DTRA HISTORY SERIES

CREATING THE

DEFENSE

THREAT

REDUCTION

AGENCY

“Today’s harsh reality is too powerful to ignore ... at least twenty-five countries

have, or are in the process of acquiring and developing, nuclear, biological, or chemical

weapons and the means to deliver them.

Your charge is perhaps the most vital national security mission ever to face our

nation. To persevere in reducing the nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals of

the world. To prevent the seepage into the global arms bazaar of those that remain.

To protect America from those who would use these terror weapons against us. And

to peer into the opaque windows of tomorrow and to avoid the future shock of unknown weapons.”

- Secretary of Defense William Cohen, DTRA Establishment Ceremony

October 1, 1998

For more information about the

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, contact:

Corporate Communication Division

8725 John J. Kingman Road

MSC 6201

Fort Belvoir, Va. 22060-6201

Telephone: (703) 767-5870

Facsimile: (703) 767-4450

Email: dtra.publicaffairs@dtra.mil

Or at our Web site:

www.dtra.mil

CREATING THE

DEFENSE THREAT

REDUCTION AGENCY

by Joseph P. Harahan, Ph.D.

Captain Robert J. Bennett

DTRA History Series

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

U.S. Department of Defense

January 2002
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publishing Data

Harahan, Joseph P.

Bennett, Robert J.

Creating the Defense Threat Reduction Agency

DTRA History Series

Includes Bibliographical References

1. Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.

2. Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.

Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.

2. Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.

Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.

Treaties, Arms Control — United States — History.
The creation of a new defense agency is invariably tied to the senior leader’s

desire to refocus the department’s people, resources, and organizations towards a

new mission. In the late-1990s, the secretary of defense stated that terrorists,

especially those who would use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. citizens

and military forces, were a significant new threat to the United States of America.

The proliferation of weapons around the world added fuel to the threat. The

use of biological and chemical weapons by terrorist factions compounded the

problem. As a direct consequence, the secretary commissioned a series of analytical

studies that led senior mangers to establish in the Office of the Secretary of

Defense a new, focused defense agency – the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

This historical report explains the context, assumptions, and rationale for

establishing the new agency. In addition, it narrates the history of DTRA’s first

three years, from 1998 to 2001. Those were seminal years, as the agency’s initial

cadre of leaders worked to consolidate all of the people, programs, and existing

missions into a single organization, with specific programs and weapons that

would assist the Department of Defense, the military commands, and the nation

in responding to the WMD terrorist threat.

In the American constitutional system, federal agencies involved in

significant, contemporary missions have a special obligation to inform the public

of their activities. The government is accountable to the people. This history

helps meet that obligation by explaining the events and decisions that led to

“Creating the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.”

STEPHEN M. YOUNGER

DIRECTOR

Director’s Foreword
Joseph P. Harahan is the senior historian at the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency. He received a doctorate in American History from Michigan State

University. Prior to joining the agency in October 1998, he served as the historian

at the On-Site Inspection Agency, special assistant to the Historian of the Air

Force, staff historian at the Strategic Air Command and faculty member at the

University of Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of two books, On-Site

Inspections Under the INF Treaty (1993), and On-Site Inspections Under the

CFE Treaty (1997), and coeditor of a multi-volume (12 books) Air Force history

series, Warrior Studies.

Captain Robert J. Bennett, U.S. Army, holds a baccalaureate degree in

history from the United States Military Academy and is pursuing a master’s

degree in public communication from American University. He served as a

public affairs officer at Defense Threat Reduction Agency from March 1999 to

November 2001. Prior to joining the agency, he held command and staff

positions with several Army units including the First Battalion, Fifth Field

Artillery Regiment at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the Second Battalion, Third Field

Artillery Regiment in both Bosnia and Germany.

Authors
Table of Contents

Creating the Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Introduction....................................................................................................... 1

Responding to Terrorism .................................................................................... 2

Sustaining the Nation’s Nuclear Deterrent Forces ................................................ 6

Strengthening the Department’s Emerging

Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation Missions .............................. 8

New Agency’s Core Elements ........................................................................... 10

Planning Year, 1997-1998 ................................................................................ 13

Establishment Day: October 1, 1998 ................................................................ 17

The Official Mission ........................................................................................ 20

Organizing the Work: The Mission Directorates ............................................... 21

Agency Leadership and New Methodologies for Countering Terrorism ............. 26

Director’s Status Report: First Six Months ........................................................ 29

The First Strategic Plan .................................................................................... 32

The Mission: Continuities and Changes ........................................................... 34

Entering DTRA’s Third Year: Major Reorganization ......................................... 45

Relocating the Agency ...................................................................................... 49

Director’s Departure and Assessment................................................................. 52

2001: New Opportunities and New Milestones ............................................... 53

Strategic Plan 2001 .......................................................................................... 62

Leadership and Organizational Changes ............................................................ 62

September 11, 2001: Terrorists Attack the United States ................................... 67

DTRA Reference Materials

DTRA Key Personnel ....................................................................................... 70

DTRA Operating Locations – October 1, 2001 ............................................... 76

Chronology78Lineage and Honors ................................................................... 82

DTRA Seal ...................................................................................................... 83

Further References ............................................................................................ 84

DTRA Web Site ............................................................................................... 85

Endnotes .......................................................................................................... 86
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 1

Creating the

Defense Threat

Reduction Agency

by Joseph P. Harahan, Ph.D.

Introduction

S

trategy precedes structure. Major changes in strategy, especially ones leading

to shifts in institutional focus, funds, and resources, often lead to the creation

of new organizations. This was the case as Secretary of Defense William S.

Cohen presided over the establishment of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency

on October 1, 1998. The new agency’s origins lay in three national security

issues that came to the forefront in the mid-1990s. Each had strategic implications,

and each was discussed at senior levels in the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs

of Staff, National Security Council, and Congress.

The first issue was terrorism. By 1995, it had become the major new threat

facing the nation, its people, and military forces. Within the Department of

Defense (DoD), senior civilian and military policy officials were studying, briefing,

coordinating, and recommending strategies and programs for responding to the

new terrorist threats. There were many fundamental questions. What was the

greatest threat - an attack on the United States homeland or its military forces

abroad using nuclear, chemical, biological, or conventional explosive weapons?

Did the department have a strategy and programs for responding to each type of

attack? Would the counter-terrorism mission be assigned to one of the military

services? Would it be given to a specified combatant command? What about

homeland defense? What command or agency would be assigned responsibility

for training, equipping, and deploying DoD’s resources to support Justice

Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials responding to

major terrorist incidents in the United States? Or would it be best if the Defense

Department’s responsibilities were shared with the military commands and a

new agency with a specific threat reduction mission in the Office of the Secretary

of Defense? From 1995 to 1998, these and other questions were actively

analyzed, discussed, and decided by the secretary of defense and his senior civilian

and military advisors.

The second issue, also occurring in the mid-1990s, was a major critique of

the DoD’s capability to sustain the nation’s existing nuclear deterrent forces in

the coming decades. This critique urged the department’s senior leaders to revitalize
2 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

its institutional focus on the policies, people, and programs needed to keep the

strategic nuclear forces strong and credible. The third issue was the perception

that the department’s growing nonproliferation and counterproliferation missions

had to be strengthened. Senior leaders in the Department of Defense examined

ways to consolidate existing agencies, organizations, programs, and administrations

that dealt with the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Consolidation, they believed, would lead to a more focused management of the

department’s nonproliferation and counterproliferation policies and programs.

Initially unrelated, these issues became intertwined as the secretary of defense

and his senior advisors acted in 1997 and 1998 to change defense strategy, policy,

and organizations. They began with the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI),

announced publicly in November 1997. Then nearly a year later, on October 1,

1998, the secretary of defense established the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Responding to Terrorism

Terrorism became a national security issue in the early 1990s following a

series of attacks resulting in destruction, deaths, and mass casualties. The

initial domestic terrorist incident occurred in New York City on February

26, 1993, when terrorists drove a rental truck, laden with explosives, into the

World Trade Center complex. Remotely, they triggered a massive explosion that

blew apart an underground parking garage, killing six people, injuring more than

1,000, and causing 50,000 people to be evacuated from the trade center complex

and surrounding buildings.1 Seven months later, in October 1993, American

Special Forces on a peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu, Somalia were caught in

a murderous crossfire with local armed guerillas. Eighteen U.S. soldiers died;

seventy-five were wounded.2 While not a classic case of terrorism, this dramatic

incident demonstrated the military need for force protection and for better local

intelligence of terrorist factions. Three years later, in April 1996, terrorists

detonated a truck laden with 20,000 pounds of TNT near a fence in the American

military section of Dhahran Air Base, Saudi Arabia. The explosion killed 19

U.S. Air Force members and wounded hundreds of service men and Saudi Arabian

citizens. Known as the Khobar Towers bombing, this terrorist incident triggered

a major investigation which changed the way that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the

commanders-in-chief of the combatant commands, and the military services

viewed force protection.3 Terrorism was real threat, both to American citizens at

home and to U.S. military forces abroad. During the mid-1990s, violent terrorist

acts continued. Individual terrorists, religious sects, and political cells carried out

conventional, chemical, and biological weapons attacks and threats in Oklahoma

City (1995), Tokyo (1995), Saudi Arabia (1996), Washington, D.C. (1997),

Nairobi, Kenya (1998), and Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania (1998).4

NOTE: Cited material is referenced in endnotes, see page 88.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 3

The Oklahoma City bombing shocked the nation. On April 19, 1995, a

single American citizen exploded a parked, rental truck filled with a fertilizerchemical-explosive compound, blowing up the Oklahoma City federal office

building and killing 168 people.5 It was the worst terrorist act ever committed

in the United States and it revealed the American public’s vulnerability. Within

weeks, the president requested that Congress fund 1,000 new federal officials to

investigate, deter, and prosecute terrorist activity. A new Domestic

Counterterrorism Center was established, headed by the FBI. A presidential

directive assigned the Justice Department and the FBI specific responsibility for

developing and implementing the administration’s domestic antiterrorism effort.6

Richard A. Clarke, a senior National Security Council (NSC) official, was given

new powers as the chairman of the NSC Interagency Counterterrorism

Committee. In 1996 Congress acted, authorizing the expansion of the FBI,

funding the new counterterrorism center, and enacting the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici

Amendment to the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Act.

This amendment established the Department of Defense as the lead federal agency

in the Emergency Response Assistance program and provided $100 million

annually for training courses, new equipment, and exercises to improve the federal,

state, and local governments’ ability to respond to WMD incidents in the civilian

population.7

Another terrorist attack, the release of the chemical nerve gas sarin in Tokyo

in March 1995, profoundly influenced U.S. Senator William S. Cohen. In

1997, Senator Cohen became secretary of defense. In the Tokyo attack, followers

of a religious sect, Aum Shinrikyo, released six canisters of sarin gas into three

subway trains, killing twelve and injuring over 5,000 people. Thousands of

people jammed the city’s emergency medical system. The culprits were caught

and when the police raided the sect’s compound they seized two tons of chemicals

used to make sarin.8 The potential for mass casualties was apparent. This Tokyo

subway incident demonstrated the far-reaching consequences of urban terrorism.

In the United States, defense analysts became concerned about a terrorist attack

using chemical weapons on an American city or military institution. When Senator

Cohen was sworn in as secretary of defense in January 1997, he made international

terrorism a priority. In public speeches, Congressional testimony, NSC meetings

with the president, and in senior departmental meetings, Cohen repeatedly raised

the issue of terrorists using nuclear, chemical, biological, or high-explosive weapons

in a sudden attack on U.S. forces or the American people.

“As the new millennium approaches,” Cohen wrote to Congress, “the United

States faces a heightened prospect that regional aggressors, third-rate armies,

terrorist cells, and even religious cults will wield disproportionate power by using—

or even threatening to use—nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons against our

troops in the field and our people at home.”9 During the three years that he
4 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

served as secretary of defense (1997 to 2000), Cohen pushed senior defense officials

and the commanders of the military services to think more seriously about

international terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, he told

them to rethink their intelligence, planning, training, organizations, resources,

and their mix of scientists, technologists, and military officers working through

this complex issue. It became, over time, one of Cohen’s most significant policy

initiatives and, in retrospect, it was a major impetus leading to the creation of

DTRA.

Four days after Cohen took office on January 24, 1997, his principal deputy,

Dr. Paul G. Kaminski, authorized a new Defense Science Board (DSB) task force

to define the new transnational terrorist threats. The task force would assess the

nation’s vulnerabilities, examine the department’s capabilities to respond, identify

available and potential technologies for protecting U.S. armed forces, and

recommend specific actions.10 Dr. Robert J. Hermann served as chairman, with

General Larry D. Welch, USAF (Retired), serving as vice-chairman. More than

225 defense experts, organized into five panels, concentrated on defining the

capabilities of international terrorist organizations, international crime syndicates,

transnational religious sects, and radical political groups that might use nuclear,

chemical, or biological weapons against U.S. military or civilian populations.

The final report, known as the “DSB Summer Study of 1997 on DoD Responses

to Transnational Threats,” became a seminal document in the Defense Department

for defining the new threats and recommending a range of responses. General

Welch was a key figure in this study. In his opinion, it led senior defense officials

to consider establishing a new defense agency. “The Defense Science Board’s

report on transnational threats simply reinforced a subject (WMD terrorism)

that was obviously already on his mind,” Welch said of the secretary of defense.11

Influenced by recent terrorist incidents, this Defense Science Board study,

and other departmental reviews, Cohen asked Dr. John J. Hamre, his new deputy

secretary of defense to examine over the summer of 1997 all DoD support agencies

and organizations that were dealing with threats from weapons of mass destruction,

nonproliferation, and counterproliferation.12 According to Hamre, Cohen’s

request was based on threat analyses drawn from real-world intelligence and the

probability of a catastrophic terrorist incident in the United States or against

American forces abroad. “[It was] deeply on his mind, deeply on his mind... .

During that first year, he was becoming more aware of the problems caused by

chemical, biological, and nuclear terrorism.”13 By the summer of 1997, Hamre

said that they believed “that the biggest threat we were going to face in this

decade was the proliferation of materials that constitute weapons of mass

destruction—and that the agenda for nonproliferation and counterproliferation

was not well focused in terms an institutional center of gravity (within DoD).”14
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 5

DTRA

FOUNDING

LEADERSHIP

Major changes in the Department

of Defense’s strategy for

responding to terrorism led

Secretary of Defense William S.

Cohen to establish the Defense

Threat Reduction Agency, on

October 1, 1998. Dr. John J.

Hamre and Dr. Jacques S.

Gansler were responsible for

crafting the new organization.

Dr. Jay C. Davis served as

DTRA’s first director, with

Major General William F.

Moore, USAF, as deputy

director.

President

of the United States

Mr. William J. Clinton

Secretary of Defense

Mr. William S. Cohen

Chairman

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gen. Harry M. Shelton

Deputy

Secretary of Defense

Dr. John J. Hamre

Under Secretary of

Defense for Policy

Mr. Walter B. Slocombe

Under Secretary of

Defense for Acquisition

& Technology

Dr. Jacques S. Gansler

Director, Defense

Research & Engineering

Dr. Hans Mark

Director, Defense Threat

Reduction Agency

Dr. Jay C. Davis

Deputy Director, Defense

Threat Reduction Agency

Maj. Gen. William F. Moore
6 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Further, Hamre thought that the DSB study, in particular, had demonstrated

that the department lacked an intellectual underpinning to understand, evaluate,

and recommend a course of action against a biological or chemical terrorist attack.

This was an important point. The military services had shown little interest

in tackling these new threats. The unified commands had their specific missions

and regional responsibilities. But the new threats included proliferation of nuclear

weapons and materials, the possibility of biological or chemical attacks, and even

attacks on the information systems of the U.S. military commands. According

to both Hamre and Welch, these new threats fell into the “too hard” to solve

category for the U.S. military commands and existing DoD agencies.15 There

were no easy answers. Hamre, in particular, believed that the department lacked

the “intellectual depth” of knowledge to deal seriously with biological terrorism.

Welch and his colleagues in the DSB Transnational Threat study had concluded

that the department needed a better biological and chemical scientific base, new

technologies and countermeasures, new intelligence detection capabilities, new

penetrating weapons, better coordination across federal departments and agencies,

and significantly, new international cooperative threat reduction programs.16

Given this substantive critique, Hamre asked the question: Who in the department

was going to take on these “too hard” problems?

Sustaining the Nation’ Sustaining the Nation’ Sustaining the Nation’s Nuclear s Nuclear

Deterrent Forces Deterrent Forces

Another “hard” problem was how to reform and revitalize the Department

of Defense and the Department of Energy’s institutional focus on

sustaining the nation’s nuclear forces. By the mid-1990s, there was a

perception among defense experts that the programs and infrastructure needed to

sustain the nation’s strategic nuclear forces and weapons were in decline. A

combination of elements supported this conclusion: mandatory strategic force

reductions under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and II),

cancellation in the early 1990s of many strategic modernization programs, and

the disestablishment of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), which had been a

powerful advocate for all of the strategic nuclear programs. In 1993 the Congress

directed the president and secretary of defense to conduct a major review of the

nation’s nuclear deterrence forces, weapons, and programs.

