Paul Rosa found some very interesting historical information about the Navy
communications facility at Sugar Grove, WV in Senator Robert Byrd's
autobiography. It provides a lot of insights into the politics of the
project. Paul has compiled the relevant excerpts from the book and, with
his permission, I'm posting those excerpts and his comments below.

Albert

BEGIN QUOTE

Excerpts from "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields"

"In August (1957), continuing my interest in other areas of the state, I
announced that the Navy would be building a highly classified communications
project at Sugar Grove in Pendleton County, and that it would likely require
a total expenditure of some $50 million to $60 million. I revealed that the
location of the installation had been determined on the basis of a
scientific evaluation, including such factors as temperature, altitude and
the absence of radio interference. A $1.5 million planning appropriation had
been made in 1956, and I added that the House had authorized an additional
$9 million for the project and that the Navy had already acquired the needed
acreage." (p. 96)

* * * * *

SUGAR GROVE PROJECT ENDANGERED

During the summer of 1961, disturbing reports began to surface indicating
that the Navy might abandon the multimillion-dollar radio astronomy project
it was building at Sugar Grove in Pendleton County. The July 7 edition of
the Clarksburg Exponent reported: "The Navy may cancel the $180 million
radio telescope project at Sugar Grove, Pendleton County, a national trade
publication said Thursday." The national trade publication, identified as
the Engineering News-Record, was quoted: "a decision is expected within the
next few weeks." The publication also cited construction delays, rising
costs, and changes in need, as reasons for the "possible scrapping of the
facility," which had been started in 1958.

The Navy was faced with the dilemma of whether to pursue a trouble-ridden
construction job that was decreasing in need or to junk the project and take
a multi-million dollar loss. The basic consideration was whether the need
for the facility had diminished sufficiently to warrant closing down the
project. The purpose of the project had been a Navy program to bounce radio
signals off the moon for long range communications purposes, but the
communications role had been diminished since this was already being done
with developments in satellites that were beginning to make the project
obsolete before it was completed. This development was a disturbing one,
indeed. (pp. 139-140)

* * * * *

THE "BIG EAR" BECOMES OBSOLETE

Meanwhile (in chronological sequence in the autobiography it looks like
around late July 1962), West Virginia was reeling from the blow caused by
the announcement that the giant naval project at Sugar Grove was scheduled
to be shut down. In July, Defense Secretary McNamara met with the West
Virginia congressional delegation and said it would cost $40 million to pay
old commitments and shut down the project. As a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee and of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I took the
position that a close-down of the project was regrettable and most
unfortunate, but I also recognized that because of scientific advances, it
was becoming obsolete and not important enough to the nation's defense to
continue work on it-especially in view of the enormous price tag required
for its completion. I did not believe that the expenditure of $200
million-estimated to be the minimum required to finish the job-could be
justified in view of the increasing obsolescence of the project, brought
about by rapid advances in satellite technology. I was the only member of
the West Virginia delegation who took this position.

McNamara and his research chief, Dr. Harold Brown, met for more than an hour
behind closed doors with Senator Randolph, the state's six representatives,
an assistant to Governor Brown, and myself, with McNamara saying at the end
that he would consult with other agencies to determine the extent to which
work already accomplished could be modified, adapted, and utilized to
contribute to the programs of other agencies. He told us that none of the
other agencies could be considered likely prospects for assuming the
construction and completion of the project, but he pledged to continue his
effort and said that he would review future military contracts and
installation requirements with an eye toward West Virginia.

At the time it had been proposed some years before, the "radio telescope"
seemed to be the best option for the defense purposes for which it was
designed, but in the meantime the Defense Department had learned that
satellites could do the mission better, quicker and cheaper. The United
States now had satellites in orbit that would photograph any point on the
globe. Other satellites, equipped with inconceivably sensitive instruments,
could detect the heat from a moving rocket within seconds of a launching and
could relay the information with the speed of light.

