“RAMPART Assesses Threats.” Signal 56, no. 1 (Septem- ber 2001): 7.
Salamon, Julie. “A Detective-Story Approach to the Twin Towers’ Collapse.” New York Times. (April 30, 2002): E1. Smith, Ray A. “The Aesthetics of Security—Building Own- ers, Architects Seek to Make Properties Safer Without Look of a Fortress.” Wall Street Journal. (February 19, 2003): B1.
Solis, Suzanne Espinosa. “Software May Have Mapped N.Y. Hit.” San Francisco Chronicle. (December 12, 2001): A11.
Watts, John M., Jr. “Our Changing World.” Fire Technol- ogy 38, no. 2 (April 2002): 99–100.
SEE ALSO
Computer Modeling
FEMA (United States Federal Emergency Management Agency)
General Services Administration, United States Kenya, Bombing of United States Embassy Khobar Towers Bombing Incident
NIST (United States National Institute of Standards and Technology)
Sandia National Laboratories
September 11 Terrorist Attacks on the United States World Trade Center, 1993 Terrorist Attack
Area 51 (Groom
Lake, Nevada)
Area 51 is the popular name of a secret military facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, approximately 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The 6-by-10 mile rectangular air base lies within the Switzerland-sized boundaries of Nellis Air Force Base, and has served as a testing ground for ”black budget“ (top-secret) military prototype aircraft since the mid-1950s. Area 51 is also a well-known folk symbol of an assumed government conspiracy to cover up information on UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
The United States government has never publicly discussed the existence or purpose of the Groom Lake base, but historical accounts chronicle the site’s long history as a preliminary testing ground for the U.S. mili- tary’s most secret aircraft. The U-2 Spy plane, A-12 and SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance jets, and F- 117A and B-2 Stealth fighters were all tested at the site before production, as was a reverse-engineered version of a Vietnam War-era Russian MIG-21. Development and testing of secret military aircraft and Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) likely continues at Area 51 today.
The secrecy surrounding Groom Lake has piqued public interest since 1955, when the Central Intelligence Agency and Lockheed Skunk Works chose the remote desert area as a testing ground for the U-2. President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10633 to restrict a
rectangle of airspace over the base that year, and the Department of the Interior withdrew a 60-square-mile rectangle of land beneath the airspace from public use in 1958. Today, the so-called ”Groom box“ includes a 22-by- 20 nautical mile rectangle of restricted airspace, the origi- nal 60 square mile base, and a large area of surrounding land with enforced public entry and viewing restrictions.
The present popular fascination with Area 51 bloomed in 1989 when KLAS-TV in Las Vegas broadcast a series of interviews with Robert Lazar, a self-proclaimed aerospace engineer who maintained that he had been hired to help reverse-engineer an alien spacecraft at the Papoose Lake facility near Groom Lake. Lazar asserted that the United States government had recovered a downed extraterres- trial spacecraft and stored it in an underground bunker at Area 51. Lazar’s bizarre story elicited support from the community of UFO and alien conspiracy theorists based in Roswell, New Mexico, and ignited public curiosity. The April 1994 issue of Popular Science magazine carried a satellite image of Groom Lake on its cover and featured an in-depth article on the military history of the facility. Since then, Area 51 has become a science-fiction staple. The site played a role in several episodes of the FOX television’s popular series ”The X-Files“ and was featured in the 1996 movie ”Independence Day.“ Though the United States military often collaborates with the entertainment indus- try, it has never sanctioned a project involving Area 51.
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F U R T H E R R E A D I N G :
BOOKS:
Rich, Ben and Leo Janos. Skunk Works. New York: Ban- tam, 1994.
ELECTRONIC:
Area 51 Research Center. ”Area 51: Military Facility, Social Phenomenon and State of Mind.“ Glenn Campbell. Janu- ary, 2000. <http://www.ufomind.com/area51/> (Decem- ber 5, 2002).
Airmen, Magazine of the United States Air Force. ”Flights, Camera, Action!“ June, 1997. <http://www.af.mil/news/ airman/0697/index.html> (December 5, 2002).
SEE ALSO
Aviation Intelligence, History Stealth Technology
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
Argentina, Intelligence
and Security
Since gaining its independence from Spain in 1816, Argen- tina has struggled to maintain stable, democratic rule.
Argentina, Intelligence and Security
Conflict between the military and government factions is endemic. In 1946, the election of President Juan Domingo Peron began a period of authoritarian rule and heightened tensions between military and civilian forces. A military junta overthrew the government again in 1976. Both re- gimes employed civilian and military intelligence agen- cies in domestic espionage against Argentinean citizens and persecuted political dissidents. Democratic rule was restored in 1983. The new government overhauled gov- ernment structure, separating civilian and military agen- cies into specialized, relatively autonomous units. In 1992, the government modernized and redesigned the nation’s intelligence system.
Argentina’s intelligence community is divided into civilian and military branches. The civilian intelligence system operates under the direction of the executive branch of the government. The keystone of this network is the National Intelligence Center (CNI). The CNI is responsible for gathering information from various intelligence agen- cies and coordinating daily operations. In recent years, however, the power of the CNI has greatly diminished. The Office of the State Intelligence Secretary (SIDE) as- sumed many CNI duties.
A car moves along the Extraterrestrial Highway, a roadway that runs along the eastern border of Area 51, a military base on the Nevada test site that the U.S. government has only recently admitted “officially” exists. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS.
SIDE is the oldest Argentinean intelligence agency. Reporting directly to the President, SIDE is charged with culling domestic and foreign intelligence information with which to brief members of the executive branch. The agency also directs the nation’s counterintelligence program.
Domestic security was the primary concern of Argentinean legislators who pushed for intelligence re- form in the early 1990s. To this end, passage of the Internal Security Law of 1992 created the domestic security serv- ice, the National Direction of Internal Intelligence. The agency, a subsidiary of the Ministry of the Interior, created national security policy and coordinates the protection of national interests with the aid of intelligence services and law enforcement agencies, such as the National Gendarmerie and Federal Police.
Military intelligence is coordinated by the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, and a subcommittee known as J-2 Intelligence. The committee reports to the executive, and like all military intelligence organizations is subject to congressional oversight review, but remains largely au- tonomous. Each branch of the Argentinean military, the Air Force, Army, and Navy, maintains its own intelligence services.