Known as the Nuclear Posture Review of 1994, it defined U.S. policy for

nuclear deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation.17 Approved by the

president as policy in September 1994, the review reconfirmed the nation’s

commitment to implementing the START I and II treaties. It defined the size of
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 7

General Larry D. Welch,

USAF (Retired), Chairman,

Threat Reduction Advisory Committee

strategic forces, specifying the mix of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles,

long-range bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It directed the

Department of Energy to pursue a stockpile stewardship and management

program; and it recommended to Congress a series of new strategic force

modernization programs.18

From 1996 to 1998, General Welch led a Defense

Science Board Study on Sustaining the Nuclear

Deterrent. Formerly, Welch had served as the Chief of

Staff of the Air Force, and then as president of the

influential Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally

funded research and development center. The new DSB

Study examined many of the issues taken up in the earlier

Nuclear Posture Review. According to Welch, there had

been little progress in revitalizing institutional support

within DoD for maintaining a vigorous nuclear deterrent

force. He said that the study “disabused many people

of the idea that this deterrent [force] was going to survive

in a healthy manner for a long period of time without

senior defense attention.”19 Among several substantial

influences, “this [study] was one of the contributions to

engaging the deputy secretary of defense, Dr. Hamre,

on the issue,” Welch remembered.20 Hamre confirmed

that judgment in an interview in February 2001. He

said that fixing the nuclear sustainment program through

a departmental reorganization was one of the major

reasons for creating a new senior-level agency—the

Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

“We were dealing,” Hamre recalled, “with a basic collapse of institutional

interest in nuclear weapons.”21 “When the Cold War ended,” he continued, “and

the department disbanded SAC, for all practical purposes the intellectual

underpinnings for nuclear weapons started to disappear. The Defense Nuclear

Agency, which was the repository of [nuclear] skills inside the department, was

still there, but it was more as a vestige.”22 The military services had stopped

sending their best people to the nuclear agency. “It was seen as sunset mission,”

Hamre observed, “not as a sunrise mission.”23 By 1997, senior defense leaders

had concluded that the nuclear deterrent force and supporting organizations not

only needed restructuring, but also redirection in order to respond to new WMD

threats facing the nation.
8 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Strengthening the Department’s

Emerging Nonproliferation and

Counterproliferation Missions

The third national security issue began with an assumption that it was in

the United States’ interest to control or limit the proliferation of weapons

of mass destruction throughout the world. A second assumption held

that, if states or terrorist groups succeeded in developing or acquiring weapons of

mass destruction, then the United States needed counterproliferation weapons

and countermeasures in order to act decisively. According to Deputy Secretary of

Defense Hamre, the department was already implementing a number of major

nonproliferation measures - international arms control treaties and agreements

with more than 150 nations, significant cooperative threat reduction programs

with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and a technology security review

process that monitored export licensing of critical exports. The people and

organizations carrying out these nonproliferation measures, he believed, would

fit into a new OSD-level threat reduction agency. Regarding the department’s

efforts in developing WMD countermeasures, Hamre thought that the current

programs needed to be refocused to concentrate on the threat from terrorism.24

By September 1997 the main ingredients for the defense reorganization that

led to the creation of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency were in place.

“Fundamentally,” Hamre recalled, “it was a recognition that nonproliferation/

counterproliferation is the agenda for this decade. That we did not have an

intellectual underpinning for [understanding] biological or chemical weapons.

That the nuclear mission had collapsed, or was collapsing, and that we needed to

basically get a new institutional focus. That is what drove it [DTRA’s

establishment].”25 Hamre’s closest associate in crafting the new agency was Dr.

Jacques S. Gansler. A senior defense management and acquisition specialist,

Gansler had served on many Defense Science Board studies, and in the summer

of 1997, he had been nominated to be the Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Together, these two senior defense leaders

assembled the pieces of the new agency.

After studying the issue and discussing it at length with Hamre, Gansler said

that they wanted the new agency to implement all of the department’s programs

for the nonproliferation and counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“There are two sides,” he explained, “to the story of how you control weapons of

mass destruction. First, you try to cut back on proliferation. Then, you try to

emphasize the defensive techniques that could be used.”26 This two-sided concept

became, in every iteration of the reorganization, the core organizing principle: to
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 9

DTRA conducts escort training in preparation for

inspections under chemical weapons agreements,

such as the Chemical Weapons Convention.

establish an institutional center in the Department of Defense responsible for the

WMD nonproliferation/counterproliferation mission. Hamre was even more

emphatic, declaring that Cohen believed the new agency (DTRA) would become

“one of the things he was known for—creating a new institutional focus for the

mission of this new century.”27

The next set of questions concerned which specific organizations within the

department would make up the new agency. By late summer 1997, Hamre and

Gansler had identified three existing defense agencies that fit into the broader

WMD nonproliferation/ counterproliferation mission area. As Hamre explained,

each of these organizations was already “dealing with this new emerging [postCold War] world.”28 First, there was the Defense Special Weapons Agency

(DSWA), formerly the Defense Nuclear Agency. While acknowledging that it

had “tremendous technical skills,” Hamre thought that DSWA was “locked

mentally” into the Cold War and needed to change its outlook. Next was the

On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA), which was

responsible for conducting the on-site inspection and

escort provisions of nine arms control treaties and

agreements. He thought that OSIA had “by far the most

creative and vibrant bureaucratic culture,” but it lacked

“technical expertise.” Finally, there was the Defense

Technology Security Administration (DTSA), an

organization responsible for the department’s review of

export licenses. Hamre believed that this organization

lacked both technical expertise and a strategic vision.

Specifically, he wanted to refocus the entire export control

effort around the “real security issues,” rather than the

current “thankless” role of looking through “all kinds”

of licenses.29

Hamre also thought that the department needed to develop a “stronger

program” for counterproliferation. To these existing organizations, the two senior

DoD leaders added the department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR)

program office, which was then carrying out the major U.S. nonproliferation

effort with new nations of the former Soviet Union. “We need all these activities,”

Hamre concluded, “but they were stuck off in some suboptimal ways by

themselves, and they weren’t growing. Our goal was, frankly, to get them to

have a clearer vision of the future, which is counterproliferation in general—to

counter all forms of weapons of mass destruction.”30

In a recent interview, Gansler set these organizational changes into context:

“This happened at a time when we were considering a major reorganization and
10 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

major initiatives during the second administration. Secretary Cohen was going

to come out with his Defense Reform Initiative—the DRI.... It seemed like an

ideal time to create this new organization.”31 The DRI was a major reform effort

by the secretary of defense to change the department’s business practices and to

reduce the managerial overhead within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and

fifteen separate defense agencies. The reform initiative had real substance and it

developed into a major effort, especially in the areas of defense acquisition, program

management, and defense business practices.32

When Cohen publicly announced the DRI on November 7, 1997, Vice

President Albert Gore, Jr. attended the ceremony and participated in a press

conference. The vice president linked DoD’s Defense Reform Initiative to the

Clinton administration’s Reengineering Government effort. He also spoke about

the importance of implementing “best business practices” throughout the Defense

Department.33 Following the vice president’s remarks, the secretary explained

the initiative’s four basic pillars: reengineering, consolidating, competing, and

eliminating. In the area of consolidation, Cohen said that combining selected

defense agencies could lead to a 21 percent reduction in personnel, and that by

incorporating selected DoD program offices and smaller organizations into the

newly consolidated agencies, they could reduce their personnel by 36 percent.

Then Cohen announced that he had directed the combination of three existing

defense organizations and the specialized cooperative threat reduction program

office into a single new agency—the Threat Reduction and Treaty Compliance

Agency.34

New Agency’ New Agency’ New Agency’s Core Elements e Elements

Three organizations, the Defense Special Weapons Agency, the On-Site

Inspection Agency, and the Defense Technology Security Administration,

along with the Cooperative Threat Reduction program office in the Office

of the Secretary of Defense, formed the core elements of the new agency. Each of

these major components had a specific mission focus and cadre of experienced

personnel.

The Defense Special Weapons Agency, formerly the Defense Nuclear Agency,

had existed for almost fifty years as DoD’s center for nuclear and advanced weapons

effects expertise. It tested, analyzed, and provided assistance in developing new

technologies for modernizing the nation’s strategic weapon systems. The agency

worked closely with the nation’s unified and specified military commands, and

in recent years developed monitoring technologies for arms control treaties and

agreements. It had been assigned managerial responsibility throughout the
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 11

Department of Defense, in coordination with the Department of Energy, for

assuring the safety and accountability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

The agency had created an innovative, multi-layered program for countering the

effects of a chemical weapons attack on U.S. military bases and forces. In addition,

DSWA had provided skilled contracting officers and staff to carry out the CTR

program, in which the United States assisted the nations of the former Soviet

Union in reducing their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.35

The On-Site Inspection Agency had been established in the Department of

Defense in January 1988 to carry out the on-site inspection and escorting

responsibilities of the U.S. government under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear

Forces (INF) Treaty. In the next three years, the agency would help destroy

nearly 2,700 nuclear weapon systems under that treaty. In May 1990, President

George H. W. Bush directed an expansion of the agency’s mission to include

preparing for and implementing five new arms control treaties: the Conventional

Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START),

Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET),

and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Subsequently, OSIA was

designated in 1991 as the DoD Executive Agent for the United Nations Special

Commission (UNSCOM), which was charged with monitoring the destruction

of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In 1992, the agency was assigned

responsibility, along with the U.S. Air Force, for preparing and training to

implement the Open Skies Treaty. The following year, it received mission

THE

LEGACY

ORGANIZATIONS

DEFENSE THREAT

REDUCTION AGENCY

(DTRA)

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL

DEFENSE PROGRAM

COOPERATIVE THREAT

REDUCTION PROGRAM

(CTR)

ON-SITE

INSPECTION AGENCY

(OSIA)

DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY

SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

(DTSA)

DEFENSE SPECIAL

WEAPONS AGENCY

(DSWA)
12 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

responsibility for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II). In its tenyear existence, the On-Site Inspection Agency had been assigned mission

responsibility for nine major arms control treaties and several significant arms

reduction agreements.36

The Defense Technology Security Administration had been established in

1985 as a field activity under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for

Policy. Its mission was to manage the DoD license review process for the export

of dual- use technologies and munitions. It represented the Defense Department

in implementing the U.S. government’s export control policy in coordination

with the State and Commerce Departments. In the international arena, defense

technology security specialists worked closely with representatives of the

Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), a

multinational organization formed in the 1970s to monitor and limit the export

of advanced military technologies to communist nations. In the 1990s, the

organization gained new missions and responsibilities as it began screening export

licenses for sensitive technologies and materials to a broader array of nations. As

weapons proliferated, especially in third-world nations, DTSA personnel stepped

up their efforts to deny the export of critical technologies that could be used in

developing and deploying weapons of mass destruction.37

Another element was the Cooperative Threat Reduction program office, which

was transferred from the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for

Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs to the new amalgamated

agency. The CTR office’s mission was to implement, consistent with international

arms control treaty requirements and U.S. government acquisition laws and

practices, the Nunn-Lugar program to assist the nations of the former Soviet

Union in reducing their weapons of mass destruction subject to international

arms control treaties.38

A few months after the announcement of the Defense Reform Initiative on

November 7, 1997, Hamre transferred the Chemical Demilitarization Program

from the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical,

and Biological Defense Programs to the U.S. Army. At the same time, he directed

the small OSD program management office for Chemical-Biological Defense

programs be placed into the new agency.39 Combined, the new agency would

have nearly 2,000 people, and a projected budget of $1.9 billion.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 13

Planning Year, 1997-1998

A few weeks after the early November announcement of the Defense Reform

Initiative, Hamre asked Larry Lynn, director of the Defense Advanced

Research Projects Agency, to lead a small team that would define the

new agency’s mission, organization, budget, and reporting relationships within

the department and the federal government.40 “He took four weeks to give us a

blueprint,” Hamre recalled.41 Lynn and his team studied the missions of the

core organizations, examined the DRI report, and incorporated directives and

memos from Hamre and Gansler. Then they personally briefed their concept for

the new agency to senior defense leaders in the National Security Council, Office

of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Department of Energy,

Congressional committee staff, and selected senior retired civilian and military

defense experts.42

In this process, Lynn and his team explained that the new OSD agency would

have three broad mission elements. First, it would directly support maintaining

the U.S. nuclear deterrent by providing: a) OSD/JCS expertise in nuclear weapons

and effects; b) independent assessments of nuclear weapons safety, security,

reliability and control for the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff; c) central management of nuclear weapons stockpile

documentation, training, and records for maintenance and control; d) technical

support for DoD elements on nuclear matters; and e) participation in the

development and support for DoD recommendations to the Energy Department’s

Stockpile Stewardship Program. Next, the new agency would have the mission

of reducing the threat of WMD through arms control treaty monitoring and

implementation; implementation of the cooperative threat reduction programs,

and carrying out of the department’s technology security programs. The third

broad mission element would focus the new agency on countering the WMD

threat by developing new programs for nuclear, chemical, and biological defenses.

According to Lynn, these programs would include: force protection assessments

for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders of the specified

and unified commands; development of treaty monitoring and verification

technologies; development of new weapons to defeat hard and buried targets;

and the creation of new countermeasures to support the Special Operations

Command in combating terrorism.43

Lynn briefed his concept for the new agency to senior national security officials

inside and outside of the department. He encountered major objections. Some

in the nuclear community objected strongly to the loss of independence of its

key OSD agency, the Defense Special Weapons Agency.44 Congressional staffers

objected to the submersion of Congress’ major nonproliferation program, the
14 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Cooperative Threat Reduction program, into the new defense agency. Recently

retired defense leaders objected to stripping the Office of the Assistant to the

Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs of

its major programs.45 Lynn briefed Gansler and Hamre. From these and other

objections, Hamre recognized that he had made two mistakes.

First, he regretted publicly announcing the new Defense Threat Reduction

Agency as part of the Defense Reform Initiative. By linking it to personnel

reductions, elimination of organizations, and departmental efficiencies, he said

that the message of the new agency got lost. He and the secretary wanted establish

a major new agency focused on nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and nuclear

deterrence. Even worse, a perception emerged that the three former organizations

would be reduced in size in order to achieve efficiencies and personnel reductions.

“In essence,” Hamre concluded, “we had a management reform parade, and into

it we drove a float, called the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which was really

about bringing intellectual vibrancy to the nonproliferation agenda.... [Instead]

the whole story got to be about downsizing, shrinking, streamlining, privatizing.”46

It took many months for this perception to dissipate.

Next, Hamre thought that he had erred in abolishing the Office of the

Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense

Programs. While the initial decision fit with Cohen’s desire to reduce the number

of reporting officials, the objections from Congress were serious. It was a Senateapproved DoD position, and the current occupant, Dr. Harold P. Smith, was a

respected nuclear engineer, experienced defense science board analyst, and corporate

consultant. Shortly after the new agency’s announcement, Smith resigned. When

congressional staffers blocked the position’s abolition, Hamre decided to leave it

vacant.47 Policy oversight for the new threat reduction agency was assigned to

the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E). Serving in that

key position was Dr. Hans M. Mark, former secretary of the Air Force and a

strong supporter of the new agency.

Late January 1998, Lynn presented his concept for DTRA to the Defense

Management Council.48 Dr. Hamre chaired the meeting. Lynn began by

recommending that the new agency’s name be changed from the Threat Reduction

and Treaty Compliance Agency to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He

then laid out his basic blueprint for the new agency’s leadership, chain of command,

and institutional relationships within the department. According to Hamre,

Lynn told them, “You’ve done exactly the right thing, but you did it the wrong

way.”49 When Lynn briefed the new agency missions, organization, personnel,

and budget, the session turned contentious. When the council meeting ended

without a consensus, Hamre indicated that he would consider their objections,
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 15

but that he was convinced that the department needed a new, focused

nonproliferation and counterproliferation agency.

Within a week, Hamre had decided to purse the reorganization by constituting

a new panel, the Overarching Integrated Product Team (OIPT), with

representatives from each of the merging organizations.50 Hamre asked George

T. Singley, III (the immediate former DDR&E), to lead the new OIPT task

force. That task force met as a committee consisting of Major General Gary L.

Curtin, USAF, Director, DSWA; Brigadier General John C. Reppert, USA,

Director, OSIA; David S. Tarbell, Director, DTSA; Brigadier General Thomas

E. Kuenning, Jr., USAF (Retired), Director, CTR Program Office; and Colonel

Edwin P. McDermott, USAF, Director, Chemical-Biological Defense Office.

This panel used the Lynn briefing as a working blueprint in its deliberations.

Only one month into the new committee’s work, Singley resigned from the

Department of Defense. Acting quickly, Hamre selected another senior defense

leader, Major General Roland Lajoie, USA (Retired), to lead the committee.

