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NORAD at Colorado Springs Watch es for Enemy Attack on Continent
By PHIL HUDGINS
Recent economy moves in the
military caused many Northeast
Georgians to sit up and take no
tice.
Why? Because they hit close
to home. Because Hunter Air
force Base at is one
of the 95 bases to be shut down
for economy reasons. And be
cause the latest Defense Depart
ment plan to transfer the Army
Reserve into the National Guard
affects local people.
Human nature being what it is,
the average person is not overly
interested in the military and the
national defense until he is af
fected directly or until he sees
firsthand the workings of the de
fense system. He assumes some
one i.s watching over the na
tion, but he doesn't know the de
tails of who, what, when, where
and how.
Twenty-three Georgia-newsmen
visited Colorado Springs, Colo.,
recently to find out'the amjwerS
to the four WVand the Hy the
five components to a good-iiews
papcr lead.
At Colorado Springs is the
nerve center of NORAD the
the North American Air De
fense Command. It is from this
center that; first warning'3>f
tack on this continent would
come. And if such, an iittafck
should come it is from this cen
ter that the air battle for the
survival of the United States and
Canada would be directed.
Nerve Center
NORAD’s nerve center is call
ed the “combat operations cen
ter,” (COC), which is situated
in a two - story concrete block
house at ■ Ent Air Force Base
within the city limits of Colorado
Springs.
. The 23 newsmen stood inside
the COC and watched at work
one of the most important parts
of the United States defense sys
tem.
Before them were panels with
television screens, buttons, tele
phones and charts. Flashed on a
far wall was a huge glass map
showing the North American con
tinent.
Small lights flashed on the
glass map. They had different
colors, and each color denoted a
specification of aircraft. Orange
was the color to watch for: it
represented an unidentified air
craft.
While the newsmen watched
the map, an orange light flick
ered on the board in the area of
Louisiana. The Canadian officer
airliner. But he could not say
mostly likely was a commercial
explaining the map said the plane
represented by the orange light
for sure right then.
It wasn’t long, however,., until
he knew. The rocket-armed jet
fighters had been scrambled
from a Louisiana base to inter
cept the craft. A few minutes
later, the fighter pilots reported
to their commanders; the mes
sage went through proper chan
nels and into the COC at Colora
do Springs. The orange light
disappeared. It was a Delta Air
lines flight which had not posted
a flight plane on its normal route.
It began to sink in that this
one cement building must be one
of the most important in the Unit
ed States. It is so important that
construction is now underway
on a new “hardened” site for
the NORAD COC. Thip is being
done inside nearby Cheyenne
Mountain, south of the city.
Safe From Attack
By putting it under the moun
tain, this vital control center
will be made virtually safe from
thermonuclear attack, the of
ficers explained. The man part
cf the facility in the Mountain
wili .be a t]hree-story, /t steel struc
ture within a series of intersect
ing chambers. It will include 170,-
500 square feet of floor space
and is scheduled to come into
operation some time in 1965.
At the COC, data is received—
ancTsHEedC.fn a lar'gedfgital com
puter ~ from the huge complex
of radar stations, interceptor
squadrons, missile sites, space
tracking and ballitic missile
warning units, and the regions
and sectors that make up
NORAD. (The region that in
cludes Georgia is the 32nd, head
quartered at Montgomery, Ala.,
which the newsmen later visit
ed).
Aiso received at the COC is in
formation from such other sourc
es as Strategic Air Command, Na
val forces off both coasts, the
Pentagon and the Department of
National Defense in Canada.
Big Map
The large, glass map which
the newsmen saw is called Icon
orama. Iconorama, it was ex
plained, permits almost instan
taneous observation of the posi
tions of aerospace and'seaborne
objects thousands of mile away
and over any part of the con
tinent covered by radar net
works.
To the right of Iconorama is
.NORAD’s weapons status board,
a kind of “box score” on the
number of hostile aircraft in the
NORAD system, the number of
unknowns, the weapons commit
ted to these tracks, the kills
made and NORAD losses.
NWtsmen heard also about oth
er Greets of NORAD. There ,was
BMEWS, which stands for the
Ballistic Missile Early Warning
System. This is an electronics
system to provide detection and
early warning of attack from ene
my intercontinental ballitic mis
siles. The obejetive is to provide
a warning of 15 minutes.
Space Objects
Then there’s SPADATS the
Space Detection and Tracking
System. It keeps track of all
man-made objects in space and
determines entry time and loca
tion of new ones.
SPADATS can detect the num
ber of satellites now orbiting the
earth.
