https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/683c1fa285db70101ad1c6208c3884e0.pdf 3c50a6fde259cd5349068c20bf24005f PDF Text Text Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information HQTS 125C-36 (sige SECRET \ ARMY HEADQUARTERS OTTAWA, Ontario Canada *° \ /^August 62 Dear <*??£_ A.^ O - w Thank you for your letter DD/2929 dated August 2, 1962 covering the discussions concerning the introduction of STRAD in the Canadian relay centre of the Hydra circuit. I find your interpretation of the discussions to he complete and accurate on all points. The only item omitted was that of message length where we pointed ©ut that STRAD would accept and handle messages of any length. I fully agree that your letter can he used as the record of our meetings and will form an excellent basis for official correspondence between your office and our Department of External Affairs. It may be noted at this time that the "black box" for warning in event of Alerts traffic is available and can be procured when required. A reply has not yet been received from the STRAD suppliers concerning the two levels of handling precedence traffic for Hydra and military circuits. We will advise on this matter by message as soon as the information is received. I note with pleasure your remarks concerning your stay in Ottawa. I only hope this is a prelude to further visits from you and Mr Robin to renew our short acquaintance* Yours sincerely* Smith) Colonel Director, Royal Canadian Corps of Signals Mr WJ Sharpe Deputy Director The Diplomatic Wireless Service Foreign Office London, S.W. 1 ENGLAND ,„ / MHE/bm ~*~ SECRET 000259 �. Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information YM *jf§y *Vi* y^o DD/2929 Q^QU! The Diplomatic Wireless Service, FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.I. August 2, 1962 \ The following represents our interpretation of the discussions which took place in Ottawa between July 18 and July 20 regarding the introduction of STRAD to the Canadian terminal of the Hydra circuit. We understand that the decision to close down the Hydra terminal at Leitrim arose mainly from a desire to"harden" the signals centre in order that it could continue to function during and after a thermo-nuclear attack. The decision to use STRAD was dictated by the limitations of space available both for equipment and accommodation in the "Hardened" site. There is insufficient space available to house either the torn tape equipment from Leitrim or the staff required to operate this system. You estimate that STRAD will come into service on Hydra in September 1963 and that there will be a saving of approximately 50 in your operating staff once the change over has been completed. PROCEDURE Your officers explained that only marginal alterations would be required in the message headings, the changes would consist of a new first line group to alert STRAD, and a security indicator. All other, routing indicators etc. , would continue exactly as on the Hydra traffic as it now operates. In addition, a special end of message sign would have to be included at the end of each telegram. I am not, in this paper, attempting to spell out the precise signs that would be used since it is obvious that the actual requirements would have to be specified in a Procedure-document prepared by your people. MESSAGE PRECEDENCE - The proportion of high precedence traffic as handled on the Hydra circuits would seem likely to introduce a number of problems when transferred to STRAD. This was aggravated by the fact that STRAD automatically produces to the Supervisor copies of all messages graded Operational Immediate and above. Your officers made a suggestion that whilst continuing to use the same description of precedence, namely, Routine, Priority, Operational Immediate, Emergency and Flash, that we should in fact down grade each one of these in order to include -the pro sign for the Deferred Grading. This would have the effect that the .only types of Hydra traffic which would be produced to the Supervisor by STRAD would / be those Colonel P. D. Smith, Director of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Department of National Defence, Army H. Q. , OTTAWA, 4. Canada. ^ ,|f • ~~~7-~^Z^&rfy 000260 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information ^292*? 12 be those graded E m e r g e n c y and F l a s h . This p r o p o s a l was m a d e owing to the high p e r c e n t a g e of p r e c e d e n c e .traffic handled on the Hydra c i r c u i t s which would have a tendency to flood the S u p e r v i s o r ' s position with a resulting back-log. Your officers made it quite c l e a r that although the production of the traffic to the S u p e r v i s o r would be delayed this would not in any way delay the onward t r a n s m i s s i o n of the traffic through STRAD. Whilst it i s unlikely that this delay would have caused us any, concer n on the Hydra link it would unfortunately a l s o introduce delays into the Military c i r c u i t s operating through the other p a r t s of the STRAD installation . This we understood was unacceptable to your people. We w e r e obliged to explain that we could not accept any down grading of m e s s a g e p r e c e d e n c e s used on our traffic since these w e r e d e t e r m i n e d by the o r i g i n a t o r s and dictated entirely by the m e s s a g e content. We could not a g r e