Lajoie had extensive experience during the 1990s with OSIA, CTR, and DSWA.

In organizing and structuring the meetings, briefings, and subpanels, he worked

closely with two key staff officers, Colonel Arthur T. Hopkins, USAF, formerly

chief of staff at DSWA, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael W. Slifka, USAF, a

former executive officer at OSIA. Starting in February 1998, this task force met

weekly to review and make recommendations on every aspect of the new agency.

In the end, it was this committee and team that shaped, defined, outlined, and

developed virtually all of the key elements of the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency during the spring and summer months of 1998.51

In early March, Hamre testified on the Defense Reform Initiative before the

U.S. House of Representative’s National Security Subcommittee. He reported

on the many facets of the comprehensive initiative, and then mentioned the new

agency, DTRA, and the work of Lajoie’s new task force.52 Hamre announced at

this committee hearing that he had decided to combine the Cooperative Threat

Reduction program offices into a single operation at a single site: the OSIA

Headquarters building at Washington Dulles International Airport. At the same

time, Hamre announced that he had transferred the Chemical Demilitarization

Program from OSD to the U.S. Army. Finally, he told the committee that he

had authorized the transfer of the Arms Control Technology Program from the

Defense Special Weapons Agency to the On-Site Inspection Agency, in advance

of establishing DTRA.

Although Hamre did not announce the name of DTRA’s new director at this

congressional hearing, an informal, colleague-to-colleague search had been
16 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

underway for months. Hamre and Gansler had decided

that the top slot would be filled by a senior-level civilian,

preferably a scientist or a technically competent senior

manager. The deputy would be a senior military officer,

one with experience in program management and

departmental bureaucracies. In the early spring 1998, they

interviewed several people.53 Then, on May 8, 1998,

Hamre announced publicly that he had selected Dr. Jay

C. Davis, a senior scientific program manager at the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California,

to be the first director of the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency. Davis was a nuclear physicist with extensive

experience in building and leading multidisciplinary teams

of scientists and engineers that developed major analytical

programs to solve complex, contemporary technical

issues.54 To complement Davis’ skills, Hamre selected a

senior military officer to be the new agency’s deputy

director. Major General William F. Moore, USAF, had

been the director of special programs in the Office of the

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology,

and Logistics. An aeronautical engineer with a degree from the U.S. Air Force

Academy, General Moore was an experienced program manager, with advanced

degrees in acquisition management.55

The next major development in establishing the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency was the creation of a special advisory panel, the Threat Reduction Advisory

Committee (TRAC). According to Hamre, Gansler, and Welch, this senior

advisory panel was extraordinarily important for the new agency’s future. Hamre

said it would provide the new agency with an “intellectual grounding.”56 Gansler

believed that this senior group (former defense secretaries, service chiefs, senior

scientists, and corporate chief executive officers) would give the new agency a

“much higher visibility.”57 Welch said that Secretary Cohen wanted a group of

people who would help ensure that the new director and agency would concentrate

on the “right set” of WMD issues and national problems.58

Secretary of Defense Cohen publicly announced the TRAC’s establishment

on July 15, 1998, the same day that the new advisory committee held its inaugural

meeting. Led by General Welch, the advisory committee was a senior-level group

of two dozen people, drawn from the nation’s top defense experts in the academic,

corporate, scientific, intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic realms.59 At

the inaugural meeting, Davis briefed the committee on the scope of DTRA’s

mission, organization, funding, and immediate challenges.60 He singled out one

Dr. Jay C. Davis, first director of DTRA
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 17

new component of the organization, the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office

(ASCO). This office, he explained, would conduct end-to-end analysis of the

emerging threats, develop advanced concepts, and recommend technologies to

meet them. Davis believed that it would become a key element, since it would

be performing modeling, simulation, analysis, program, and resource planning.

Secretary Cohen attended this initial TRAC meeting, as did Deputy Secretary

Hamre and Under Secretary Gansler. Gansler, in his remarks, said: “We are

asking this new agency to deal with threat reduction in its broadest sense. We

want it to address every conceivable approach to reducing the threat from weapons

of mass destruction ... to prevent the spread of these weapons, to deter their use.

To protect against them if they are used, to identify who is responsible for such

use, and to support an appropriate response.”61 Less than eight weeks after this

first senior-level meeting, the ceremony establishing the new agency was held at

Washington Dulles International Airport on October 1, 1998.

Establishment Day: Establishment Day:

October 1, 1998

Over the summer months, several questions arose

about the place and character of the new agency’s

official establishment ceremony. General Lajoie and his small cadre

of planners began with certain assumptions: it would be a military ceremony; the

deputy secretary of defense would preside; the announced director, Dr. Davis,

would accept the colors for the new agency; and it would occur on October 1.

But where would it be held? Initially, Lajoie recommended to Hamre that DTRA’s

establishment ceremony be brief, lasting approximately twenty minutes, and to

be held at the Pentagon, possibly at the ceremonial river entrance. A small,

invited group of dignitaries and agency leaders would participate, with the deputy

secretary of defense presiding. When Hamre reviewed the plans in mid-August,

he rejected them. Instead, he said that he wanted the new agency and its mission

of WMD threat reduction established in a large, public ceremony, with invited

guests, media, and international representation. In addition, he wanted an

accompanying Pentagon press conference, background news articles, and media

attention. Given Hamre’s redirection, his senior staff moved to consider other

sites.62

One obvious site was Washington Dulles International Airport, the designated

location of DTRA’s new headquarters. However, there were no suitable locations

to hold the anticipated 2,500 people and press now expected to attend the

ceremony. Earlier in the summer, David J. Rigby, DTRA’s Public Affairs chief,
18 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

had approached Brigadier General Wilfred O. R. Scheffer, Commander of the

German Armed Forces Command for the United States and Canada. Informally,

Rigby inquired about using the German military’s large warehouse facility at

Dulles. After checking with his government in Bonn, Scheffer agreed, pending a

formal request. Then in August, following Hamre’s redirection, Rigby met with

Scheffer again and requested use of the German military warehouse.63 By the

end of August the decision had been made—the ceremony would be held at

Dulles Airport in the German Military Representative’s facility. The secretary of

defense would be the lead speaker. All DTRA military and civilians would be

invited. The press would be included, as would representatives of foreign

governments, including Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

Secretary of Defense Cohen opened DTRA’s

establishment ceremony at Dulles International Airport

at two o’clock on October 1, 1998. Speaking to nearly

2,000 agency personnel and invited guests, Cohen

remarked that: “There is a great irony in this particular

moment in history.... the apparent clarity of the Cold

War has given away to the complexities that we find in

today’s headlines.... Today’s harsh reality is too powerful

to ignore ... at least twenty-five countries have, or are in

the process of acquiring and developing, nuclear,

biological, or chemical weapons and the means to deliver

them.” Then, he spoke directly to DTRA’s military and

civilian employees: “Your charge is perhaps the most vital

national security mission ever to face our nation. To

persevere in reducing the nuclear, chemical, and biological

arsenals of the world. To prevent the seepage into the

global arms bazaar of those that remain. To protect

America from those who would use these terror weapons

against us. And to peer into the opaque windows of tomorrow and to avoid the

future shock of unknown weapons.”64

Following his speech, the secretary departed and the official ceremony began.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Hamre, the true architect of the new agency, presented

the Defense Special Weapons Agency with the Department of Defense Joint

Meritorious Unit Award. Dr. George W. Ullrich, Director, DSWA, accepted for

the agency. Then, Hamre and Ullrich retired that agency’s flag, constituting the

unit’s disestablishment. Next, Hamre presented the On-Site Inspection Agency

with a Joint Meritorious Unit Award. General Reppert, Director, OSIA, accepted;

then the two officials retired that agency’s flag. Hamre then presented the same

meritorious unit award to the Defense Technology Security Administration. David

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen opening DTRA’s

establishment ceremony on October 1, 1998.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 19

Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre at DTRA’s

establishment ceremony.

Tarbell, then the Director of DTSA, accepted. Since this organization was an

administration, it did not have agency status. Consequently, Tarbell simply reported

to Hamre that the administration was disestablished. At that point, Hamre

asked Davis to come forth and, unveiling the new DTRA

flag, he presented it to the new agency’s director. That

simple act, together with the DoD directive, established

the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.65

Hamre had insisted on this formal, military aspect

of the public ceremony. “[It] was very important to

me,” he recalled, “to treat with honor and dignity those

institutions that we were retiring. We were going to

honor those institutions ... and we did that. They did

wonderful work.”66 He believed it was important to

honor and celebrate these organizations for what they

had accomplished in their long and distinguished service

to the Department of Defense. He also hoped and

expected that their commitment would carry over to the new institution. All of

these things, he concluded, “just demanded a big deal. And we made it a big

deal.”67 Immediately following unfurling of the flag, Dr. Gansler, Under Secretary

of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, welcomed the new agency

and its employees to the ranks of the 13 other OSD agencies in the Defense

Department. Next, Vice Admiral Dennis C. Blair, USN, Director of the Joint

Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about the special relationship of the new

agency to the nation’s specified and unified commands and military services.

Jay Davis, the final speaker, began his comments with a personal observation:

“A year ago I could not have imagined heading an agency such as this; now there

is nothing more I would rather do in service to the nation.”68 He then addressed

the new agency’s people: “The components of DTRA are doing, and have done,

their current missions successfully. What is needed in the future is a degree of

integration, of internal synergy and outreach across boundaries that was not

required in the past.”69 He reiterated the new agency’s mission responsibility: to

reduce the present threat and to prevent future threats from weapons of mass

destruction. Davis then told the assembled military and civilians: “Our missions

with respect to the present threats are well defined. To deal with future threats, a

future that may be uncomfortably close ... we will need to build new relationships

to other partners, both inside and outside the Department of Defense.... We

must work with the research and intelligence communities to understand both

the possible evolution of threats and the intentions of those who would carry

them out.... We must work with the intelligence community and the domestic

responders ... to make sure that speed and anticipation are possible as never
20 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

before, indeed to the point of preemption of terrorists, if in fact that is at all

possible.”70 He concluded by saying directly: “I accept the charge and responsibility

of leading you.”

The Official Mission

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s mission, as

stated in the official DoD directive establishing the agency,

is to reduce the threat to the United States and its allies from nuclear,

biological, chemical (NBC) weapons, other special weapons, and conventional

weapons, through the execution of technology security activities, cooperative

threat reduction programs, arms control treaty monitoring and on-site inspections,

force protection, NBC defenses, and counterproliferation. The agency supports

the U.S. nuclear deterrent and provides technical support on matters of weapons

of mass destruction to components of the Department of Defense.71

DTRA’s director reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,

Technology and Logistics. On October 1, 1998, the new agency was authorized

2,110 military and civilian personnel. It had a budget of $1.9 billion for fiscal

year 1999. Headquarters DTRA was located at the Washington Dulles

International Airport. The agency operated offices in Alexandria and Arlington,

OSIA headquarters building (center-left) at Washington Dulles International Airport.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 21

DTRA monitors the licensing and sale of critical

defense technologies such as these five axis

machines.

Virginia; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Magna and Tooele, Utah; and San Francisco,

California. Overseas locations included agency detachments and offices in

Frankfurt, Germany; Minsk, Belarus; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Moscow and Votkinsk,

Russia; Kiev, Ukraine; Yokota, Japan; and Johnston Atoll in the southern Pacific

Ocean.

Organizing the Work:

The Mission Directorates

On the day after the agency’s establishment, Davis convened DTRA’s

first senior-level staff meeting. It was routine, with operational status

reports from each of the directors, support

office chiefs, senior advisors, and comments from the

director. However, it did reveal the new agency’s

organizational structure, or more specifically how the

real work was being done. On that day, October 2,

1998, the agency senior leadership consisted of the

director, deputy director, chief of staff, and senior

advisors from the Departments of State and Energy

and the FBI. The new agency’s mission was being

carried out in the eight mission directorates, the new

advanced systems and concepts office, a business

management office, and the director’s personal and

specialized staff offices. The Threat Reduction

Advisory Committee was not part of the agency’s

organizational structure. It was a federally-charted

advisory panel reporting to the Secretary of Defense,

although by definition, it worked closely with the agency’s senior leaders. Most

of the new agency’s people, money, and programs worked in the eight mission

directorates. Understanding these directorates, their missions, programs, history,

and size, in October 1998 is critical to understanding subsequent organizational

changes in 1999-2000.

The Technology Security Directorate’s mission was to serve as the DoD agent

for developing and implementing technology security policies concerning the

international transfer of defense-related goods, services, technologies, and

munitions. These transfers are carried out through export licenses granted by the

U.S. government to American companies dealing with foreign governments and

their entities. During 1998, the men and women in this directorate reviewed

and coordinated more than 21,000 export license applications for both military
22 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

and dual-use goods and technologies with officials in the Departments of State

and Commerce. The Technology Security Directorate carried out four broad

functions: license compliance, training, policy oversight, and monitoring. They

also performed technical analyses used in developing the U.S. government’s export

control lists and regulations. David Tarbell led the directorate, which included

114 people as of October 1, 1998.72

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, consisting of 59 military

and civilian personnel, had the mission of managing and implementing a major,

multinational, congressionally mandated program that provided financial and

managerial assistance to former Soviet nations to destroy their treaty-limited

nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction and associated

infrastructure. This directorate’s program managers and staff experts worked

with senior Defense and State Department policy officials and with national

representatives in developing, and then implementing, specific programs, funds,

equipment, and expertise that would assist those nations in their efforts to secure

and protect their weapons of mass destruction against threats of proliferation.

From 1992 through 1997, the CTR program provided $975 million in assistance

to four states: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. Working closely with

senior military and government officials in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine,

the agency’s CTR program managers implemented a series of joint projects that

had eliminated elements of those nation’s strategic weapons systems, missile silos,

and related infrastructure by the end of 1997. This assistance had enabled these

three nations to become non-nuclear states under START I. From October

1998 to October 1999, the first fiscal year of DTRA’s existence, Congress

appropriated $440 million for the CTR program. Brigadier General Thomas E.

Kuenning, Jr., USAF (Retired), led this directorate.73

The On-Site Inspection Directorate, with 763 people, was the largest of the

DTRA mission directorates. Led by Rear Admiral Jacqueline O. Barnes, USN,

this directorate’s mission was a direct continuation of the work of the On-Site

Inspection Agency: implementing the on-site inspection, monitoring, and escorting

provisions of the INF, START I, CFE, Vienna Document, TTBT, and CWC

arms control treaties and agreements. Simultaneously, the directorate planned,

trained, and prepared to implement the Open Skies, START II, and

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) once they were ratified and entered

into force. From 1998 to 1999, military and civilian personnel in this directorate,

especially the Russian interpreters and linguists, worked closely with the program

mangers in the CTR Directorate. In implementing the Chemical Weapons

Convention, military officers and civilians worked closely with members of the

Department of Commerce to devise policies and procedures affecting inspections

of U.S. chemical industrial facilities. Another aspect of the federal government’s
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 23

treaty preparations involved the Defense Treaty

Inspection Readiness Program. This program is a

major training and educational effort that provided

seminars, briefings, and data on arms control treaty

implementation and security countermeasures to

people working at DoD and contractor facilities.74

Three of DTRA’s new directorates—ChemicalBiological (CB) Defense, Counterproliferation

Support, and Force Protection—had discrete

missions. Each developed specialized analytical

programs, equipment, and concepts that would

assist U.S. armed forces in countering attacks from

weapons of mass destruction. The six people

constituting the Chemical-Biological Defense

Directorate were responsible for developing DoD’s

annual Chemical-Biological Defense Program. Coordinated throughout the

department, the final program plan was jointly integrated with the military services’

CB programs. The CB Defense Program had three critical objectives: to deter

CB use against U.S. forces; to ensure that, if exposed to CB contamination, U.S.

military forces could continue to fight; and, to support the military’s efforts to

protect their forces continuously. During the initial year, this directorate more

than tripled in size. Colonel Edwin P. McDermott, USAF, was the ChemicalBiological Defense Directorate’s first director.75

DTRA’s Counterproliferation Support Directorate had a specific DoD

mission: to define, advocate, focus, and accelerate the acquisition of state-of-theart technologies that would improve force applications modeling capabilities;

provide the combat commands with enhanced weapons and sensors for defeating

the enemy’s WMD facilities; and improve the capabilities of U.S. Special

Operations Command forces. This directorate was the principal interface between

the new agency and its military and intelligence customers concerning the

development of sensors and intelligence systems for pre-, trans-, and post

characterization of targets. In another major effort, the people in this directorate

developed new fusing and penetrating weapons for operational use by the

combatant military commands. At the agency’s test ranges in New Mexico,

weapons effects specialists designed and conducted integrated tests of new weapons

technologies. Another program, the Data Archival and Retrieval Enhancement

system, provided digital access to archived data that had been generated in special

weapons effects tests and simulated experiments. Most aspects of the directorate’s

work came under one umbrella program, the DoD’s Counterproliferation Support

Program. Its customers were the military commanders-in-chief (CINCs) of the

Through DTRA’s research efforts, soldiers can help

limit the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological

contamination on the battlefield.
24 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

combatant commands, and especially the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Special

Operations Command. The directorate had 450 people, and it was led by Vayl

S. Oxford.76

A specific instance during which Counterproliferation Support personnel

worked directly with the CINCs came in the spring of 1999. The North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance, for the first time in its history, authorized

military action against a European nation. Serbian aggression in Kosovo triggered

an intense aerial campaign, designated by NATO as Operation Allied Force. It

included aircraft, pilots, and ground support personnel from nineteen nations

and lasted from March 25 to June 20. The United States committed 22,500 Air

Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel in support of the 78-day

campaign. DTRA contributed to Operation Allied Force at both the strategic

and tactical levels. Strategically, DTRA deployed targeting teams to key Pentagon

command centers and to the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) headquarters

in Stuttgart, Germany. These teams used agency-developed computer programs

called the Integrated Munitions Effects Assessment (IMEA) and Hazard Prediction

and Assessment Capability (HPAC) to provide air planners with information

about the best way to attack specific targets and the potential for collateral effects

on the civilian population.77

Tactically, DTRA provided the Air Force

with recently developed munitions for use

during the Kosovo air campaign. As part of

the agency’s technology development mission,

DTRA had been developing advanced

penetrating weapons since before the merger.