Officers explained about th e
Distant Early Warning or DEW
Line, a line of 60 radar stations
going from Alaska to Greenland
along the rim of the Arctic tun
dra. Should enemy bombers pene
trate the DEW line, a second
chain of radar stations is strung
out across the middle of, Can
ada. This gives a second warn
ing.
Defense missiles are tied to
gether with a radar - computer
system called SAGE Semi
Automatic Ground Environment.
The audience at NORAD was
impressed. But the inevitable
questions finally came. What
about the Southeast? What about
Georgia? How well are they pro
tected? What protection is there
from Cuba?
Answers
Gen. D.E. Newton Jr., Ai r
Force assistant chief of staff for
NORAD, quoted to the newsmen
a statement by Gen. John K. Ger
hart, commander in chief of NO
RAD:
“It is considered very unlike
ly that the Cuban government
would carry out a deliberate at
tack against the United States.
To precipitate an air attack a
gainst the US would produce rel
atively little payoff for the Cu
bans in relation to counteraction
by the US. In addition, our de
fensive action would result in a
serious depletion of Cuba's air
defense fighter capability. For
these reasons we consider an all
out attack by Cuba against the
US as a very remote possibility.
“However, if the Cubans did for
some unknown reason deploy
these available aircraft (which he
said consisted of a number of
MIG type fighters, about 100
transports of various types but no
nuclear weapon;,' in an ali-out
attack against the southeast
United States, we feel complete
ly confident that we would de
tect and successfully engage such
an attack.”
Region
The southeast, including Geor
gia and seven other states, is in
the 32nd NORAD Region, which
has its headquarters at Gunter
Air Force Base, Montgomery,
'Aia. It is one of eight regional
’areas set up by NORAD in the
continental United States and
Canada.
The 32nd region is command
ed by Maj. Gen. James B. Tip
ton, who assumed command Aug.
1.
Tipton’s command consists of
400 personnel who operate from 1
a four-story, self-sufficient rein-
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glad tidings of great jog... of on Earth, Good
tOill to (Den. As the Star of shone on
that Xolg ‘flight, mag the true spirit of Christmas shine upon
rou and gours at this glorious season.
CUMMING SALES CO.
Cumming
forced concrete blockhouse. It is
here that all aircraft flying in
the region are monitored and
tracked with the -id of over
lapping radar stations and two
giant computers.
The region’s operation is simi
lar to that at Colorado Springs,
except that its map covers only
the states, rather
Jthan the entire continent.
Little Towns
Of Bethlehem
Celebrate
Several states, all over the
United States, can boast of
having their very own little
town of Bethlehem.
In New England, for exam
ple, there’s a place named
Bethlehem in New Hampshire,
and another in Connecticut.
Moving across country,
Bethlehems are found in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ken
tucky, Mississippi, Georgia,
Indiana and lowa.
People from nearby commu
nities and neighboring states
flock to Bethlehem, Conn., ev
ery Christmas to have their
greeting card envelopes im
printed with a special season
al message, then mailed from
the town post office.
Last year, due to the de
mand, there were ten different
greeting designs available for
Christmas card senders.
Creclie Is Constructed
Also contributing to the hol
iday atmosphere in Connecti
cut’s semi-official Christmas
town, is the creche constructed
by nuns at a nearby Benedic
tine monastery.
In the creche, which em
phasizes the primitive simpli
city of the Nativity, are life
sized figures of the Virgin and
Joseph, dressed in peasant
garb, and a crib with the
Christ Child, covered by a
bright patchwork quilt.
At Christmas, the nuns also
make, and offer for sale, litur
gically-inspired tree orna
ments.
Each Christmas, Bethlehem,
Pa., is the scene of an impres
sive candlelight carol and
communion service.
Traditional Since 1741
Celebrated, complete with
organ and orchestral music, in
the Central Moravian Church,
it has been a tradition since
1741, when Count Nicholas von
Zinzendorf, holding a lighted
candle, led his people into a
cabin and named their settle
ment Bethlehem in honor of
the Christ Child.
Decorated trees also play an
important part during Beth
lehem’s nationally famous
Christmas festival on the Hill
to-Hill bridge connecting var
ious parts of the city.
Every Christmas since 1951,
a 60-foot star erected by
townspeople has guided visi
tors to Bethlehem, Georgia.
In Event of Attack. . .
In the event of enemy air at
tack, the battle for s vival in
southeast would be fought
from the blockhouse at Gunter
AFB.
, NORAD’s component com
mands include the US Army Air
Defense Command, US Naval
Forces in NORAD, US Air Force
Air Defense Command and the
Royal Candian Air Force Air
Defense Command.
NORAD is equipped with a
family of weapons.” If an ene
my bomber approached the US
with intentions to attack, it would
first be attacked by long-range
manned interceptors, next by pi
lotless interceptors of the Bo
marc type and finally, if it still
survived, the bomber would come
within the range of the missiles
of the Nike family..
