently, another base for long range nuclear bombers and had been
since 1953. Designated a “Forward operating location”, it was also a staging
post for operations and a base for the planes that refuel passing long distance
flights. It was NASA’s “Transoceanic abort landing site” for the Space Shuttle
and it was from here that the B52 bombers set out for Iraq to kill in
both Gulf Wars. It may be used again, if America needs it.
Related to all the “Air force”
activity were postings on behalf of the “Defence Management Agency”, involved
in procurement, who were posted to Bristol and Salmesbury, Lancashire, no doubt
keeping an eye on the BAe Systems sites, the latter making sections of Typhoon
Eurofighters and now working on the Joint Strike fighter as a major contractor
for Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman, on the world’s largest defence
project.
Some of the postings are fairly obscure; in
1983 the former RAF Kemble near Cirencester became a USAF maintenance facility
for about 10 years until it was decommissioned and became Cotswold Airport.
Waterbeach just north of Cambridge
was once an RAF base for Bomber Command, but was handed over to The Royal
Engineers in 1966; their base and barracks are now due for closure in 2013.
More interesting is the posting to RAF Welford, north-west of Newbury, which is
the site of the USAF’s biggest heavy ammunition dump in Western
Europe, with its own private entrance from the motorway (Works
access only).
Farnborough is an airport, the site of the
International Air Show and arms fair as well as being another base for BAe
Systems, meanwhile Qinetiq and DERA are also on site or nearby making this a
centre of defence research.
Bracknell in Berkshire may also have been of
interest to the Americans because of its concentration of high tech IT
companies and defence related firms, once including RACAL, Ferranti and BAe but
it is just as likely that the posting was for Air staff attending the RAF Staff
College, which became the Joint Services Command and Staff college before it
finally left the town in 2003.
An air force posting to High Wycombe would
have been inevitable, as within three miles of the town are the headquarters of
RAF Air Command and the British “Strike Command Operation Centre”, the nuclear
bunker from which our “four-minute warning” and nuclear missile launch order
would have been given, but not without permission from the Americans. It
remains a centre for British and Nato air operations.
Of course, it may have been that the posting
was to RAF Daws Hill on the other side of town, a large US Navy base until it
was decommissioned in 2007. It was from here that US missiles, long range
bombers and communications were co-ordinated and directed from the American
nuclear bunker.
Strangely, the US Navy itself was also posting
to Bath,
Dunstable and Edzell, all of which have only one thing in common with High Wycombe; none are near enough to the sea to land a
ship. Bath has
had until recently a major connection to the Ministry of Defence but the New Worker can’t pin down what the US
Navy’s interest was.
However Dunstable in Bedfordshire was the
centre of a labyrinth of secret activity during the Second World War with
Special Operations Executive, the Political Warfare Executive and Secret
Intelligence Service amongst others, spread out in around a hundred
requisitioned stately homes, aerodromes, and offices in the county and beyond.
The area also provided facilities to the Radio Security Service, British Naval
Intelligence, listening (Y) stations and Bletchley Park (X station), home of
the famous code breakers. During the Cold War RAF bases at Stanbridge, Brampton, Wyton and
Henlow were involved in secret communications, amongst others.
The clue is in Edzell, a small village near
Brechin in Angus, Scotland, far enough from the sea
to ensure that none of the sailors would get their feet wet. The RAF base on
the opposite side of the River Esk was leased to the US Navy from 1960 until
1996, when it shut down for good and the 150 base houses were sold off.
In 1985, on the 25th anniversary of
the opening of the base, the newly registered “US Navy Edzell tartan” was
unveiled and very popular it has proved to be, worn by both current and former
Navy cryptanalysts as ties and scarves.
The Naval Security Group which operated from 1935 to 2005 ran Edzell,
collecting signals intelligence prior to decoding it. This base would have
covered the North Sea, the Baltic
Sea, and the Soviet Naval Headquarters at Leningrad, together with other parts of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
depending on reception. The base was also part of two worldwide networks: the
White Cloud Naval satellite system and the earlier High Frequency Direction
Finding system, hunting for Soviet ships and submarines.