By the spring of 1999, munitions in this

program, called the Advanced Concept

Technology Demonstration (ACTD),

included Advanced Unitary Penetrators (smart

bombs) and Hard Target Smart Fuzes that

were able to strike at protected and/or deeply

buried targets with precision. The U.S. Air

Force used these munitions to attack and

destroy targets that the Serbian leaders

believed to be inaccessible and invulnerable.

Following the successful air campaign,

Lieutenant General Michael A. Canavan,

USAF, the EUCOM chief of staff, remarked

that DTRA’s contribution provided American

air forces with “advantages from advanced

In Kosovo, DTRA contributed to Operation Allied

Force at both the strategic and tactical levels.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 25

technologies that, absent the ACTD program,

would still be in development.”78

The Force Protection Directorate had

responsibility for developing and then conducting

independent assessments of how American forces,

based worldwide, were maintaining the physical

security of their buildings, warehouses,

dormitories, and other properties. In June 1996,

foreign terrorists bombed Khobar Towers, an

American military dormitory installation in Saudi

Arabia, killing 19 airmen and injuring another 500

people. Within a year, Secretary Cohen had

approved a new worldwide security assessment

program for the Department of Defense. The

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was

designated as the single point of contact for all force protection programs. In

1997, the Defense Special Weapons Agency, because of its experience in evaluating

the blast effects of nuclear and conventional weapons, was assigned responsibility

for conducting antiterrorism/force protection assessments at U.S. military bases,

worldwide. DSWA established five seven-person assessment teams and began

conducting approximately 80-100 assessments per year. Realizing the importance

of force protection to U.S. military forces, DTRA planners made it a separate

mission directorate in the new agency. Colonel Richard T. Kingman, USAF,

served as the director of this 40-person organization.79

The Nuclear Support Directorate, led by Brigadier General Thomas F.

Gioconda, USAF, was an organization with 244 people. Its mission was to

provide operational and analytical support on nuclear matters to the Department

of Defense’s specified commands and organizations. Working to develop

programs for sustaining the United States’ nuclear deterrent forces made this

directorate’s mission one of the three major components of DTRA’s fundamental

mission. Significantly, it also made DTRA a Combat Support Agency, reporting

directly to the Chairman, JCS for specific, designated nuclear weapons programs,

and for other special weapons matters. During conflicts in the Persian Gulf,

Bosnia, and Kosovo, the people in this directorate provided analytical support to

the combat commanders planning and conducting military operations. The

directorate also had mission responsibility for the DoD’s nuclear stockpile

stewardship obligations, which included providing consolidated guidance,

coordination, technical advice, assistance, and data control for all nuclear weapons

within the department’s custody. It also supported, through its work with the

military services and the Department of Energy, the development and publication

DTRA’s force protection experts analyze the effects of

explosives on building structures.
26 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

of the DoD standards, requirements, and operational procedures for dealing with

the reliability, safety, security, use, control, logistics management, and disposal of

nuclear weapons and their components.80

In the area of crisis response and consequence management planning for an

incident involving weapons of mass destruction or a radiological accident, the

Nuclear Support Directorate operated the DoD Joint Nuclear Accident

Coordination Center. To validate this critical national emergency response work,

the directorate devised, conducted, and participated in periodic exercises that

tested the scope of emergency response operations, including site remediation.

For the Chairman, JCS, members of the Nuclear Support Directorate conducted

independent nuclear surety inspections of units responsible for assembling,

maintaining, and storing nuclear weapon systems and components. Finally, the

directorate operated the Defense Nuclear Weapons School at Kirtland Air Force

Base, New Mexico, providing general nuclear weapons training and specific courses

on nuclear weapons accident responses.

The Special Weapons Technology Directorate had a unique mission—direct

responsibility for conducting a nuclear science and technology program designed

to sustain the department’s technical nuclear competencies. Further, the directorate

conducted a research, development, test, and evaluation program for weapons of

mass destruction and designated advanced special weapons. By using state-ofthe-art modeling, simulation, and testing, technical experts in this directorate

analyzed the lethality of conventional, biological, chemical, nuclear, radiological,

and other advanced weapons against a range of targets in combat and terrorist

situations. This technical and analytical expertise gave U.S. military commanders

data and options for targeting underground and/or hardened structures. It also

enhanced the commander’s capability to evaluate and assess battle damage. The

directorate operated DTRA’s Scientific Computing Program, which worked

closely with the DoD’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program

on research strategies for modernizing the department’s most advanced computers.

In addition, the directorate served as the Defense Department’s focal point for

development and acquisition of hardened, radiation-resistant microelectronics,

electrical-optics, and other materials, that would be capable of operating in an

environment of ionizing radiation and electromagnetic threats. Dr. Ullrich, a

former DSWA director, led the 270 people who worked in this directorate.81
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 27

Agency Leadership and

New Methodologies for New Methodologies for

Countering Terrorism

This simple narrative makes it clear that the new Defense Threat Reduction

Agency had multiple missions: designated CINC combat support roles,

assigned nuclear weapons responsibilities, congressionally-directed

multinational cooperative threat reduction programs, legally-mandated

monitoring of international treaties and agreements, and the implementation

major development, acquisition, and testing programs. Leading the people carrying

out these diverse missions, Davis thought, called for a leadership style that stressed

decentralization of management, persuasion and consensus, team building, and

when appropriate, the initiation of new programs outside of existing organizational

structures.

In an interview, he explained the difference between directing an OSD agency

and commanding a combat air wing. “This job,” Davis asserted, “is not like a

colonel being given an air wing to run. I don’t mean to be disparaging, but I am

pretty sure that if I were a colonel and I got my first air wing, somewhere there is

a four-inch book that tells me how to run a wing. There isn’t any book that tell

you how to do DTRA.”82 He said that he trusted the year-long planning process

that had created the agency; consequently, he did not make any immediate

organizational changes. He did work to control the budget (the agency’s

submission to DoD), its corporate communications (the agency’s identity), and

the process of defining DTRA’s future missions. Cohen, Hamre, and Gansler

had been explicit in their reasons for establishing a new defense agency: it was to

develop analytical and conceptual programs to reduce the threat from weapons

of mass destruction, to prevent their spread, to deter their use, and to develop

programs that would protect American forces and society. When they established

the agency in October 1998, it was not just to achieve efficiencies from merging

defense agencies and programs, but to act to reduce the WMD threat.

Not only was their rationale clear, but Gansler and Hamre held periodic

individual meetings with Davis during the first year to provide advice, counsel,

and their evaluation. “My personal role was strategic, not tactical,” said Gansler.83

In his sessions with Davis, Gansler recalled that they went over the new agency’s

budget, resource allocations, manpower, and other broad organizational issues.

“Primarily, I wanted to focus Jay on what was the role and the mission of the

new organization,” Gansler explained. “How were we going to measure its success

in four years, when we were finished.”84 They also concentrated on raising

awareness of DTRA and its capabilities. “Getting the CINCs to recognize the
28 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

organization, to start asking for help, was an important

measure of success,” he thought. “Similarly, trying to

run some major WMD exercises was an important

one.”85 But perhaps the most important element of

Gansler’s sessions with Davis came in the areas of

recognizing change and then in developing a strategy

for leading the new organization. “Leadership says

you actually want to make significant changes in

direction, and that you have to have a realignment of

all the organizations to the new direction. Then, they

need to manage within those new directions,” Gansler

declared.86

Hamre recalled that he “tried to meet with Jay at

least once a month ... he needed to know the building

[Pentagon], and the building needed to know that this

[mission] constituted the secretary’s highest priority.”87

In their monthly sessions, Hamre and Davis discussed

approaches to structuring an analysis of biological and

chemical terrorism. They examined the progress of

DTRA’s Advanced Systems and Concepts Office.

They reviewed promising new technologies, and went over other specific, focused

programs. From the beginning, Hamre had wanted to establish an intellectual

center for these issues in the department, and he looked to Davis and the new

agency to provide it. At one point, Hamre admitted, “Frankly, I met with him

[Jay Davis] because it was the most intellectually vibrant and interesting stuff I

was working on [in the Department of Defense].”88

Following the direction of Hamre and Gansler, Davis concentrated a part of

his efforts during the first six months on establishing and energizing the Advanced

Systems and Concept Office.89 Its mission was to conduct end-to-end analysis

of the emerging WMD threats and then to articulate future concepts and

technologies to deal with them. End-to-end analysis meant developing a

conceptual architecture for dealing with each type of threat – nuclear, biological,

chemical, and other weapons of mass destruction. In Davis’ opinion, the analysis

would begin with a thorough examination of current intelligence and warning

systems, proceed to investigate existing prevention efforts, and continue with a

review and analysis of contemporary crisis management concepts. Further, the

conceptual architecture would examine all elements of existing consequence

management theory and practices, and would consider what new technologies

and applications would be needed for successful retaliation.90

ASCO projects encourage alternative

thinking, innovative strategies and crosscutting approaches to WMD threats.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 29

ASCO’s first order of business was to work with the Threat Reduction

Advisory Committee, led by General Welch. At the TRAC’s initial meeting in

July 1998, Welch had set up five panels: intelligence, biological warfare defense,

nuclear sustainment, domestic preparedness, and counterproliferation.91 Later,

he and the advisory committee added an integration panel. Working in one or

another of these panels, the advisory committee’s nearly two dozen senior defense

experts developed analyses and recommendations. The thirty DTRA scientists

and experts assigned to ASCO supported the work of the TRAC panels, and

they also worked independently on specific tasks recommended by the senior

advisory panels.92 In addition, ASCO’s analysts began working with agency

scientists and engineers on difficult problems in counterproliferation, special

weapons, and weapons effects.

Dr. Victor A. Utgoff, former director of the Institute for Defense Analysis,

led ASCO for its first year. He recruited scientists, bio-engineers, and specialists

from academia, laboratories, and industry. They began analyzing the complex

elements of the WMD threat against U.S. military and civilian populations. At

one of ASCO’s first meetings, Davis outlined for Utgoff and his new team of

analysts a series of specific questions:93

- What is the role of DoD in responding to domestic terrorism?

- What are the technologies and systems needed for domestic preparedness

against WMD threats?

- How can we establish links to existing biotechnical expertise?

- How do we sustain a robust and reliable nuclear deterrent?

- Can we adequately defeat improvised nuclear devices?

- How do we produce an integrated, transnational WMD threat assessment?

- How can DTRA develop as a focal point for WMD threat activities?

The director wanted these questions studied using the methodologies of endto-end architecture. He knew that there were more questions than answers.

Further, he acknowledged that turning the answers into useful new military

products would take time, since the multi-layered DoD vetting process required

that any new product be approved, funded, acquired, tested, produced, and fielded

within the military services and the Defense Department. It was an extremely

complex and time-consuming process. Consequently, Davis thought that two

to five years would be needed for the emergence of specific new programs,

technologies, and weapons. In his view, the entire process began with the analytical

studies being instituted by ASCO’s scientists and analysts.
30 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Director’s Status Report: s Status Report:

First Six Months First Six Months

On March 17, 1999, six months after DTRA’s establishment, Davis

wrote Hamre a five-page, single-spaced, state-of-the-agency letter.94

He began by outlining the agency’s institutional progress to date. There

were two important organizational developments which, he believed, signaled

DTRA’s growing strength within the Department of Defense. First, General

Gioconda, director of DTRA’s Nuclear Support and Operations Directorate,

had been named Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Programs at the

Department of Energy. This “dual-hatting” would become significant, Davis

thought, during the development and coordination of DoD’s Nuclear Mission

Management Plan between the two departments. Further, the recent Chiles

Commission Report had called for a stronger relationship between the Energy

and Defense Departments in support of nuclear skills, missions, and personnel

development. It had other benefits, too, as DTRA and the Department of Energy

had begun coordinating their activities in developing new technologies for detecting

chemical/biological atmospheric dispersion patterns.

In another dual-position development, David Tarbell, head of DTRA’s

Technology Security Directorate, had been named as DoD’s Deputy Under

Secretary for Technology Security Policy. This change, Davis thought, came at

an opportune time for the department, since the administration’s policies and

practices for monitoring satellite technologies were under intense congressional

scrutiny. In a direct response to Congress, which had legislated in 1998 new

controls on the transfer of critical satellite communications technologies, the

Technology Security Directorate had begun staffing and training teams to monitor

American communications satellites that were exported under U.S. government

licenses.95

Other developments reflected growing recognition of DTRA’s technical

expertise in WMD matters. Davis told Hamre that DTRA’s senior leaders had

exchanged visits and command briefings with their counterparts at the U.S.

Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska; U.S. Central Command in Tampa,

Florida; and U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, Virginia. He and the deputy

director also had met with the staff of the National Security Council, members

of the Defense Science Board, and members of the Deutch-Specter Commission

on the Organization of the Federal Government in Combating the Proliferation

of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Meeting with Admiral Harold W. Gehman,

USN, Commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command, Davis explained DTRA’s

experience in creating emergency response exercise scenarios. This experience, he
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 31

suggested, might be useful to the Atlantic Command’s new Joint Task ForceCivil Support (JTF-CS). In an open letter to all agency personnel, Davis wrote,

“It is clear that we are eagerly desired as a partner and viewed as a valuable player.

As an agency, we are shifting from establishment and integration to the next

level, outreach and accomplishment—this as a new agency, not as a legacy of our

separate pasts.”96

In his letter to Hamre, Davis also explained his rationale for a major

reorganization of the agency. He and General Moore had decided to reduce

DTRA’s mission directorates from eight to six. Force Protection and

Counterproliferation Support had been dissolved as directorates. Their people

and resources were moved into the Special Weapons Technology Directorate,

which was simultaneously renamed the Counterproliferation Support and

Operations Directorate. The mission of this new directorate was to reduce the

WMD threat by developing ways to prevent their use and to protect against their

effects. To lead the new directorate, Davis and Moore selected Colonel Hopkins,

then DTRA’s chief of staff. In 1998, Hopkins had been a key member of DTRA’s

task force organizing the agency. In another structural change, Davis and Moore

renamed another key directorate, Nuclear Support, as the Nuclear Support and

Operations Directorate. Finally, in a major personnel change, they announced

the reassignment of Dr. Ullrich, head of the former Special Weapons Technology

Directorate. Henceforth, he would work in the director’s office as the Senior

Advisor for Science and Technology.

COUNTERPROLIFERATION SUPPORT

FORCE PROTECTION

SPECIAL WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY

DIRECTORATES 1999

COUNTERPROLIFERATION SUPPORT & OPERATIONS

ON-SITE INSPECTION

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

NUCLEAR SUPPORT & OPERATIONS

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

ON-SITE INSPECTION

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE

NUCLEAR SUPPORT

DIRECTORATES 1998

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
32 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

In the letter, Davis said that he had decided against carrying out one of the

DTRA’s fundamental planning assumptions—that all Washington-based agency

personnel would be consolidated in leased office buildings at Dulles International

Airport. He told Hamre that the Dulles buildings were unsafe, and that they did

not even meet DoD’s minimal force protection standards. Consequently, he

suggested one of two alternative sites—either the U.S. Naval Station in

Washington, D.C., or a new building at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In fact, Davis

had already acted, requesting that funds be placed in the agency’s fiscal year (FY)

2001 military construction budget for the initial design of a new DTRA

headquarters facility.

Finally, Davis told Hamre of one other important institutional change—the

creation of a DTRA Office of CINC Support within the Nuclear Support and

Operations Directorate. This new office would work with the CINC staffs to

integrate and coordinate DTRA’s operational capabilities and research and

development projects in their mission areas and regions. According to General

Welch, this was a new development. “At the time DTRA came together,” he

recalled, “I don’t think that the CINCs were given much thought as to being in

the loop.”97 He credited Davis specifically with recognizing the importance of

reaching out to the CINCs, who have the war-fighting mission for the nation.