e to any down grading in t h i s r e s p e c t nor could we indeed give an undertaking that t h e r e would be any reduction in traffic of this type. Your people undertook to take another look at STRAD with a view to ascertaining whether it would be possible to a r r a n g e for it to produce to the S u p e r v i s or only those m e s s a g e s on the Hydra c i r c u i t graded E m e r g e n c y and above, whilst at the s a m e t i m e leaving the p a r t of the equipment handling the Military traffic connected in such a way that it continued to produce to the Supervising position all traffic graded Operational I m m e d i a t e and above. We await further information from you on t h i s point. During our d i s c u s s i o n s on the introduction of,STRAD and following our own investigations of the s y s t e m , we all a g r e e d that satisfactory operation of STRAD could not even begin u n l e s s we could e n s u r e that the routing indicators w e r e c o r r e c t l y received . In o r d e r to do this E . D. C. equipment would become e s s e n t i a l . Whilst we have some r e s e r v a t i o n s r e g a r d i n g the u s e of E, D. C. equipment, we undertook to look into the m a t t e r with p a r t i c u l a r r e f e r e n c e to the additional financial c o m m i t m e n t which would fall on the F o r e i g n Office in o r d e r to p u r c h a s e equipment, the r e q u i r e m e n t for which r e s u l t s entirely from the introduction of STRAD. It was a g r e e d that the NSA/GCHQ traffic would be handled outside of STRAD and t h e r e f o r e does not r e p r e s e n t any p a r t i c u l a r p r o b l e m . ALERTS TRAFFIC Bearing in mind our t r i p a r t i t e c o m m i t m e n t for the rap'id handling of A l e r t s traffic, we had a n u m b e r of r e s e r v a t i o n s r e g a r d i ng its working through the STRAD equipment. V a r i o u s types of warning s y s t e m s whereby the S u p e r v i s o r might be warned before any signal e n t e r e d STRAD w e r e d i s c u s s e d . , The possibility of some form of automatic warning which would enable d i r e c t connection to be established with all t h r e e u s e r s was examined. We all a g r e e d that some m e a n s of making c e r t a i n that no A l e r t s m e s s a g e was delayed or p e r h a p s tangled up in STRAD was e s s e n t i a l . Your people suggested that a "black box" might be introduced which would have the effect of a l e r t i n g the S u p e r v i s o r over and above the n o r m a l a l a r m system i n c o r p o r a t e d in STRAD which b e c o m es active on r e c e i p t of a F l a s h m e s s a g e . Robin suggested that a device known a s "Mabel" might be introduced which would have the s a m e effect. If "Mabel" suitably modified for the Hydra c i r c u i t s could be made this might be capable of producing a warning signal which could be sent over the existing c i r c u i t s without i n t e r r u p t i o n of traffic. / T h e traffic, . . . •$'-.. 000261 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information •^jr** 13. 12929 The traffic being Only i n t e r r u p t e d during the actual t r a n s m i s s i o n of the A l e r t s signal. We all a g r e e d that this m a t t e r m e r i t e d further consideration and Lt. Col. Scott undertook to investigate the possibility of a "black box" and Robin undertook to take another look at "Mabel" with a view to seeing what could be done to modify the equipment for this p u r p o s e . PICCOLO TESTS You kindly undertook to help us with our t e s t s of the Piccolo equipment which a r e due to c o m m e n c e in about a month or so . We explained that your testing of Piccolo would form p a r t of a r a t h e r wider s e r i e s of t e s t s , the r e s u l t s from which would d e t e r m i n e whether and to what extent we should introduce this system to the D. W . S. c i r c u i t s . We would like to send out an Engineer with the equipment and we would suggest leaving him with you for the first month of the t e s t p e r i o d . The whole period to l a s t s o m e t h r e e to six months. We had j some fairly detailed d i s c u s s i o n s on the Piccolo s y s t e m of signalling, the introduction of which would not complicate the STRAD i s s u e . Robin suggested that it might.be p o s s i b l e to produce something like a six channel Piccolo which if used on a long wave c i r c u i t would go a long way to i m p r o v e the reliability of Hydra, LONG WAVE TRANSMISSIONS Long wave t r a n s m i s s i o n s , t h e i r advantages and t h e i r d i s a d v a n t a g e s , w e r e d i s c u s s e d in some detail. Robin was a strong advocate for the introduction of long wave since it was h i s opinion that it would provide a much l e s s vulnerable c i r c u i t than that at p r e s e n t provided by either the cable or the short wave Hydra c i r c u i t . He considered that an investment in long wave equipment .would s e e m likely to be much m o r e profitable than the hiring of further p a i r s in the Transatlantic cables. This was based entirely on his f e a r s that the cables might be i n t e r r u p t e d in the event of or immediatel y p r i o r to a r e a l e m e r g e n c y . We undertook to. let'you have some idea of the cost of the equipment and a l s o / an a s s e s s m e n t of the relative m e r i t s of long wave v i s - a - v i s c