The 600-foot "Big Dish"-or Big Ear," as it was sometimes called-had run into
technical problems, brought on by such things as temperature changes which
affected the 50-by-50 foot aluminum panels that were to be used as
reflectors inside the dish. One of the big problems the Navy had in building
the machine was the demand for a precise curve of the "dish" on the antenna.

Attempts had been made to overcome the problem by building machinery into
the surface that would make continual measurements and adjustments. Most of
the turntable for the steerable antenna had been completed, and the
structural shell of a 50,000-square-foot, two-story underground laboratory
had been finished. The Navy had bought eleven 50-by-50-foot aluminum panels
for the reflector dish and had seven more under assembly. One hundred would
have been needed.

The "Dish" was designed for secret research in ionospheric physics, space
communications, navigation and radio astronomy, and would have been used to
monitor Russian communications, especially information on missile
launchings. When the project was started in 1958, the estimated cost was $80
million. McNamara said that the Navy had already contracted to spend $96
million on the project, with actual expenditures, so far, amounting to $42
million, and that estimates for completion had grown to $200 million.

In a discussion of the matter with President Kennedy in late July, I was
told by the President that he would make every effort to find a new use for
the project at Sugar Grove, and he reiterated his keen interest in West
Virginia and in strengthening the economy of the state. In August, I wrote
to Defense Secretary McNamara, suggesting that the facility be converted
into a "radio astronomy and research station for conducting both basic and
applied studies in astronomy and electronics." Stating that the very
features that led to the choice of Sugar Grove as a site for the facility
would still make it a location of unique potential, I wrote::The national
radio-quiet zone, which was created, through the cooperation of the State of
West Virginia, for the Naval Radio Research Station and for the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia still exists." I
noted that the site was protected by national forests, and even the forest
roads had been routed so as to shield the electronic noise of the forest
rangers' automobile engines from the site. I explained that the site was an
ideal location for a research station to conduct some of the most advanced
and most sensitive measurements and studies in radio astronomy and military
electronics, and that it was unequalled anywhere in the eastern half of the
United States. I reiterated that the Navy should not fail to take advantage
of the facilities and ideal environment at Sugar Grove to establish a radio
astronomy and research station." (pp. 145-147)

* * * * *

U.S. NAVY HEADS FOR WEST VIRGINIA

On October 15 (1962), I announced that the Senate Armed Services Committee
had that day approved the request by the Navy to move an important part of
its worldwide communications system to the West Virginia mountains. The
committee had restored the $3,830,000 to the Navy budget, the monies
previously been deleted by the House. On the Senate floor, I spoke in
support of the relocation of the radio receiving facilities from Cheltenham,
Maryland, to Sugar Grove, West Virginia. Describing the Sugar Grove site as
being "free of electronic noise, and otherwise excellent for radio
communications purposes," I said that the Navy planned to install a modern
antenna for reception of low and very low frequencies "which are so
important to naval command and control." I stated that because of space and
weight limitations in ships and because of the inherently hostile platforms
of ships, the Navy was limited to low-powered transmitters and inefficient
antenna arrangements, adding: "This must be compensated for at the shore
end. Thus, in effect, an extra-sensitive ear must compensate for a weak and
barely audible voice to make communications possible." (pp. 164-165)

(Comment: Does this not sound a lot like a cell tower that can shout, and a
whimpy 0.6 watt cell phone that needs sensitive diversity receive antennas
on the tower to complete the conversation?)