Hamre concurred: “Jay Davis, who is a very thoughtful and a smart guy, came

to realize that the center of gravity in the department had shifted to the CINCs.”98

Hamre credited him with taking the “energy” in the mission areas of force

protection, restoration of operations, and other programs, and pulling the entire

agency in the new direction of working with the CINCs. He concluded: “I

think that was really important.”99 Finally in the state-of-the-agency letter, Davis

announced that he and the senior staff would begin developing the agency’s first

strategic plan in order to define DTRA’s goals, strategies and values.100

The First Strategic Plan

I

n recent years, strategic plans have been used throughout industry, government,

and institutions as a way to express organizational goals, strategies, and values.

Usually published and distributed widely, strategic plans provide the public,

customers, management, and employees with a clear set of an organization’s

objectives. Developing a strategic plan is a major effort, usually lasting months

and involving dozens or more people inside and outside of the organization.

Through group discussions, deliberations, and decisions about the agency’s present

and future missions, DTRA’s first strategic plan became both a process and a

product.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 33

When he began the strategic planning process in January 1999, Davis

explained, “In building DTRA, I had several goals for the planning process. Any

strategic plan should express the long-term goals of the organization, those that

underlie its existence and missions, and the operational values of its leaders.”101

The architects of DTRA’s first strategic plan were the director, deputy director,

leaders of the six mission directorates, senior advisors, and selected senior functional

managers. Representatives of DTRA’s Quality Management office facilitated

the process. They met on Friday afternoons, approximately every three weeks

for six months. The process was iterative, with consensus developing gradually

on the agency’s major goals, values, and strategies. Early in the process, the group

decided that the strategic plan would not be another agency mission statement,

listing every activity of the organization. This was an important distinction for

Davis, who concluded that, “the plan does not so much state the whole of the

tasks of the agency as it states those that drive change and shape DTRA to better

do its assigned mission.”102

In September, the director met with the senior staff and personally briefed

the proposed seven major goals and supporting strategies identified during the

seven-month strategic planning process. He told them to review each goal and

accompanying strategy, and then to develop specific, quantifiable tasks that DTRA

would need to reach its objectives. Workers in the

directorates and business management offices responded

quickly; they submitted numerous tasks. In the end,

there were so many recommended tasks that the director

decided to hold a two-day, off-site meeting in midJanuary 2000 in to prioritize them and finalize the plan.

Following that decisive meeting, the plan was coordinated

within the Defense Department, and prepared for

publication. In late February and early March, Davis,

the agency’s mission directors, and office chiefs held a

series of meetings with the employees and briefed them

on the strategic plan.103

DTRA’s Strategic Plan 2000 was published on March

6, 2000. By coincidence, that was the same the day as a

scheduled meeting for all Washington-based DTRA

employees. Dr. Hamre was invited for a special tribute.

Introduced by Davis as “the father of DTRA,” Hamre

recalled the day in the fall of 1998 when the secretary of

defense had established the new agency. “Among my

proudest moments as the deputy secretary of defense,”

he declared, “was to stand among many of you in a

DTRA’s senior leadership worked for nearly a

year developing the first strategic plan.
34 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

hanger at Dulles airport during your stand-up ceremony in October 1998. That

day, more than any other in recent memory, represents the Defense Department’s

resolve to shape and define the future.”104

Now, eighteen months later, he was returning to present the agency with a

Department of Defense Joint Meritorious Unit Award. After apologizing for

turning everyone’s life “upside down,” he then said, “I couldn’t be happier with

the outcome.”105 Characteristically, he applauded those doing the real work—

Technology Security’s people for specific improvements in export controls;

Counterproliferation Support and Operations for their contributions to the

unified commands fighting the Kosovo combat air campaign; Cooperative Threat

Reduction for continuing the managerial dialogue with Russian officials over

weapons reductions during the Kosovo war against Yugoslavia; ChemicalBiological Defense for analyzing the future threat; Nuclear Support and

Operations for improving the security of the nation’s nuclear stockpile; and OnSite Inspection for maintaining discipline in carrying out treaties with the Russian

government. When it came time to present the award, Hamre asked Davis and

Moore to accept it on behalf of the agency. Looking at them directly, Hamre

declared, “You are involved in the most important work the department has to

do now.”106

The Mission: The Mission:

Continuities and Changes Continuities and Changes

While the departmental award and the deputy secretary’s accolades were

important, they only reflected the continuing significance of carrying

out the agency’s day-to-day missions. In March 2000, for instance,

senior officers in the CTR Directorate briefed the director on the President’s FY

2001 budget request to Congress for $458.4 million to assist Russia, Ukraine,

and Kazakhstan in accelerating the reduction of their strategic weapons under the

START I treaty. They outlined specific programs to improve the safety, security,

control, accounting, and centralization of nuclear weapons and fissile materials,

and to prevent proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. By 2000, the

United States’ CTR program had provided nearly $1 billion in assistance in

removing 4,918 nuclear warheads, eliminating 384 intercontinental ballistic

missiles (ICBMs), 354 ICBM silos, 390 ICBM mobile launchers, 57 strategic

bombers, 12 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), 240

submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers and 99 SLBMs.

In Kazakhstan, the CTR program had provided funds to seal off, and thus

eliminate, 191 nuclear testing tunnels.107 General Henry H. Shelton, USAF,
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 35

Emergency

Response

SSBN/SLBM

Elimination

Liquid Propellant

Disposition

Liquid

Propellant Trans.

Housing

MC&A

[Closed Out]

Krasnoyarsk

Turinskaya

Bolshoi Kamen

Vanino 

Arctic Nuclear

Waste [Closed Out]

CW

Destruction

Moshkovo

ICBM Silo

Elimination Assistance

Shchuch’ye

Defense

Conversion

Fissile Material

Storage Facility

Liquid

Propellant Trans.

ICBM

Elimination

ISTC

[Transferred]

Safety &

Security

Elimination of

Weapons Grade

Plutonium

Solid Propellant

ICBMs/SLBMs

Biysk

SOAE Emergency Response

Equipment

R&D Foundation

[Closed Out]

Defense &

Military Contacts

Perm

 Severodvinsk

Saratov

Nerpa

Mayak

Mulyanka

Latyshskaya

Rada

Pibanshur

Engels

Secha 

Moscow

Heavy Bomber

Elimination

CW Neutralization

Evaluation Surovatikha

Volgograd

Sergiev Posad

Velikoe Ozero

Votkinsk

Bryansk

Zlatoust

Nenoksa

Yedrovo

 St. Petersburg

 Obninsk

Uzhur

 Tomsk

Nizhnaya Salda

Revda

 Zvezdochka SevMash

Pavlovsky Posad

Illino

Dmitrovgrad

Novocheboksarsk

Luch

Koltsovo (VECTOR)

Tver

Obolensk

Elektrostal

Seversky

Zheleznogorsk

Bolshaya Tura

Zvezda

Yuzhnorechensk

Dzerzhinsk

Export Control

[Transferred]

Weapons

Dismantlement

Processing

Nuclear Weapons

Transportation Security

• Rail Cars

• Supercontainers

• Movements

CW Production Facility

Dismantlement

BW Proliferation Prevention

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

CTR Sites

CTR Status
36 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Chairman of the JCS, wrote U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar in March 2000, in

support of the program. “The military continues to strongly support this (CTR)

program,” he explained, “the program is the key reason Ukraine, Belarus, and

Kazakhstan are now nuclear free.... CTR is the critical ingredient allowing Russia

to accelerate its reductions to START I limits, and therefore, the United States to

do the same.” Further, the chairman told the Senator that, “without CTR it is

highly unlikely that Russia would be able to meet its START mandated

reductions.... Critical CTR programs are decreasing the likelihood of proliferation

by improving the safety and security of Russia’s WMD stockpile.” Finally, Shelton

concluded: “While reaching and sustaining agreements with the Russians is at

times challenging, the end results are worth the effort.”108

The On-Site Inspection Directorate, during the same period, was fully engaged

in monitoring nuclear, chemical, and conventional arms control treaties. Under

START I, the five signatory nations—United States, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,

and Kazakhstan—had significantly reduced their strategic nuclear weapon systems

by January 2000. The United States had cut its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles

from 2,246 in 1990 to 1,451 in 2000, while Russia and the other treaty states

had reduced their total strategic arsenals from 2,500 to 1,404. Belarus, Ukraine,

and Kazakhstan had removed all of their strategic nuclear delivery vehicles from

their respective territories. Under the CFE Treaty, the 30 signatory nations had

eliminated more than 70,000 conventional arms, specifically tanks, artillery,

armored combat vehicles, attack helicopters, and fighter aircraft by January 2000.

When the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in April 1997, the

United States declared that it possessed 28,566 tons of chemical weapons; by

June 2000, it had destroyed 5,741 tons. Every destruction had been monitored

by an international inspectorate, escorted by members of the On-Site Inspection

Directorate. Under all these major arms control treaties, DTRA personnel

comprised the bulk of U.S. inspectors and escorts monitoring compliance.

Throughout the year 2000, personnel were actively training to implement another

major agreement, the Open Skies Treaty. While awaiting final ratification of this

27-nation treaty, the United States organized and flew joint trial flights for training.

During the year, the United States flew major joint trail flights in Germany and

other nations, and hosted the Russian Open Skies aircraft and inspection team

during its joint trial flight over the United States.109

All of these international treaties required considerable nation-to-nation

diplomatic and military coordination. DTRA maintained offices in U.S. embassies

in Moscow, Kiev, and Almaty, working closely with the arriving and departing

inspection teams, CTR delegations, and other official visitors. Military and civilian

DTRA personnel provided critical, official links with the respective national

governments, their military services, and specific government departments and
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 37

The START Treaty

START SITES IN RUSSIA, BELARUS, KAZAKHSTAN & UKRAINE

START SITES IN THE UNITED STATES
38 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

agencies. During 1999-2000, the Moscow office assisted more than 100 treaty

inspection teams, and coordinated the work of over 500 CTR officials traveling

to Russia.110

In the new nations of Eastern Europe, the Baltic, and Central Asia, there was

a serious and constant concern about the smuggling and illicit movement of

nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or materials across borders. In response

to this international threat of proliferation, the U.S. government developed a

multinational program in cooperation with these new nations. Within the U.S.

government it was joint program of the DoD and the U.S. Customs Service,

with DTRA’s On-Site Inspection Directorate serving as program manger.

Essentially, the program provided equipment and training in detecting, preventing,

and investigating the illicit movement of WMD materials across national borders.

The program worked without fanfare until an incident on the UzebkistanKazakhstan border in May 2000. In that month, Uzbekistani customs officials

on the border seized ten lead-lined containers filled with radioactive materials.111

This was a major seizure, and it focused attention on the program. Other nations

receiving training and equipment under this program were Hungary, Slovakia,

Bulgaria, Romania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova,

Lithuania, and Slovenia.

Representatives from some of these nations, plus senior diplomats from Russia,

Ukraine, Egypt, and United Nations, joined senior U.S. government and industry

DTRA Funding Components

FY1999

$1.77B

CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL

EXTERNAL

DTRA TOTAL OBLIGATION AUTHORITY

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

LEGEND

FY2000

$2.05B

$727M

$458M

$791M

$78M

$610M

$75M

$440M

$645M
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 39

officials at DTRA’s Ninth Annual International Conference on Controlling Arms,

held in Norfolk, Virginia in early June 2000.112 Stressing the importance of

technology, which was a major theme, Dr. Charles R. Gallaway, chief of DTRA’s

Arms Control Technology division, observed that “technology must be negotiated

into arms control treaties or it does not count. The technology community

must show policy planners what can be done with the new technology.”113

Every two years, the Joint Chiefs of Staff send an evaluation team to examine

the effectiveness of each of DoD’s five combat support agencies—the Defense

Intelligence Agency, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Information

Systems Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Defense

Threat Reduction Agency. Required by law, the JCS assessments evaluate the

combat support agencies’ responsiveness and readiness to support operational

forces in the event of war or threat to national security.114 DTRA was subject to

its first JCS Combat Support Agency Review during February-March 2000.

The assessment team focused on the combat support missions in DTRA’s Nuclear

Support and Counterproliferation Support directorates. The results were

announced in a letter from General Shelton to the secretary of defense on March

28.115 The JCS assessment concluded that DTRA should continue its WMD

technology programs, and continue providing the combatant commands with

information on emerging radiological, chemical, and biological threats. It further

recommended that the secretary of defense reexamine the current, complex division

of DoD’s counterproliferation roles and missions, identifying the need for better

doctrine, improved requirements planning, more accurate assessment of

capabilities, and better coordination with the combatant commands. To help

define command relationships for managing the consequences of a domestic

WMD crisis, the assessment team recommended that DTRA establish a supporting

command relationship with the U.S. Joint Forces Command (the former U.S.

Atlantic Command). Finally, the JCS assessment commended Davis for DTRA’s

transformation and concluded that the agency must continue to address the

complex WMD threat.116

The JCS Combat Support Agency Review coincided with publication of the

agency’s recently completed Strategic Plan 2000, in which DTRA committed to

supporting the “viability and credibility” of the U.S. nuclear force. Further, the

plan stated that DTRA would “organize and prepare” to support civil and military

responses to WMD crises by building on its relationships with the U.S. Joint

Forces Command, the FBI, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA).117 In fact, considerable work had already been done. In the fall and

winter of 1999, DTRA’s leaders, analysts, and disaster exercise experts had

developed a major new crisis response study which influenced national policy at

the highest levels of the U.S. government.
40 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Like many influential studies, this one was drawn from reality. In August

1999 there was a massive earthquake in eastern Turkey. More than 17,000 people

were killed and in excess of 50,000 left homeless. It shattered the Turkish citizens’

confidence in their national, state, and local governments. Because of their inept

and inadequate response, all elements of the Turkish government were

condemned—politicians, police, fire, army, and civil disaster officials. In late

August, President Clinton discussed the Turkish earthquake with the senior

members of the National Security Council. The president asked what kind of

disaster could happen in the United States that would cause American citizens to

lose confidence in their government.118 Within a few days, the president’s question

had arrived at DTRA. “We got a direct tasking through the NSC,” Davis recalled,

“to go to work on a scenario of a nuclear detonation in a U.S. city.” Part of the

tasking came directly from the President—”Don’t do it in New York, don’t do

Washington, ...do it in the heartland ... in Cincinnati.”119 So in the fall of

1999, Davis, ASCO analysts, Counterproliferation Support specialists, and

Nuclear Support exercise experts created a theoretical scenario of an urban nuclear

terrorist disaster and the federal government’s responses. Known as the Cincinnati

Study, it became, over the next year and a half, one of the most important crisis

response studies of the Clinton administration.

DTRA’s director became a direct participant in the effort. He helped create

the study’s scenario, briefed it to senior government officials, and responded to

their direct tasking. It was a team effort, but one in which the director, who was

educated as a nuclear physicist, was on the team. “You asked if I was involved,”

Davis recalled. “I drove the study at one point. I told them, take this weapon,

put it there, give us a set of timelines day-by-day: dead, wounded, and the

consequences. The team then put together a scenario of about fifteen viewgraphs,

and we took them to the NSC.”120 At the National Security Council, Richard

Clarke, the president’s National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure

Protection, and Counterterrorism, listened, asked questions, and then told Davis

and the agency team to refine the study to better answer the question: What

difference would the federal government’s resources make in responding to this

crisis?

The next week, Davis and his team briefed Deputy Secretary of Defense

Hamre. The briefing, which described the consequences of a nuclear detonation

by a terrorist and the probable responses by local, state, and federal officials, had

a profound effect on him. A year-and-a-half later, Hamre recalled, “First of all, it

disturbed me terribly because of what it said about how profoundly difficult it

would be to cope with a nuclear crisis, and how poorly we are prepared as a

federal government.”121 Next, Hamre saw that he could use this briefing and its

conclusions to force the department to alter how it was currently preparing for
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 41

the new, emerging homeland defense mission. At the end of the briefing, Hamre

told him, “Jay, just sit here,” and turning to his aide, said: “Get me Janet Reno on

the telephone as soon as you can.” Under a presidential decision directive, Attorney

General Janet Reno was the senior federal official responsible for coordinating all

operations and support during a domestic crisis. Hamre told Reno, “I’ve just

seen a briefing and you have to see it. This briefing, more

than anything else, will give you a sense of what it is we are

looking at.”122

In late January 2000, Davis traveled to the Justice

Department and personally briefed Attorney General Reno

on the Cincinnati Study. One-on-one in her office, they

went through the nuclear terrorist scenario. At the end, the

attorney general said that the analysis was so profound that

she would convene an all-day session of senior civilian and

military officials to go through the issues, problems, responses,

and consequences. On a Saturday early in February, the group

met in the secretary of defense’s conference room. Attending

were the attorney general, deputy secretary of defense, vice

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deputy director of the

FBI, commander of the Joint Forces Command, chief of the JTF-CS, and that

command’s political, legal, and public affairs officers. Senior FEMA officials did

not attend. The group went through the study step-by-step. According to Davis,

“We spent about six or seven hours on that Saturday stepping through the

scenario.... At each step we asked, what political questions have arisen? What

operational questions have arisen? Are there legal questions? What events have

happened that we never anticipated? What resources do we need to have preplanned?”123

As they worked through the operational and political issues, Davis explained,

the group found that they had to think through and pre-plan not just the

operational responses, but also the information flow to the media and the public.