The Naval cryptanalysts were associated with
the National Security Agency (NSA), which will feature again in this article
and it’s likely that Bath
and Dunstable were part of the same landlocked operation. In 2005 the Naval
Security Group was broken up and merged into other parts of US Naval
intelligence.
The Office of the Secretary of Defence is the
civilian headquarters staff of the US Department of Defence and as such it’s
most unlikely that any of its staff would be posted abroad long term. But there
are two postings under this agency’s name and these are likely to be a cover
for either the National Security Agency (NSA) which deals with signals
intelligence or the National Reconnaissance Office responsible for satellite
intelligence, as the two sites are Menwith Hill and Harrogate
(only nine miles away).
RAF Menwith Hill was leased by the US Army
Security Agency in 1958 to listen in to high frequency radio communications
from the Soviet Union. In 1966 the NSA. took
over the base and started listening in to international calls and telexes
routed through Britain,
as well. As optical fibres and microwaves replaced copper wire, the site became
more important and was expanded. This major NSA satellite ground station now
houses an array of satellite dishes and is probably the largest listening
station in the world. According to the European Parliament investigation,
Menwith Hill is a vital part of the ECHELON system, monitoring all electronic
communications in Europe as part of a
worldwide American network, trawling for voice calls, images, video and data
such as e-mails and the new media.
There are five postings for the State
Department itself: London
which covers the Embassy while Belfast
and Edinburgh
are the Consulates. These locations hide CIA staff under diplomatic cover, as
well as the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) which provides the military
attaches, both as a matter of routine.
The remaining two postings are to Chelmsford
and Croughton and these could be from either agency.
Chelmsford,
for over 100 years was the home of Marconi and survived takeover by BAe Systems
until its recent closure. It was here that RADAR and secure communications were
manufactured and developed.
RAF Croughton is a US air force base in
Northamptonshire, which houses a massive European communications hub, for Nato,
US European Command, US Central command, (US) Air Force Special Operations
Command, Department of State operations and our own Ministry of Defence
operations. It is also, for example, a vital part of “Mystic star”, the
President’s secure communications network connecting Air Force One to the US
government, when it is airborne.
At other times it is a Government
communications system. Croughton deals with about 30 per cent of US secure
communications as part of a satellite network, partly reliant on US Navy bases
relaying messages around the world. It’s not an obvious CIA interest – which,
at least in theory, is not allowed to spy on US citizens in America and
only with a warrant when they are abroad.
While it is possible that the State Department
postings are actually there to run their own communications, it is unlikely. The
nearby RAF Barford St John is a sister base to Croughton and operates a CIA
transmitter on its behalf. Between them
they are part of the CIA’s own worldwide secure communications network,
covering its offices and agents.
A Secure Communications link was built in the
1980’s, passing from Croughton to GCHQ at Cheltenham
(an NSA posting) via relay stations at Leafield, Little Rossington, and Cleeve
Hill. This indicates that Croughton also acts as a listening station. The CIA
has another post at Caversham, where its “Open Source
Center” operates on the
shared premises of BBC Monitoring, under State Department cover.
The US Army had five postings: Birmingham and Nottingham, which are probably related to arms
manufacturing, while West Byfleet was until
1996 the site of “Broadoaks”, the MOD/DERA Army Operations Analysis base (now
at Farnborough). There were also nearby
research stations at Chertsey and Chobham,
which specialised in military vehicles and novel forms of armour plating.
The posting to Hythe in Hampshire has an
interesting history: a US Army base was sited at RAF Hythe from 1968 until
closure in 2006, “servicing and maintaining watercraft”. In fact this was also
a secret British research base from the 1930’s onwards; TE
Lawrence, of Arabia fame, spent a
year there working on high speed boats. This was where the concept of air/sea
rescue was invented while in the 1950’s, Christopher Cockerill ran his
“Hovercraft Development Co” from there.