a b l e s . EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM The s y s t e m of a r e a calling a s at p r e s e n t used by the D. W. S. was d e s c r i b e d and we explained that we w e r e actively engaged in modifying this . s y s t e m in o r d e r to provide a method of making contact with the r e m n a n t s of D. W. S. following a n u c l e a r attack. The b a s i s of this s y s t e m is that all surviving stations of the network would listen to c e r t a i n fixed frequencies at fixed p e r i o d s throughout the 24 h o u r s . Any station wishing to contact would call on the a p p r o p r i a t e frequency with previously allocated call signs and any D. W. S. station h e a r i n g this call would reply. It will be seen from this brief explanation that by t h i s method any two or m o r e stations within range should eventually-establish a contact. We suggested that it would be to our mutual advantage if your signals centr e could come into this e m e r g e n c y network, b e a r i ng in mind its limitations and the fact that it would be operated on hand m o r s e . Your people showed g r e a t i n t e r e s t and we undertook to send out the full detailed scheme when it is complete. To s u m m a r i s e the position c r e a t e d by the introduction of STRAD into the Hydra network (1) NSA/GCHQ traffic will be outside STRAD. (2) The need for special steps to be taken to w a r n the STRAD S u p e r v i s o r of the existence of an A l e r t m e s s a g e was recognised by both 'sides 000262 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information •E ._J/2929 14. sides. We both undertook to take another look at this p r o b l e m . (3) Procedure We a g r e e d that the changes to p r o c e d u r e w e r e m a r g i n a l and saw no g r e a t difficulty in t h e i r introduction. (4) High P r e c e d e n c e traffic We had some difference of opinion h e r e a s we could not a g r e e to any lowering of the p r e c e d e n c e signals on the traffic for which we a r e r e s p o n s i b l e . Your officers undertook to look into the limitations in this respect with p a r t i c u l a r r e f e r e n c e a s to whether STRAD could be made to operate at a c e r t a i n level for Hydra traffic and at a different level for Military traffic. (5) We recognised that STRAD could not o p e r a te effectively u n l e s s E. D. C. was introduced to the Hydra c i r c u i t s . We explained that it will be n e c e s s a r y for this r e q u i r e m e n t to be further examined by the F o r e i g n Office. (b) You a g r e e d to join us intesting of the Piccolo system. . (7) Robin undertook to examine the possibility of producing a six way P i c c o l o and also an e s t i m a t e as to the cost of suitable long wave equipment. We als o undertook to( investigate the r e l a t i v e , m e r i t s and reliability of long wave and c a b l e s . (8) You w e r e i n t e r e s t e d in our p r o p o s a l s for an e m e r g e n c y s y s t e m and we undertook to send you a complete scheme a s soon as i t c o m e s available. Both Robin and I found our brief v i s i t to Ottawa m o s t i n t e r e s t i n g and we a r e indeed grateful to you and your staff for the time they spent in d i s c u s s i n g our p r o b l e m s and also in taking us around to see your v a r i o u s establishments. We a l s o v e r y much a p p r e c i a t e d and would like to thank you all for the social activitie s which we enjoyed. P e r h a p s you would be good enough to let me know if you a g r e e with this l e t t e r which we can then use a s a r e c o r d of our m e e t i n g s . I am s u r e you will u n d e r s t a n d that this l e t t e r is not intended in any way to indicate a g r e e m e n t o r acceptance of the p r o p o s a l s which will have to form the subject of official c o r r e s p o n d e n c e between the F o r e i g n Office and the Canadian Department of E x t e r n a l Affairs. You.will of c o u r s e r e a l i s e that we cannot d i s c u s s the m a t t e r formally in the F o r e i g n Office until we have reached / agreement 000263 �^* f y 1 «tSi SSft |C Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information ?"V -*^Br /5. fOD/2929 a g r e e m e n t on what exactly took place at the m e e t i n g s . Thanking you once again. V^— S^—x^. (W. J. Sharpe) 000264 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hydra Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HY00142 Title A name given to the resource [STRAD HYDRA Introduction] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 08/14/1962 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Hydra Communications - Policy, RG24, 1250-36 Vol. 2, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Department of National Defence Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource Emergency planning, Emergency communications, EASE, STRAD, DWS, Tripartite Alerts Description An account of the resource Series of correspondence between P.D. Smith, D Sigs, and W.J. Sharpe, Deputy Director, Diplomatic Wireless Service, pertaining to discussions in Ottawa taking place between 18 July 1962 and 20 July 1962 about STRAD and Hydra. Sharpe observed problems with use of STRAD, including difficulties with message precedence and concern that Alerts traffic would get "tangled up" in STRAD. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en