Public confidence in the government was critical to achieving both the operational

and political responses. Finally, Davis recalled, “We came back to the president’s

fundamental question: How do you keep the government from suffering a loss

of confidence?” Collectively, the group determined that the government had to

think through the event before it happened. Later, Davis reflected on the

significance of these briefings for the agency. By raising these profound issues in

front of the attorney general, deputy secretary of defense, senior law enforcement

officials, and senior military commanders and their staffs, he concluded that, “If

we didn’t have the answers, we sure as hell had defined the problem!”124

Attorney General Janet Reno
42 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

The analytical work of DTRA on crisis response did not end with this session.

In January 2001, the director, agency analysts, and the exercise experts briefed a

biological terrorism study to senior-level officials at Fort McNair, Washington,

D.C. Present were the attorney general, secretary of transportation, director of

FEMA, director of the Center for Disease Control, and other senior government

managers. At this briefing, many of the same operational, political, medical, and

public information questions were raised. Davis thought that in this session, and

the earlier ones, his agency “had put the government on a new path. The problem

is not solved, but we put the government on the path to having answers at hand

about what it can do if the event happens. Even more importantly, we will have

explained to the National Command Authority what it is possible to do.”125

At DTRA, some work had already been done. On October 1, 1999, Davis

had set up a special agency task force, called the Consequence Management

Advisory Team (CMAT). This new team would work closely with the U.S.

Joint Forces Command’s Joint Task Force-Civil Support and any of the CINCs

who requested assistance. Then in early March 2000, the agency’s CMAT team

deployed to the Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Virginia, in support of the

JTF-CS for a command post exercise testing how the task force would support

a WMD crisis.126 Two months later in May 2000, the team deployed again, this

time to participate in a large, 10-day multi-agency crisis and consequence

management exercise. The object was to test the capability of federal, state, and

local officials to respond to a series of no-notice, geographically dispersed terrorist

threats and attacks across the United States.

Named Operation TOPOFF 2000

(shorthand for top officials), the simulated

terrorist events took place in Portsmouth,

New Hampshire; Denver, Colorado; and

Landover, Maryland. DTRA deployed

twelve people to Portsmouth, where they

worked with elements of the U.S. Joint

Forces Command’s JTF-CS.127 Specifically,

DTRA’s Consequence Management Advisory

Team provided senior officials with computer

modeling and simulation analysis of local

weather, geography, and potentially hazardous

gases. This analysis gave key officials a more

precise definition of the threat than they had

previously had. Using two agency-developed

technologies, the Hazard Prediction

Assessment Capabilities and the Consequence

Federal, state, and local officials set up mock command

centers, like the one pictured here, in several cities across the

United States during Operation TOPOFF 2000.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 43

Assessment Tool Set, the DTRA team contributed technical expertise to the

simulated crisis. Agency lawyers and public affairs specialists also augmented the

JTF-CS staff throughout this significant WMD exercise. In the months following

Operation TOPOFF 2000, a series of important joint-support agreements were

developed and signed between DTRA and the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

In addition, this high-level exercise unquestionably contributed to the success

of DTRA’s annual Weapons of Mass Destruction Response Symposium held in

Albuquerque, New Mexico, in July 2000. More than 220 people attended,

representing all of the military services, defense agencies, FBI, Justice Department,

and other federal departments. Mike Evenson, deputy director of the Nuclear

Support and Operations Directorate, opened the symposium and reminded the

participants that, “DTRA doesn’t do consequence management itself.... We’re

not the first responders. DTRA, however, was involved in planning, training,

and conducting exercises for a WMD terrorist or accidental event.”128 Evenson

told the symposium, “When we talk about a WMD

event, it won’t be with 20 or 100 people affected. It will

be 120,000 people or more, with another 48,000 dying

in about 48 hours after the event. With staggering

numbers of people needing assistance, we need to ensure

that we in DoD don’t have to call more than one phone

number to get help for our people.”129 Charles Cragin,

acting assistant to the secretary of defense for civil support,

further stated, “In civil support, DoD is not and does

not want to be in charge. We are only there to support

the local and state authorities.” 130

This WMD Response symposium was held at

DTRA’s Defense Nuclear Weapons School. In 1999,

that school had developed a new course on space launch

monitoring. In 1998, Congress had written explicit

language into the National Defense Authorization Act

for FY 1999. The act directed the Defense Department

to establish a technology security program to monitor

the activities of U.S. aerospace companies participating

under federal license in communications satellite

manufacturing and launch activities with foreign nations. DTRA received this

new congressionally-directed mission and David Tarbell, director of DTRA’s

Technology Security Directorate, established a new division, Space Launch

Monitoring, to implement the law. Colonel David Garner, USAF, led the effort,

organizing six monitoring teams, consisting of a team chief, launch vehicle engineer,

satellite engineer, aerospace specialist, and a security expert. Since the newlyThe Space Launch Monitoring

Division of the Technology Security

directorate monitored the March 27,

1999 launch of this Zenit-3SL

rocket off the coast of California.
44 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

recruited teams had considerable technical experience in U.S. military and

commercial space launch programs, their training concentrated on specific

congressional requirements, the licensing process, program familiarization, and

mission planning. It was not all training, however. Since U.S. corporations

already had active programs with several foreign nations to launch U.S.-

manufactured communications satellites, DTRA’s space launch monitoring teams

were active in the program’s initial months. During 1999 and 2000, agency teams

deployed to conduct training at U.S. manufacturing plants, to participate in

technical interchange meetings, and to monitor on-site the actual communications

satellite missile launches in Baikonur, Kazakhstan; Plestetsk, Russia; and on the

consortium’s launch ship in the Pacific Ocean.131

In the area of chemical-biological defense, the agency developed and led a

large, complex advanced concept technology demonstration program called

Restoration of Operations (RestOps). Led by David G. Harrison of the agency’s

Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate, this technology demonstration program

grew out of a series of analytical studies following the 1991 Gulf War. By the

late-1990s, the U.S. military combat commands had begun demanding improved

chemical-biological defensive technologies, and the tactics, techniques, and

procedures to use them effectively. Harrison’s comprehensive program had four

elements. First, prior to a chemical or biological attack, it would provide

equipment to protect military personnel and sensitive combat material. Next, if

an attack were imminent, it would detect, identify, and warn the command of

the character and severity of the event. Then, if the attack occurred, it would

decontaminate people, critical equipment and facilities, and restore operations

rapidly. Finally, it would provide analytical computer technology to analyze the

impact of the chemical or biological attack on operational, logistical, and medical

operations during the attack. It was a sweeping concept, one with direct application

for reducing real threats to U.S. military forces deployed around the world.

In April 1999, Lieutenant General Randolph W. House, USA, deputy

commander-in-chief of U.S. Pacific Command, requested that the RestOps

concept be tested at Osan Air Base in South Korea. DTRA was designated as the

executive agent for the program; the U.S. Air Force was the lead military service;

U.S. Pacific Command was the sponsoring operational command; U.S. Central

Command was a supporting command; U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground

was the technical evaluator; and the U.S. Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation

Center was designated as the military utility advisor. In February 2000, Joseph J.

Eash, III, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Technology, directed

DTRA to undertake a three-year, $57 million series of exercises, tests, and

demonstrations on the RestOps program. Since then, the U.S. Pacific Command

reevaluated its chemical-biological defenses, and developed new chemical-biological
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 45

Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF,

DTRA’s second deputy director

components for future operational exercises. DTRA procured the critical

technologies, and the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground started testing

numerous new protection, detection, and decontamination systems at its Joint

Chemical Trials in the summer and fall of 2000. All of this activity led to a

decision to schedule a major RestOps baseline exercise with the Air Force’s 51st

Fighter Wing in early 2001 in South Korea.132

To summarize all of DTRA’s mission activities into a single concluding

paragraph is impossible. Suffice it to say that the people, military and civilians,

working in DTRA’s mission directorates continued to carry out all of the new

congressionally-directed threat reduction programs, legally-mandated treaty

missions, JCS-assigned combat support roles, counterproliferation measures, and

chemical demonstration projects with the same thoroughness and professionalism

that they had exhibited in the past. At the same time, there had been significant

developments in the agency’s newest mission, conceptualizing and analyzing the

WMD threat to the nation and its military forces. It had been defined and

articulated at the highest levels of the national government. In this area, DTRA

was now seen as a serious proponent for a rigorous national effort to analyze,

plan, and prepare for the threat from terrorists using weapons of mass destruction

against the United States.

Entering DTRA’s Third Year:

Major Reorganization

On September 26, 2000, four days before the

agency entered its third year, Dr. Davis and Major

General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, DTRA’s new

deputy director, announced another major agency

reorganization.133 In scope and concept, the changes

constituted the largest restructuring since DTRA was

established in October 1998. In an electronic message to

all employees, Davis explained the external and internal

pressures causing the changes. He cited the continuing

reassessment of DTRA’s strategic plan, the favorable results

of the JCS Combat Support Agency Review team’s report,

the impact of the Clinger-Cohen Act on managing federal

information technology, the Defense Science Board’s review

of the agency’s simulation activities, and the continuing

pressure to comply with DoD’s emphasis on best business

practices.134 As with the agency’s first strategic plan, the

reorganization was the product of an internal planning

process.
46 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Over the summer months, Bongiovi had analyzed the agency’s existing

structure and found a dilemma. DTRA had been created from multiple

organizations with different identities; now it had one identity—threat reduction—

but multiple personalities. He proposed a rigorous analysis of the agency’s mission

essential tasks, its current strategies, its customers and enablers, and most

significantly, its current relationships and responsibilities. Further, he

recommended an examination of the agency’s supporting tasks and key processes.

Bongiovi presented his analysis to a small senior-level group (the director, deputy,

chief of staff, mission directors, business office chiefs, and selected senior staff) at

a day-long, off-site meeting in early August 2000.135 Using his analysis as a

starting point, the director, deputy director, and the group reviewed each of the

major mission and support areas, and concluded that a major agency restructuring

should be considered. This senior group met periodically in August and

September 2000. What emerged was an important new construct for

conceptualizing and organizing the agency’s mission areas.

Henceforth, DTRA would have four “core”

missions: WMD combat support, technology

development, threat control, and threat

reduction.136 In the first area, WMD combat

support, the emphasis was on DTRA’s mission

to provide combat support to the Joint Chiefs

of Staff, CINCs, and the military services that

were facing WMD threats to their forces.

Accordingly, the senior group recommended that

the director dissolve the Nuclear Support and

Operations Directorate and replace it with a new

WMD Combat Support Directorate. This new

directorate would inherit all of the CINC

combat support functions and acquire

responsibility for force protection, survivability

assessments, the agency’s operations center, and

the CINC Liaison Office.

The second core mission area, technology

development, represented an attempt by agency leaders to align into a single

organization the people responsible for carrying out the agency’s complex research

and development (R&D) programs and for providing the technologies used in

WMD combat support and threat reduction mission areas. Known as the

Technology Development Directorate, this new organization inherited most of

the Counterproliferation Support Directorate’s R&D functions, the nuclear

survivability functions and technologies from the former Nuclear Support and

DTRA assesses the effects of various high explosive weapons

through blast tests at its Albuquerque test site.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 47

Operations Directorate, and the research programs associated with arms control

treaties.

The third core mission area, threat control, was simply a conceptual grouping

of two existing directorates—Technology Security and On-Site Inspection. In

fact, these two directorates were so distinct in their functions that they retained

their names and remained organizationally separate. The fourth core mission

NUCLEAR SUPPORT & OPERATIONS COMBAT SUPPORT

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

COUNTERPROLIFERATION

SUPPORT & OPERATIONS

DIRECTORATES 2000

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE

ON-SITE INSPECTION

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

DIRECTORATES 1999

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

ON-SITE INSPECTION

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE

ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

area was threat reduction. Here the existing Cooperative Threat Reduction

Directorate retained its special mission of providing assistance to the eligible states

of the former Soviet Union as they dismantled their weapons of mass destruction

and reduced the threat from proliferation. A sixth directorate, the ChemicalBiological Directorate, provided direction for development and acquisition of

DoD’s chemical and biological systems for the military services and combatant

commands. So, after all the changes, DTRA would have four core missions -

WMD combat support, technology development, threat control, and threat

reduction, organized into six mission directorates - Combat Support, Technology

Development, Technology Security, On-Site Inspection, Cooperative Threat

Reduction, and Chemical-Biological Defense.

In early August, Bongiovi recommended that Davis set up two new agency

leadership groups to provide the director and senior leadership with better internal
48 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

communications, advice on strategic planning, and managerial insights.137 There

were two reasons behind the deputy director’s recommendations. In February,

an agency-wide survey had shown that there was a major problem with interagency

personal communications, especially between mid-level and senior managers. To

resolve it, the director established the DTRA Corporate Council in September

2000. This new council was a large group of thirty-two senior and mid-level

managers, consisting of the director, deputy director, chief of staff, senior advisors,

mission directors, special and personal staff officers, and the chief of the advanced

concepts office. It would meet monthly, addressing specific issues and advising

the director and his senior leaders on corporate planning, policies, and agency/

program performance.138

The second new leadership group was designated the DTRA Board of

Advisors.139 It grew out of Bongiovi’s and Davis’s desire to have a separate senior

managerial group that would advise and work with them to make the strategic

planning process the driving force in planning the agency’s future. The function

of this smaller group of approximately 14 senior managers (the director, deputy

director, chief of staff, mission directors, and business office chiefs) was to continue

refining the agency’s strategic plan and to assist the director in defining new mission

opportunities and future scenarios. These two new groups, especially the Board

of Advisors, discussed the details and rational for the agency’s major “core” mission

reorganization, discussed above. Finally, when all of the discussions, refinements,

and internal vetting had been completed, DTRA’s reorganization was announced

to all agency employees on September 26, 2000.

On that day, Davis and Bongiovi explained, via an agency-wide e-mail, the

new “core” missions concept, the organizational changes in the mission directorates,

the new managerial council and advisory board, and the elevation of three major

headquarters functions—resource management, acquisition management, and

information systems—to business directorate status.140 The last element signaled

a major status change, elevating those important enabling divisions to directorates.

The new Resource Management Directorate combined the functions of financial

management, manpower and personnel management. The second, the Acquisition

Management Directorate, expanded the mission and organizational stature of

the former acquisition management division by including responsibilities for

program management, training, and better business practices. It also would have

a larger role in agency program planning and management. The third

organizational change created an Information Systems Directorate. This change

recognized the major role that computers and communications now played in

the agency and the conduct of its missions and business. Further, the action

responded directly to the Clinger-Cohen Act, which sought to elevate the status

of information management functions within federal government departments

and agencies.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 49

As a result of all of these changes, DTRA entered its third year with six

mission directorates, three business directorates, an advanced systems and concepts

office, senior advisors, a board of advisors, and a corporate council. The Threat

Reduction Advisory Committee remained intact.

Relocating the Agency

Upon its establishment, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency maintained

its headquarters, business and security offices, and three mission

directorates at Washington Dulles International Airport, located

approximately twenty-five miles west of Washington, D.C. In March 1999,

Davis had recommended to Hamre that the agency move its headquarters and

Dulles-based personnel, either to Fort Belvoir in the Virginia suburbs or the U.S.