The MB-I Genie nuclear air
to-air rocket and the GAR-il Fal
con nuclear guided missile tre
mendously increase the kill cap
ability of the fighter interceptor.
Both the medium - range and
surface-to-air Bomarc missile (51-
bout 400 mile range) and the
shorter-range Nike Hercules (a-
1 "
Main battle staff in the combat operations center at headquarters of North American Air Defense
Command (NORAD) fronts a large display area which allows observers to see positions of airborne
objects thousands of miles away.
IT’S A HOLIDAY
First of the United States jto.
give recognition to Christmas
Day as a legal holiday was Al
abama, in 1836.
Play Safe
with a savings ac
count at Bank of Cumming
A Bank you can
depend on
bout 75 mile range) are armed
with nuclear warheads.
Not Foolproof
Despite the depth in detection
and identification of aircraft and
the ability to destroy, the NORAD
system is not foolproof. The offi
cers did not attempt to paint a
picture of infallibility.
Gen. Newton, fer instance, ad
mitted that it was possible for a
single low-flying airplane to pen
etrate the radar system in the
southeastern United States. He
went on to say, however, that it
was highly unlikely that such
strategy would be attemtped. It
would be foolish to start a war
with a single plane, he said.
Ev en more serious than the
possibility of a small plane en
tering the US from an enemy
country is the lack of ability to
destroy ICBM’s, intercontinental
ballistic missiles. At present,
there is no defense against
ICBM’s.
They can be identified and a
13-minute warning against them
can be given. None of these
weapons thus far devised would
be able to destroy incoming bal
listic mi-.silas outside the atmos
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phere overhead. NORAD hopes
someday to work out a way to
destroy enemy missiles while
in their boost stage. Maybe the
answer is a floating space plat
form.
NORAD assured its visitors
that work will continue on prep
araton for defense against the
ballistic missile and space threat
and on the ability to retaliate
in case of attack. Retaliation
strength is a vital part of the
system.
A brochure on NORAD closes
with the following assurance to
the North American continent:
“In a very few years air de
fense has gone from piston-en
gine fighters and manual warn
ing and control systems to super
sonic jet interceptors controlled
by semi - automatic systems. In
the short experience of NORAD
(it was formed in 1957), air de
fense has become ‘aerospace’ de
fense. To meet this challenge,
NORAD must continue to deal
with the manned bomber threat
for some time to come, and, at
the same time, prepare for de
fense against the ballistic mis
sile and space threat.”
High Schoolers Are Urged
To Try for Scholarships
High school students of For
syth and other counties are
being encouraged to make high
grades before graduation so
they may be able to qualify for
scholarships to help them fi
nance their education.
So said Walter Shaddix of
Birmingham, Ala., a former
teacher employed by the South
ern Forest Fire Commission,
Inc., Birmingham, Ala., who
spoke to students here last
week.
Millions of dollars in the
When Christmas Groups
Gather, It’s Game Time
Everyone’s a child at Christ
mas time, and that’s why
there’s nothing as much fun
when family and friends gath
er as game-playing. Since
Christmas groups usually in
clude both children and adults,
games that both can enjoy are
best.
The following games can be
played with no special equip
ment, other than that on
hand.
Charades . . .
Christmas charades is a
lively game that the whole
family will enjoy.
Divide the group into two
teams. Individual members of
teams are then called upon to
act out a word, character,
phrase, scene or situation
and since it’s Christmas, all
the charades should have
Christmas overtones.
Subjects are supplied on a
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future will be granted to hard
working girls and boys who
will work to win scholarships,
the visiting former teacher
said while here to discuss a
New Year special effort on fi
nancial assistance for students.
The commission has been
sending educators to schools
and colleges of Georgia since
1939 when the program of forest
fire education was inaugurated
by the late Dr. Willis A. Sutton
of Atlanta, the first chairman
of the agency.
slip of paper by the opposing
team and then passed on to
the “actor.” From here on, it’s
his job to see how quickly he
can get his teammates to guess
what he is acting out.
Santa’s Sleigh . . .
“Santa’s Packing His Sleigh”
is a quiet Christmas game
that provides fun and hearty
laughter. It starts simply
enough with one member of
the group saying, “Santa’s
packing his sleigh, and he’s
bringing a toy dog.”
Then each person repeats
the sentence, adding another
gift to Santa’s sleigh. The ob
ject of the game is to repeat
correctly, in order, the com
plete list of gifts in Santa’s
sleigh and it’s harder than
it sounds.
As the list gets longer and
longer, more and more players
just can’t seem to remember
the whole list and its order.