* * * * *

PUSHES WEST VIRGINIA PROJECTS

President Johnson had signed into law the Military Construction
Appropriations Bill of the previous year, which contained $3.8 million for
moving the Naval Radio Receiving Station from Cheltenham, Maryland, to Sugar
Grove in Pendleton County. On January 9 (1964), I had announced that actual
construction at the site would begin on an underground structure "which will
be used as the radio receiving building, and which is expected to cost
$783,000." Such construction, I had explained, was expected to begin "within
six months," according to information I had received from the Department of
the Navy. (p. 167)

* * * * *

BRINGS THE NAVY TO WEST VIRGINIA

On Saturday, May 10, 1969, I spoke at the ceremony activating the $32.5
million communications center at Sugar Grove, in Pendleton County. I had
worked long and hard to see that the facility was located in West Virginia.
It had been moved to Sugar Grove from Cheltenham, Maryland, and would serve
as the "ears" for naval radio communications, receiving messages from ships
at sea and naval installations in the North and South Atlantic Oceans and
the Caribbean. With all the pomp of christening a new ship, the Navy
formally opened the new center. The facility was on a site that once was to
have hosted a $200 million, 600-foot-wide radio telescope called the "Big
Dish," but that project had been dropped in July 1962, when Secretary of
Defense Robert S. McNamara said that scientific advances had already
overtaken the telescope. McNamara's order had withstood round after round of
congressional criticism. The Navy had sought other uses for the partially
completed installation. About $20 million had been invested. Finally, it had
been decided, in November 1962, to move the "listening" portion of the radio
station at Cheltenham to Sugar Grove. Radio receivers at Cheltenham had been
troubled by electromagnetic interference caused by growing suburbs and an
expanding industry. Sugar Grove, near the Virginia-West Virginia line in the
George National Washington Forest, was an area relatively free from man-mad
interference and was ideal for receiving high-frequency radio signals.

The Sugar Grove facility, the only military installation in West Virginia,
had a complement of 108 Navy men and thirty civilians. It was located in a
100-mile-long national radio-quiet-zone, and possessed two
1,000-foot-diameter, dish-shaped antennas. The Navy had, indeed, come to
West Virginia! The Pendleton Times of May 13, 1969, stated in an editorial:
"Senator Byrd, perhaps more than any other single individual, deserves the
credit for bringing to West Virginia its first major military establishment.
Certainly he is justly entitled to take pride in this significant
achievement, a job well done." I had fought many battles in Congress in the
effort to locate this facility in West Virginia, and, after many years, I
was gratified to see those efforts crowned with success. A dream had at last
become a reality!" (Pp.257-258)

* * * * *





From Senator Byrd's comments on the May 29, 1992 dedication of a $990,000
community center at Sugar Grove:

"The naval station was the result of one of my major efforts and had been
built almost thirty years earlier. In my dedicatory remarks, I cited the
inadequacy of early detection technology in 1941 as a reason for my interest
and support of the Naval Radio Station. "We must never again be caught
asleep at the wheel as we were at Pearl Harbor, or in 1950 in Korea. Though
the cold war with the former Soviet Union has ended," I observed, "we have
not forgotten the lessons that we learned at dear expense. Periods of peace
all too often can be preludes to aggression."

I continued: "Because of the continuing and never failing vigilance of this
vital installation here in the mountains of West Virginia, we can more
readily coordinate our naval security shield and defense resources than ever
before in our history." (p. 537)

* * * * *

"On October 1 (1992), the Naval Radio Receiving Station at Sugar Grove
became the "Naval Security Group Activity, Sugar Grove." I had supported
appropriations for the military operations at Sugar Grove for more than
thirty years, as a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Armed
Services Committee. According to Lieutenant Jan Dray, executive officer of
the base: "As far as the base is concerned, nothing is going to change. We
are just going from two commands down to one command." (p. 549)

Comment: I'm burned out on looking up all these excerpts and spending more
than an hour typing them for transmission. Thus, I'm disinclined to add all
the Green Bank Observatory stuff. But, based on the first reference to Green
Bank, I'd say Sugar Grove and Green Bank are two different facilities in
different locations. See the first reference to Green Bank:

"The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, along with its 300-foot radio
telescope, had long been a tourist attraction in the Pocahontas County town
of Green Bank, West Virginia.." (p. 475)

As you can see from the above, Sugar Grove lies in Pendleton County. Green
Bank lies in Pocahontas County. Though the two counties are adjacent, and
both lie in the National Radio Quiet Zone, they appear to be separate
facilities.

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