Photo By Erin Thompson | Headquarters for the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center from 1970–1995,...... read more read more
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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
FOREIGN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER ORGANIZED
On 1 August 1962, the U.S. Army reorganized its foreign technical intelligence resources under the control of the Foreign Science and Technology Center. The center was responsible for the collection and dissemination of information regarding foreign military weapons and technology.
During World War II, the War Department created six “supply arms and services” to oversee the procurement of materiel and equipment for the various Army commands. After the war, these “technical services” operated largely independent of one another, including in matters of technical intelligence—information regarding weapons and equipment used by foreign militaries. Military leadership recognized the necessity for centralizing the Army’s technical services under one command, but questioned who should control it: the assistant chief of staff, G-2, and the Department of the Army, or some new administrative organization? Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered several studies to answer this question. The Army selected Deputy Comptroller of the Army Leonard W. Hoelscher to lead one of these studies called Project 80.
Over the course of its investigation, Project 80 conducted approximately six hundred interviews and analyzed nearly four hundred reports. In 1962, it recommended a new organization be established to oversee the broad spectrum of the Army Technical Services. On 8 May 1962, the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) was created, absorbing many of the former technical services into three subordinate directorates: research and development, production and procurement, and supply and maintenance. Project 80 further recommended the technical intelligence services be placed under the direction of the AMC’s Directorate of Research and Development. This placement was designed to streamline the process of using intelligence research to promote scientific and technical advancements in the AMC. This was particularly important as the American military advanced its technological capabilities in relation to its Cold War adversaries.
On 1 August 1962, the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC) was organized to oversee all production and dissemination of scientific and technical intelligence regarding foreign weapons, equipment, and technology, as well as “missile and space activity of concern to AMC and other intelligence users.” All AMC subordinate commands and laboratories were required to supply a foreign intelligence officer to serve as an advisor to FSTC activities. Such officers guaranteed the sharing of information across the various technical services.
The FSTC weathered a challenging first few years, hampered by “personnel cuts, hiring freezes, and conflicts over jurisdictional responsibilities.” Additionally, a lack of civilian specialists to oversee the center’s operations led to several years of limited intelligence reporting. The center was further burdened by numerous relocations in its first decade. Initially housed at Arlington Hall Station, the FSTC moved to the Army Munitions Building in Washington, D.C., in 1964, where it remained until the building was ordered demolished by President Richard Nixon in 1970. The FSTC then briefly moved to Building T-7, Gravelly Point, in Arlington, before eventually securing the Federal Office Building in downtown Charlottesville, Viriginia. By 1973, with personnel and facility problems eased, new leadership, and reorganization of its functions and production goals, the FSTC became highly productive, providing record high numbers of all-source worldwide foreign intelligence reports.
On 30 April 1985, the FSTC was reassigned from the AMC to the Army Intelligence Agency (AIA), one of three intelligence production centers alongside the Missile and Space Intelligence Center and the Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center (ITAC). When AIA was dissolved in 1992, the FSTC transferred again to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. [See This Week in MI History #232 10 April 1992] In 1995, it merged with ITAC to become the National Ground Intelligence Center, still located in Charlottesville today.
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| Date Taken: | 07.26.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.26.2024 17:38 |
| Story ID: | 477151 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 129 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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