Naval Station in Washington, D.C. He had two reasons. First, the Dulles site

did not meet even minimal DoD force protection standards for physical security

and safety, whereas a new building, on either military post, would meet the

standards when placed inside a fenced area, with manned, controlled access security

systems. Davis’ second reason grew out of his personal experience in working for

nearly 25 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California. He

DTRA began moving to the Headquarters Complex at Fort Belvoir, Virginia in June 2000.
50 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

believed that only by bringing DTRA personnel together in one location would

they be able to achieve a level of responsiveness, creativity, and entrepreneurial

spirit needed to thrive in a competitive world of rapidly changing defense missions

and budgets. Davis believed so strongly in the necessity for this consolidation

that he set money aside in out-year budgets for the design of a new facility for

DTRA. Then, he requested that Dr. Hamre include in DoD’s military

construction request to Congress for 2000 an appropriation for a preliminary

building design of an entirely new facility for DTRA.141

In March 1999, Davis envisioned a new headquarters building with four

floors, approximately 300,000 square feet of office space, and a price tag of

about $65 million. Following site and building design, construction estimates,

contracts, and actual construction, the new DTRA building could be ready for

occupancy, he estimated, by mid-2003.142 Until then, the headquarters and its

directorates would remain in the leased facilities at Dulles. By October 1999,

the situation had changed, senior department officials had directed that the agency

headquarters would relocate in the next year to the Headquarters Complex at

Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In informing all agency personnel on October 4, 1999,

the director explained that not only would the agency relocate to Fort Belvoir,

but it would do so quickly. The move from Dulles would start in early summer

2000, three years earlier than previously announced.143

The expedited schedule was possible because vacant office space already existed

in the Headquarters Complex at Fort Belvoir, and another defense agency, the

Defense Contracting Management Agency, would be vacating its offices in the

same building by the end of December 2000. After examining the situation in

the summer of 1999, David R. Oliver, Jr., Principal Deputy Under Secretary of

Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, directed DTRA to move

into vacant office space in the Headquarters Complex. At the same time, Oliver

said that DTRA would be authorized to contract immediately for the construction

of a large, temporary 100,000 square foot modular building in an existing parking

lot at the Headquarters Complex. It could serve as office space for up to 500

employees. Hamre agreed. The combination of these three developments, Davis

told agency employees, would consolidate a majority of DTRA personnel at

Fort Belvoir. Personnel in three directorates, Technology Development, WMD

Combat Support, and Technology Security, would continue to work in the agency’s

other facilities in Alexandria, Virginia.

In June 2000, the movement of people, furniture, computers, and other

systems to Fort Belvoir began. The move was scheduled to be completed that

same month.144 Approximately 150 people moved the week of June 13 from

Dulles into six office suites located in the Headquarters Complex building. In
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 51

late September, the director and deputy director led a second agency group into

offices in the new 100,000 square foot modular building. Over the next three

months, the special and personal staff offices, business directorates, and one mission

directorate also moved into the building. By December 2000, Headquarters

DTRA had been completely relocated from Dulles International Airport to Fort

Belvoir. Only the On-Site Inspection Directorate remained at Dulles, and it was

slated to move to the Headquarters Complex at Fort Belvoir when space was

prepared and available.

By December 2000, Headquarters DTRA had been completely relocated from

Washington Dulles International Airport to Fort Belvoir. Other DTRA elements

remained at various sites in the National Capital Region.

FORT BELVOIR

HEADQUARTERS

COMPLEX

WASHINGTON

DULLES

INTERNATIONAL

AIRPORT

TELEGRAPH

ROAD

DETAILED AREA
52 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Director’s Departur s Departure and Assessment e and Assessment

I

n late October 2000, Davis wrote agency personnel, “We are now in the

third year of this agency’s existence and my last year as director.” He

announced that he would be stepping down as director in the spring of

2001. “As an agency,” he continued, “we have had significant accomplishments,

both in building the institution that is DTRA and in executing the missions

assigned to us. The first stage of our work is done; now it is time to ignite the

second stage and take the Defense Threat Reduction Agency even higher.”145

In the same message, Davis enumerated DTRA’s major accomplishments.

From implementing the nation’s arms control treaty commitments to carrying

out the large cooperative programs which were assisting the states of the former

Soviet Union in reducing their nuclear weapons, DTRA personnel had carried

out the United States’ responsibilities professionally. The agency had established

a successful partnership with the U.S. Strategic Command in creating the first

Nuclear Mission Management Plan and it had developed a good working

relationship with the Department of Energy’s new National Nuclear Security

Administration. DTRA, Davis believed, had drafted, coordinated, and published

the plan for the nation’s chemical-biological defense program. Technology security,

through licensing, had been made more efficient and extended into the realm of

monitoring space launches of U.S. communications satellites. But Davis thought

that the agency had achieved a new identity within the federal government in the

area of conceptualizing, planning, and executing inter-agency counterterrorism

exercises. Davis wrote that in this area, “We [DTRA] have had a greater impact

than that of our legacy organizations....”146 Finally, he singled out the JCS

review of DTRA’s combat support missions and the agency’s establishment of

liaison officers, located at the CINC’s headquarters around the world, as proof of

the new organization’s commitment to the nation’s combatant commanders and

military forces.

In February 2001, Davis announced in the agency’s newsletter that his

appointment had been extended through June. At that time, he planned return

to California and work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where

he would become a national security fellow at the Center for Global Security

Research.147 In the same newsletter article he explained his view of DTRA’s

historical significance. “The Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” he wrote, “has

been described to me by several people as the most important defense management

innovation since the creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

more that 50 years ago.”148 As the agency’s first director, he took “considerable

satisfaction” in that comparison, and then he concluded, characteristically: “You

should as well.”149
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 53

2001: New Opportunities

and New Milestones

Throughout 2001, the Combat Support Directorate worked intensively

with the unified combatant commands, especially the U.S. Central

Command (CENTCOM), U.S. Special Operations Command

(USSOCOM), and the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM). Combat

Support personnel provided operational support to the CINCs, military services,

and other governmental agencies. They conducted integrated vulnerability

assessments of Defense Department installations worldwide in direct support of

the Chairman of the JCS’s antiterrorism and force protection programs. They

carried out independent nuclear surety inspections for the JCS. In addition, they

had mission responsibility for the DTRA’s Operations Center. In January, the

operations center provided support for President Bush’s inauguration. Since the

agency was seen as the defense department’s center for WMD expertise, the

operations center developed a plan for supporting the Armed Forces Inaugural

Committee’s operations center and other key government operations centers.

According to Major Robert Ivy, USA, “Our reason for working [the event] was

to shorten the response timeline in support of the Secret Service. We had modeling

people working here, as well as subject matter experts, so there was a full reachback capability. DTRA is increasingly seen as the expert on weapons of mass

destruction.”150

President Bush’s inauguration was the DTRA

Operations Center’s first opportunity to work with

the scientists and technicians at the National

Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability Office.

Based at the Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory, this office provided federal and state

officials with real-time assessments of the

environmental consequences of radiological

materials in the atmosphere. DTRA’s Operations

Center personnel also worked closely with the

members of a new command, the Joint Task Force

for Civil Support, who deployed to Washington

D.C. for the inauguration. At the end of the long

week, the chief of the operations center, Lieutenant

Colonel Laura Hill, USA, concluded, “We couldn’t

replicate this training anywhere else.”151

Significantly, this operations center experience would be used later in the year in

responding to the September 11terrorist attack, and in preparations for the 2002

Winter Olympics to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

DTRA’s Operations Center provided support for the

inauguration of President George W. Bush by assisting

the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee and other key

government agencies.
54 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

In its first full year of operations, the Technology Development Directorate

had the mission of developing, managing, and coordinating DTRA’s research

and development activities. These activities focused on enhancing and enabling

the unified combatant command’s WMD operations support, combat support,

and threat reduction missions. In 2001, the directorate carried out complex

studies, analyses, computer models, and simulations on the effects and impacts

of weapons of mass destruction. The definition of what types of weapons

constituted WMD included not only chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons,

but also radiological and high explosive weapons.152 High explosives had been

used extensively by terrorist groups, both in the United States and abroad.

DTRA’s center for testing the effects of

high explosives was located on Kirtland Air

Force Base, near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

DTRA’s Albuquerque Operations has several

hundred people experienced in planning,

preparing, and conducting weapons effects

tests. One important group of tests, the

Divine Buffalo series, tested new techniques

for retrofitting existing buildings in order to

improve their survivability against high

explosive weapons.153 The tests in this series

were conducted over several years, using

different designs for structural columns,

different reinforcing technologies, and other

means to strengthen the buildings against

structural collapse. Included in the Divine

Buffalo series were tests to evaluate

penetration of the building and its contents. Using realistic human-shaped

dummies, the tests evaluated the blast effects of high explosive weapons on trauma

and other types of personal injuries. All of the test data was funneled into a

database that analysts used to predict lethality and the probability of serious injury

to personnel in the buildings. This important work had direct application for

U.S. military and diplomatic personnel stationed abroad. They knew, first hand,

the threat from terrorist groups and their high explosive weapons of terror.

Technology Development had numerous other projects which had direct

application to commanders of the unified commands. In late March, Admiral

Richard Mies, USN, Commander-in-Chief, STRATCOM welcomed Dr. Davis,

General Bongiovi, Colonel William R. Faircloth, USA, chief of staff, DTRA,

Dr. Arthur T. Hopkins, director, Technology Development Directorate, Dr.

Randall S. Murch, chief of ASCO, and 20 other senior staff and program mangers,

At Albuquerque, DTRA used the Divine Buffalo test series to

measure the blast effects of high explosive weapons on redesigned

building structures.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 55

for a day-long conference in Omaha, Nebraska.154 According to Major Stephen

Hall, USAF, who was DTRA’s project officer and CINC liaison to the specified

command, the purpose of this “focus day” was for the senior leaders to review

some 20 different programs that the agency was executing in direct support of

the strategic command. Admiral Mies complimented DTRA for its initiative,

characterizing the meeting a “good opportunity” to recalibrate the senior leadership

on the programs.155 Technology Development Directorate program mangers

briefed the status of 17 of the 20 agency programs reviewed. During the meeting,

Admiral Mies and his staff explained STRATCOM’s perspective on specific

programs. Those discussions were followed with extended comments on the

command’s future research and development interests. According to Lieutenant

Colonel Todd Hamm, USA, that exchange allowed the agency to begin a process

to prioritize its future research planning to better meet the demands of the

warfighters. 156 During 2000-2001, DTRA had succeeded in placing an agency

CINC liaison officer, either on a permanent or temporary basis, at the headquarters

of U.S. European Command (also coordinating with NATO and SHAPE), U.S.

Strategic Command (also with U.S. Space Command), U.S. Joint Forces

Command, U.S. Central Command (also with U.S. Special Operations

Command, and U.S. Southern Command), U.S. Transportation Command,

and U.S. Pacific Command.

In February 2001, the U.S. Pacific Command, DTRA, and the Air Force

Test and Evaluation Center conducted the large-scale field exercise and technology

demonstration, called RestOps. This exercise simulated a chemical attack at the

U.S. Pacific Command’s 51st Fighter Wing, based at Osan Air Base, South

Korea.157 It was a large exercise, involving more the 6,500 personnel, including

450 technical evaluators and observers. Beginning on February 11, the exercise

ran 24 hours-a-day for 10 days and tested new tactics, techniques, products, and

equipment especially designed to help the wing restore its fighter aircraft,

munitions areas, command centers, maintenance centers, and logistics sections to

combat status quickly. The comprehensive program, conceived and developed

by David Harrison, of the Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate, had been

identified by the Secretary of Defense as an Advanced Concept Technology

Demonstration project.158 General Bongiovi flew to South Korea, spent several

days observing the complex exercise which field tested 51 separate products that

detected, mitigated, and assisted the fighter wing in restoring operations. After

the exercise, the general concluded, “RestOps demonstrates two of our (DTRA’s)

strategic goals - reducing the present threat and ... reducing the impact of weapons

of mass destruction.”159

The objective of this RestOps 2001exercise and technology demonstration,

according to Harrison, was to identify the direction, size, and composition of the
56 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

chemical attack and then, to identify key actions during and afterwards that would

assist the wing in restoring and sustaining combat operations. Consequently, the

exercise tested products that could protect people and equipment prior to the

chemical attack, products that could mitigate the effects through decontamination

during the attack, and products and techniques that could speed the recovery of

operational tempo immediately following the attack. When the exercise

concluded on February 21, DTRA program and technical mangers presented a

debriefing, dubbed a “hot wash”, for the wing command and staff. A more

extensive report, one that evaluated all of the demonstration products and

procedures, came several months later.160

By that time, DTRA’s Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate was involved

in a similar effort with the U.S. Navy. On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole was

conducting a routine fueling stop in the port of Aden, Yemen. Suddenly, without

warning it was attacked by terrorists who exploded a powerful bomb near the

ship, killing 17 sailors, and wounding 42 others.161 The incident demanded

better force protection measures. Within weeks, U.S. Navy officials began working

with DTRA’s experienced analysts and project managers in Technology

Development, Chemical-Biological Defense, and WMD Combat Support

directorates to design and develop a new restoration of operations project, the

Sea Port Protection Analysis (SPPA). Under this program, DTRA assessment

teams would travel to U.S. Navy ports and weapons depots in the United States

and abroad and evaluate their physical vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks using

weapons of mass destruction. These DTRA assessments were provided to the

local commanders, headquarters, and the senior leaders in the U.S. Navy. These

assessments became the basis for analysts in the three directorates – Technology

Development, Chemical-Biological Defense, and WMD Combat Support, to

devise new methods to detect, mitigate, and restore naval operations if a port

were attacked using weapons of mass destruction.

The year 2001 was a significant turning point in establishing the Space Launch

Monitoring division’s operational capability. The division reached a strength of

28 full-time monitors, organized into six teams. Each of the team members had

been trained at DTRA’s Defense Nuclear Weapons School in Albuquerque, and

then had completed a rigorous course of certification training within the division.

Their mission is to review the licenses, including extensive technical data, of U.S.

corporations selling or leasing rocket-launched space vehicles or space technologies

to foreign companies. Following the technical data review, agency monitors

recommended licensing modifications, and supported technical interchange

positions. Then, the teams traveled to the site and monitored the actual launch

of the space vehicles. Typically, a team would be deployed to a launch site for 30

to 45 days. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Robertson, USAF, explained that “We
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 57

cover the program from cradle to grave. The companies used to be concerned

with the lack of consistency ... from one program to the next, or within the

same program. Now they see the same people each time they deal with that

program.”162 During fiscal years 2000 and 2001, the teams monitored 16 launches

of commercial satellites in Russia, Ukraine, and the Pacific Ocean. An additional

15 overseas launches of U.S. commercial satellites were projected for 2002.

From the beginning of the Cooperative Threat

Reduction program, one of its principal objectives had been

to assist Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in the

elimination of their START I-limited weapons, warheads,

and weapon systems infrastructure. By the end of 2000,

Kazakhstan had eliminated, with funding, program

management, and contractor assistance from CTR, all of

its 104 SS-18 ICBM silos and all of its 40 heavy bombers.

With the elimination of these silos and bombers,

Kazakhstan met all of its obligations under the START I

treaty. Still underway in 2001, with direct CTR program

assistance, were projects to eliminate the unified fill facilities

in the nuclear storage areas at Sary Ozek, Chagan, and

Dezhavinsk sites, and the elimination of nuclear testing

infrastructure at the Deglin Mountain nuclear testing site.

Ukraine passed a major milestone in 2001. When it became a nation in

1991, Ukraine had inherited 258 ICBMs (SS-19s, SS-24s), 176 silo launchers,

36 heavy bombers (Tu-160s, Tu-22Ms), 487 air-launched cruise missiles, and

1,984 nuclear warheads. In 1994, it ratified both the START I Treaty and the

Non-Proliferation Treaty, thus agreeing to become a non-nuclear nation. By

December 2000, Ukraine had eliminated all of its intercontinental ballistic missiles,

most of its missile silos, and almost all of its heavy bombers. CTR funds had

financed the elimination of every one of these strategic offensive weapons. In

February 2001, the final Tu-160 heavy bomber was destroyed at Priluki Air Base

by Ukrainian firms working under a CTR contract. Previously, Ukraine’s other

heavy bombers had been eliminated at five military air bases: Uzin, Belaya, Tserkov,

Poltava, and Nikolaev. Commenting on the significance of eliminating the final

TU-160 Blackjack bomber and the first Tu-22 Backfire at Priluki, Major Donald

E. Parman, USAF, the CTR program manager, said “The Ukrainians stand firm

on their commitment to destroy all similar weapons and to build new peaceful

relations with the west. The elimination of the first Backfire demonstrates that

commitment to the world.”163 Parman spoke in February; by May all remaining

heavy bombers and air launched cruise missiles had been destroyed.