At the end of the Second World War a number of
captured, technically superior, German high speed boats were operated and
further developed from the base. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, these
were used to get spies in and out of the Soviet Union,
via the Baltic republics. The Soviets were unable to match their speed,
although thanks to tip-offs, the authorities would often be waiting to pick up
the hapless agents after arrival.
A visit to Fort Halstead
must have been even more fun for those with murder in mind, even though the
mergers, re-organisations and privatisations of recent years have brought many
changes. Set at the top of the North Downs,
this research station specialised in developing and forensically examining high
explosives – boffins making bangs. Before Atomic weapons research moved to
Aldermaston, this was where the first British atomic bomb was developed and
built.
The “Department of Defence”, which has six
postings, is a cover used by the NSA, NRO and DIA but also by straightforward
military intelligence (Army, Navy or Airforce), so this is a mixed bag. Brough,
on the Humber made BAe systems Hawk jet
trainers until recently, when its closure was announced. Glenrothes was
originally a Scottish new town serving the coal industry; it became part of
“silicon glen”, after the seam flooded. It’s likely that the Americans were
liaising with Raytheon, which is still in the town. This multinational American
arms company is the world’s largest producer of guided missiles and the
Glenrothes plant makes integrated circuits for defence and aerospace customers.
Rochester in Kent had yet another BAe Systems
factory, until recently making high tech helmets and head up displays for
Typhoon Eurofighters at the old Marconi factory. However, its attraction for
the Department of Defence may be the home of the Defence Explosives
Ordnance Disposal
School and the nearby
firing range at Lodge Hill Camp, very useful in the age of Improvised Explosive
Devices.
Loudwater near High Wycombe
is the UK location of the Defence Contract Management Agency, which is a
Department of Defence procurement agency located in an anonymous business park
in the town. Given that private British contractors have built a multi-million
pound industry supplying private “security” in the countries America has
invaded, there may be some rather unsavoury visitors to this particular
complex.
Conveniently it is also the home of Ultra
Electronics Command and Control Systems, a high tech British company that supplies
the “MOD and international military and commercial customers”, and is currently
working on the Joint Fighter project for the Americans and BAe Systems.
Cheltenham
would be an attachment to Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the
National security Agency’s British partner but could also be any organisation
involved in snooping on communications and code breaking; including the CIA,
Defence Intelligence Agency and the Office of Naval Intelligence.
“Chicksands”, in Bedfordshire
would definitely be a popular posting for those intent on murder – it’s where
the spies learn to think like soldiers and the soldiers learn to think like
spies.
The RAF station was a war-time “Y” station,
listening in to Axis radio communications and feeding the intercepts to Bletchley Park. In 1950 the USAF leased it and it
became a major cold war listening station. After closure in 1997 the British
Intelligence Corps took over the site and the grounds are now shared with the
Defence Intelligence and Security Centre. This is a British joint services
establishment, now semi privatised, providing training to “military and
civilian students” in “Security, language, intelligence and photography”. Among
other specialities it provides training in are “Human intelligence” (running
informers) and “debriefing” (interrogation).
In their 2005 annual report they are quite proud to admit that they
seconded 53 staff to places like Iraq and Afghanistan that year, where people
would probably describe “debriefing” as torture. Conveniently, the grounds are
shared with the Directorate of the Intelligence Corps as well as the
headquarters of Psychological Operations.
Readers should not imagine that this is a
comprehensive list or a history of the Cold War; it’s not meant to be, it’s
just a list of places where American government postings were claiming expenses
over the last 40 years. There were many other US bases, just as there were many
other British bases and secret research establishments dotted around the
country. It’s just that they weren’t of such interest, at least to America.
In the second part of this article, we will
try to bring this information up to date, using a variety of unconventional
sources.
