Continental Air Defense Command

Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense, tasked with air defense for the Continental United States. It comprised Army, Air Force, and Navy components. It included Army Project Nike missiles (Ajax and Hercules) anti-aircraft defenses and USAF interceptors (manned aircraft and BOMARC missiles). The primary purpose of continental air defense during the CONAD period was to provide sufficient attack warning of a Soviet bomber air raid to ensure Strategic Air Command could launch a counterattack without being destroyed. CONAD controlled nuclear air defense weapons such as the 10 kiloton W-40 nuclear warhead on the CIM-10B BOMARC. The command was disestablished in 1975, and Aerospace Defense Command became the major U.S. component of North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

Background

As the new U.S. Air Force was being established in 1947, consideration of a joint command for air defense began. After the USAF initiated the development of the "1954 interceptor" (WS-201) to counter expected Soviet bomber advances, the Army deployed M-33 Fire Control for AA artillery in 1950. A proposal for a joint/unified command for air defense was initiated (and failed) in 1950. The new Air Defense Command (ADC) at Ent AFB, and Army Antiaircraft Command (ARAACOM) staffed in the nearby Antlers Hotel (Colorado) was established in 1951. The same year, the Priority Permanent System began replacing the post-war Lashup Radar Network.

A direct telephone line was installed in mid-July 1950 between CONAC headquarters and the 26th Air Division HQ at Roslyn Air Warning Station. This marked "the beginning of the Air Force air raid warning system." When the Korean War broke out, the USAF established a direct telephone line between the Air Force Command Post in the Pentagon and the White House. By 1953, continental air defenses included assets of five organizations, the U.S. ones responsible to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:
*ADC's "SAGE radar stations, fighter interceptor squadrons, and the Air Defense Direction Center"
* Army Antiaircraft Command (ARAACOM)'s AAA artillery, MIM-3 Nike Ajax surface-to-air missiles, and the network of fire control centers and target acquisition radars
*Alaskan Air Command (AAC) with interceptors and radars at North America's northwest
*Northeast Air Command (NEAC) of the USAF in northeast Canada and Thule Air Force Base, Greenland
* Air Defence Command of the Royal Canadian Air Force with its interceptor aircraft and radars

Debate over operational control

The United States Department of Defense agreed that the USAF would assume operational control of all U.S. air defense weapons during an attack. However, the Army complained the USAF command and control network (e.g., the 1950 Strategic Operational Control System (SOCS) telephone/teletype system was "insufficiently reliable." In response to the "enemy capabilities to inflict massive damage on the continental United States by surprise air attack", the National Security Council formulated President Dwight Eisenhower's " The New Look" strategy in 1953-54. To minimize the Soviet threat, the New Look strategy aimed to allow Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers "to get into the air not be destroyed on the ground" to make massive retaliation possible. Thus the major purpose of air defense was not actually to shoot down enemy bombers, but merely gain time for SAC to respond.

Planning

By October 16, 1953, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff requested the services' input regarding formation of a joint air defense command, but the USAF Chief of Staff on December 16, 1953 "concluded that no change was needed or advisable". (cited and quoted by Wainstein p. 198-9) Under "political pressures for greater unity and effectiveness in the national air defense system", the Chairman-- a Navy Admiral—disagreed with the USAF and in January 1954 "recommended that the JCS approve in principle the establishment of a joint air defense command":
:"In an era when enemy capabilities to inflict massive damage on the continental United States by surprise air attack are rapidly increasing, I consider that there is no doubt whatsoever as to the duty of the Joint Chiefs to establish a suitable "joint" command…. The command will be composed of forces of each of the services and provide for the coordinated accomplishment of functions of each of the services for the air defense of the United States."
The command was planned to include:Memorandum from Chairman JCS to Chiefs of Staff, CM-47-54 15 January 1954, Subject: "Command Arrangements for the Air Defense of the United States" (Citation 5 at Wainstein pp. 199,262)
*all air forces regularly assigned to the air defense of the United States
*land based early warning stations and sea-based forces assigned to contiguous radar coverage;
*antiaircraft forces of the Army involved in the permanent air defense of the United States
*the exercise of operational control of Army and Marine Corps units "which can temporarily augment the air defense forces in event of emergency."
*CINCLANT/CINCPAC and CINCAL/CINCNE responses as needed from their "seaward extensions of the early warning system…and early warning installations in Alaska and the NE Command".

Operational control

The Joint Chiefs directed the establishment of CONAD on August 2, 1954. The Secretary of Defense announced the command's formation publicly later in the month to integrate "the air defense capabilities of the three military departments into an air defense system responsible to the control of one military commander" (Wainstein).

CONAD was established effective September 1, 1954, primarily to defend the continental United States against air attack. It was also tasked to support U.S. commanders in the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, Alaska, Northeast, and of Strategic Air Command in their missions to the maximum extent consistent with its primary mission. ADC's commander, General Benjamin Chidlaw