[GreenKeys] History question: White House to Kremlin "hotline"

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 20:11:21 -0400

   The USA termination of the hotline was not, in fact, in the White House... or even in Washington DC.  It is in Fort Detrick, in
the town of Frederick Maryland and just a couple of miles from my old QTH.

   There are four satellite dishes devoted to the hotline.  Two are pointing to USA military satellites in geo-stationary orbits.
Two are used to track a constellation of Russian military satellites in inclined orbits.  At least one Russian satellite is always
in view, so one of the steerable antennas is busy tracking that satellite.  As it gets close to the horizon, the second dish is
pre-positioned to pick up the next Russian satellite that comes into view.

   A similar tracking system is used on the Russian end.

   The use of both USA and Russian satellites gives not only political symmetry to the implementation, but also lots of redundancy.

   The messages from the USA end are first translated into Russian.  Then both the Russian and English texts are sent over the
circuit.  Similarly, messages from Russia arrive in both a Russian and English version, so that translators can double-check the
literal meaning as well as the connotations.  The translators work at Fort Detrick (when I last visited the site).

   A separate set of circuits is used to forward the traffic from Ft. Detrick to the White House.  At one time this was done over a
network of encrypted microwave circuits that link many government/military locations here in the Washington DC area and was known as
the Washington Wideband Area Network.  But I suspect this all has been replaced with something more modern.

   Fort Detrick also houses an HF radio installation, used primarily for Army MARS (I believe WAR is transmitted from this site,
among others).  And it is the site of a Center for Disease Control facility that works on highly infectious diseases (Ebola, etc),
using buildings that were original constructed for bio and chem warfare research.  The researcher who was publicly named by John
Ashcroft as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax-by-mail cases worked here, until his career was destroyed by the DoJ public
investigation.  The FBI and US Postal Service inspectors dredged fire ponds in the Catoctin Mountain Watershed, which borders my
property, as part of their investigation of the case; one of those ponds was a few minutes walk from my house.  The DoJ has never
revealed what was found in these investigations, nor convened a grand jury to present any evidence.  The "person of interest" has
never been charged nor given an opportunity to clear his name, and has been unable to find work.

   Last I heard, the hotline was still in operation.

-- Eric K3NA

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of McNerney, Tim
Sent: 2004 April 28 16:06
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: [GreenKeys] History question: White House to Kremlin "hotline"

Does anyone remember any details on the White House to Kremlin "hotline,"
which is long-rumoured to have been a TTY connection of some sort.  If
anyone has the scoop, I'd love to hear it.

--Tim McNerney
  Newton, MA
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