Equipment provided under the CTR program assists

Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine in eliminating

their START I-limited weapons systems infrastructure.
58 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

For Ukraine to meet its START I obligations, it still had to destroy the last

few SS-24 ICBM silos. That work had begun in 1998 and it had to be completed

by December 5, 2001, the date for compliance with the START Treaty. On

October 30, 2001, Ukrainian government representatives, U.S. officials, DTRA

program mangers, American and Ukrainian contractors, local citizens, and

approximately 150 media representatives participated in a ceremony at

Pervomaysk, Ukraine. They observed the destruction of the final SS-24 silo, and

the signing of an agreement that extended the US-Ukrainian cooperative threat

reduction program until 2006. Signed by Colonel-General Vladmir Mikhtyuk,

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, and John Connell, the U.S. government’s

CTR program manger for Ukraine, the agreement provided for the removal of

all the weapon systems-related support and maintenance infrastructure from the

Ukrainian SS-24 sites.164

John Connell also participated in another significant milestone, the awarding

of a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar CTR Integrating Contract. Prior to the

awarding of this significant contract, each new CTR project took six to twelve

months to complete using the U.S. government’s procurement process. In 2000,

Ann Bridges Steely, director of the Acquisition Management Directorate,

recommended developing a new large-scale integrating contract that would be

in-place when new CTR requirements arose. Using this type of contract, the

CTR procurement process for new projects could be speeded up to approximately

55 to 80 days. The director and deputy director approved the new acquisition

strategy and in November 2000, Connell and Herbert A. Tompson formed a

CTR-Acquisition Management team to oversee the process of soliciting,

informing, evaluating, and selecting contractors for the largest single contract in

the agency’s history. Following initial advertising in November, the team held an

information day for prospective industry representatives and contractors in

February 2001. By April, 72 bids had been solicited. For the next three months,

Connell and Thompson led the source selection process. They followed established

procedures of establishing separate panels to evaluate the technical merits, the

performance reviews, and cost issues. When the source selection process and

decision reviews were completed in late autumn, DTRA made the announcement

of the CTR integrating contract award on September 7, 2001. Five major U.S.

firms received the $5 billion, five-year contract, with provision for a five-year

extension if the initial work had been preformed well.165

The United States reached three major arms control milestones during 2001:

shutdown of the chemical munitions elimination facility at Johnson Atoll,

completion of on-site inspections under the INF Treaty, and fulfillment of the

START I treaty’s deadline for strategic offensive arms eliminations. In the first

milestone, DTRA personnel escorted a team of international arms control
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 59

inspectors who monitored the destruction of the last of 13,000 land mines filled

with chemical munitions at the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System

(JACADS) in November 2000. These land mines were part of a larger cache of

more than 400,000 rockets, projectiles, bombs, mortars, and one-ton munitions

containers that had been destroyed, starting in 1993, on Johnson Island. When

the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in April 1997, international

inspectors had the right to travel to Johnston Atoll and inspect the chemical

destruction facility. Escorts from DTRA’s On-Site Inspection Directorate

accompanied each of the inspection teams to the island. Lieutenant Colonel

Walter H. Kamien, USAF, served as escort team chief during the final destruction.

“We have been planning this last destruction for a long time,” he explained. “We

ensured that we had procedures in place with the inspection on-site staff to witness

this last destruction and to verify that there were no other mines on the island.”

166 Although the final land mines were destroyed in November 2000, there were

a number of subsequent shutdown activities in January and February 2001. This

work was subject to review by the CWC inspectors, who were escorted by agency

personnel. When the facility shutdown was completed, the Johnston Island

facility became the United States’ first chemical demilitarization plant to be

officially closed.

On May 31, 2001, the INF Treaty

reached a milestone with the end of the 13-

year period for conducting on-site

inspections. Beginning on June 1, 1988,

the United States and Soviet Union/Russia

had the right under the treaty to send 10-

person teams to inspect declared military

sites. This treaty “right” existed for 13 years,

ending in May 2001. During those years,

the United States sent 540 teams (5,400

inspectors) to USSR/Russian sites; while

USSR/Russia deployed 311 inspection

teams (3,110 inspectors) to United States’

INF Treaty sites.167 In addition, each nation

had a treaty right to send an inspection team

of up to 30 people to continuously monitor

the exits and entrances of one INF missile

assembly or rocket motor production factory. The American inspectors went to

the Soviet INF missile assembly plant in Votkinsk, while the Soviet/Russian

inspectors conducted their continuous portal monitoring inspections at an INF

rocket motor plant in Magna, Utah. Without a doubt, the end of inspections

under the INF Treaty was a significant historical event for both nations.

In 2001, American and Russian inspectors conducted a series of

commemorative events marking the completion of the on-site inspection

phase of the INF Treaty.
60 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Consequently, the leaders of DTRA’s On-Site Inspection Directorate worked

with their Russian counterparts to plan and conduct a series of major

commemorative events in Moscow, Votkinsk, Washington, and Magna. Attended

by senior diplomats, defense officials, military officers, current and retired

inspectors, and the media, these events held in May 2001 recognized the treaty’s

historical significance in laying the foundation for a new era in U.S.-Russian

relations.168

The third treaty milestone in 2001related to the START I treaty. Signed in

1991, the treaty entered into force on December 5, 1994 following ratification

by the five signatory nations - United States, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and

Kazakhstan. Seven years after entry into force, all parties to the treaty had to

declare that their arsenals of strategic offensive arms was below the level of 1,600

strategic weapons and 6,000 warheads. In fact, during the ratification process

three nations - Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, pledged to eliminate all of

their strategic offensive arms and accede to the United Nation’s Non-Proliferation

treaty. As the December 2001 deadline approached, two nations, Ukraine and

the United States, had not reported data confirming they were below their declared

treaty limits. As noted above, Ukraine eliminated its final SS-24 silo on October

30, 2001, thus achieving treaty compliance. On December 5, Secretary of State

Colin L. Powell declared that the United States had met its final limits under the

START treaty.169 Powell characterized the event as an “important milestone” in

dismantling the legacy of the Cold War. In Moscow, Aleksandr Yakovenko of

the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a short statement: “Russia had completely

fulfilled its commitments under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START

I.”170 In fact, as of the deadline all parties to the treaty had superceded their

treaty-mandated limits in weapons and warheads. This milestone did not mean

the end of the treaty, the end of reductions, or the end of on-site inspections. All

provisions of the START I treaty continued as the nations prepared significant

reductions of their strategic offensive arms in future years.

The agency’s principle office for analyzing emerging WMD threats, developing

advanced concepts, and recommending appropriate technologies was the Advanced

Systems and Concepts Office. From its inception in 1998, Dr. Davis wanted

this office to lead the intellectual debate on WMD issues within the Department

of Defense, and possibly within the federal government.171 Leading the scientific

and technical debate, Dr. Hamre had insisted, was especially crucial in the areas of

biological and chemical threat reduction.172 Within the agency, Davis wanted

ASCO’s analysts to serve as the “honest brokers” on DTRA’s policy, operational,

and research and development issues. Further, the office had specific

responsibilities to provide support and advice to the agency’s senior advisory

group, the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee. During 2000, the new ASCO
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 61

office expanded from 9 to 25 personnel under the direction of Dr. Murch. The

following year, it grew to 33 scientists, analysts, and support staff, with Dr. Charles

R. Gallaway assuming leadership in June 2001.173

In carrying out its work, ASCO followed the model of a strategic “think

tank” or institute. It collected ideas and recommendations for WMD analytical

projects from OSD agencies and offices, the Joint Staff, combatant commands,

military services, and other federal agencies and departments. TRAC members

also recommended study topics. DTRA directorates, especially combat support,

technology development, and chemical-bio defense, submitted ideas for new

analytical projects. Within ASCO, all of these ideas, proposals, and

recommendations were analyzed using a metric evaluation process. Once a project

was defined, the study was conducted by a team drawn from ASCO, agency

directorates, outside contractors, and other government organizations. When

completed, the team presented their study, findings, and recommendations to

the customer in the user community. The objective was to produce focused

studies that could be applied directly to the needs of the commands, military

services, agencies, offices, and directorates. In 2001, ASCO published major

studies that examined the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (classified), Naval

Seaport of Debarkation, Amphibious Operations and BW/CW Threats (classified),

and Nuclear Proliferation, Nuclear Deterrence, and Nuclear Preventive Threat

Reduction.174

In addition, ASCO organized and conducted a series of workshops that

examined a single issue by asking and answering analytical questions of experienced

scientists, physicians, senior military officers, and technologists. In December

2000, Dr. Davis and Dr. Murch sponsored a major interdisciplinary workshop

on, “Human Behavior and WMD Crisis/Risk Communications.”175 It explored

the relationship in a WMD crisis between the public’s trust in its government,

and the government’s ability to provide the public with accurate, concise

information through the media. Another workshop, organized by Dr. Peter B.

Merkle, ASCO’s scientific advisor, examined “Chemical-Biological Modeling

and Simulation Future ‘Desirements’ “.176 In this two-day workshop, technical

experts and government leaders examined collectively the contemporary status of

chemical-biological models and simulations and prospects for the future. Other

analytical methods used by ASCO-led analysts were assessment studies, capabilities

studies, operational assessments, and detailed, realistic, consequential scenarios of

WMD events. In Davis’ opinion, these ASCO studies, workshops, assessments,

and scenarios fulfilled one of the Secretary of Defense’ reasons for establishing

the new agency: to understand better “how” to deal with the new and emerging

WMD threats.177
62 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

From 2000 to 2001 the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee met in a

plenary session three times to consider the findings of its five ad hoc panels:

nuclear deterrence sustainment, biological defense, science and technology,

integration, and intelligence. General Welch continued to serve as chairman.

The advisory committee’s 25 members represented some of the United States’

leading scientists, engineers, military scholars, nuclear experts, national security

policy analysts, and threat reduction experts. During the year, they worked in an

advisory capacity on specific analytical problems in one of the five ad hoc panels.

According to its federal charter, the purpose of the TRAC was to provide timely

scientific, technical, and policy-related advice on specific issues relating to weapons

of mass destruction to the secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, under

secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, and the director of

the agency.

When the TRAC met in plenary sessions, the committee members discussed

the findings of the ad hoc panels and then developed a consensus on its

recommendations to senior DoD officials. In 2000 and 2001, DTRA’s director

requested that the Science and Technology panel conduct a senior-level review of

the agency’s research and development programs. In another effort, the TRAC

completed in June 2001a joint study with the Defense Science Board, entitled

“Biological Defense.” TRAC also addressed the reorganization of the DoD

biological defense program at the request of the deputy secretary of defense.178

Strategic Plan 2001

I

n January 2001, the director, deputy director, senior agency managers, and

staff office leaders participated in a three-day off-site conference. Dr. Davis

wanted the participants to work on two issues: a process to select specific

tasks for inclusion in the agency’s new strategic plan 2001, and an assessment of

how the agency was being led in the estimation of its customers and employees.179

General Bongiovi and Colonel Faircloth led the effort that shaped the new strategic

plan. Bongiovi insisted that it be expanded from previous plans to provide strategic

guidance for the next five years, until 2006. He advocated making several major

changes, including spelling out DTRA’s four mission essential functions - combat

support, technology development, threat control, and threat reduction, and

identifying explicitly its four mission enabling functions - resource management,

business management, knowledge management, and security and intelligence

management. Further, he wanted to identify DTRA’s long term goals, objectives

and shaping tasks. Bongiovi insisted that the new plan be linked to DoD guidance

and strategic plans as well as the agency’s performance goals. Bongiovi crafted
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 63

the new mission statement, explicitly listing

chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high

explosives a WMD threats faced by the United

States.

When published in March, DTRA’s Strategic

Plan 2001 incorporated all of these concepts, as well

as a new section on enabling the agency’s people

through participation in education, training, and

leadership development programs.180 The published

strategic plan was distributed throughout the

Department of Defense and given to every employee.

At the time, Dr. Davis explained, “This document

is the agency’s most important statement to both

DTRA’s staff and our external constituencies. It was

a success last year; it is more so this year.”181

Leadership and

Organizational Changes Organizational Changes

When Dr. Davis left in June 2001, Major General Bongiovi became

the acting director. No sooner had the director departed than the

agency was threatened with dismemberment. On July 16, 2001,

General Bongiovi sent an e-mail to all personnel stating that the deputy secretary

of defense was considering separating the Technology Security Directorate from

the agency, and reestablishing the Defense Technology Security Administration.

Key senators and representatives supported the move. “I expect it to be approved,”

the general concluded.182 At the same time, he reported that the DoD Comptroller

had established a task force to consider transferring “non-traditional” defense

programs, like cooperative threat reduction, out of the department to other federal

departments. While the general did not anticipate “anything” to come out of the

comptroller’s effort, he admitted that it was alarming.183 Subsequently, in a July

30 e-mail, the acting director explained that while he still believed the Technology

Security Directorate would be severed, he thought that the CTR program would

remain with the agency.184

For DTRA’s senior management, most of the summer of 2001 was concerned

with planning, coordinating, and preparing for another major reorganization.

Once again, General Bongiovi led the effort. In many ways, this restructuring

was an extension of the organizational concepts which drove the major

DTRA Strategic Plan 2001 represents a five year

projection for the agency.
64 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

reorganization of August 2000.185 Then, Bongiovi had presented the agency’s

Board of Advisors a detailed plan to reorganize the mission essential functions

(the mission directorates) and the mission enabling functions (the business offices).

When the director and board agreed with the general’s recommendations, the

major reorganization was announced to the employees on September 26, 2000.

There were many small, specialized staff offices that were not part of this earlier

reorganization. Then, in June 2001 Dr. Davis asked Ann Bridges Steely, director

of Acquisition Management, to lead a small team that would examine how best

to incorporate the specialized staff offices into the agency’s enabling directorates.186

The team was given three objectives: reduce the span of control, improve efficiency,

and make better use of the agency’s senior executives. The results, briefed to the

acting director and board of advisors in late July, was to establish a single business

organization, led by a Senior Executive Service manger who would be responsible

for all enabling functions. This recommendation was not followed; instead the

acting director and board set up another small team to redefine and expand the

four existing enabling directorates by incorporating a number of special staff

offices and functions. The team would also identify specific reengineering

initiatives and any projected savings.187

On August 31, 2001, General Bongiovi announced the reorganization to all

employees. Effective October 1, eight staff offices would be abolished and

incorporated into the directorates of Resource Management, Acquisition and

COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION COOPERATIVE THREAT

COMBAT SUPPORT COMBAT SUPPORT

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL

ON-SITE INSPECTION

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

DIRECTORATES 2000

TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

ON-SITE INSPECTION

CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE

ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

ACQUISITION & LOGISTICS

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

DIRECTORATES 2001

SECURITY & COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 65

Logistics, Information Management, and Security and Counterintelligence. Also,

the Albuquerque Operations staff would be realigned. The Director’s Action

Group was disestablished, and a new Director’s Staff group set up to assist the

director in strategic management. Finally, the general said that he was directing

the leaders of the four enabling directorates to report to DTRA’s senior leadership

by February 1, 2002, on the efficiencies, enhanced performance, and resource

savings gained by the new alignment.188

The same day, August 31, 2001, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of

defense, signed a memorandum reestablishing the Defense Technology Security

Administration.189 It was reconstituted and placed into the Department of

Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary for Policy. Wolfowitz selected Lisa

Bronson, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Technology Security Policy

and Counter-Proliferation to serve concurrently as the Director, DTSA.190

Subsequently, E. C. “Pete” Aldridge, Jr., Under Secretary for Acquisition,

Technology, and Logistics, instructed DTRA’s director to retain in the agency

those functions and people that involved reviewing military critical technologies

and space launch monitoring activities.191 By the end of the year, these personnel,

functional, and organization issues remained unresolved.

The following day, September 1, Dr. Stephen M.

Younger became the second director of the Defense Threat

Reduction Agency.192 A theoretical physicist, educated at

Catholic University and the University of Maryland, he had

worked for the past decade at the Los Alamos National

Laboratory. 193 As the senior associate laboratory director,

he was responsible for assuring the safety, reliability, and

performance of the majority of the weapons and materials

in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The directorate had more

than 3,000 people and a annual budget of $1 billion. At

Los Alamos, Younger had founded and directed the Center

for International Security Affairs which had developed the

first Department of Energy laboratory-to-laboratory

cooperation program with nuclear weapons institutes in the

Russian Federation. Three days after he arrived in

Washington, the new director addressed DTRA’s annual

conference, “The Evolution of Threat Reduction.” Younger

spoke to more than 400 people at the opening session,

outlining the agency’s mission and responsibilities. He

declared that “we need to develop new means of detection, new means of

protection, and new means of defense against nuclear, chemical, and biological

threats.”194 No one knew it at the time, but the director’s call for new “means” of

defense took on added significance just than ten days later.

Dr. Stephen M. Younger,

second director of DTRA
66 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 67

September 11, 2001: Terrorists

Attack the United States Attack the United States

When terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners on September 11,

2001 and flew them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a

Pennsylvania field, they killed more than 3,000 innocent people.

After that September morning, the United States had to acknowledge that it

faced a new, larger, and more serious threat from terrorism than previously known.

Then, just two weeks later, terrorist attack sent deadly anthrax spores enclosed in

ordinary postal letters to citizens and public officials. These anthrax-laced latter

unleashed the specter of bioterrorism across the United States. These two events

forced everyone – the President, Congress, federal, state, and local officials and

the public – to face the new reality: the United States was now vulnerable to

terrorists attacking its citizens, cities, and institutions with weapons of mass

destruction.

At the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the new reality accelerated the

efforts of the people, programs, and projects working directly on the mission of

WMD threat reduction. Whether they worked on nonproliferation or

counterproliferation missions, all DTRA people had to acknowledge that terrorists

might attack the United States using chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear,

or high explosive weapons. Mass casualties, including deaths, could be great.

Consequently, there was a new urgency to carrying out the agency’s mission:

safeguarding the nation from WMD, reducing the present threat, and preparing

for the future threat.

Yet, at DTRA everyone knew that their past efforts were only prologue; the

future would demand even more from one of the Department of Defense’s

youngest agencies....
68 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 69

DTRA Reference Materials

by Captain Robert J. Bennett, U.S. Army
70 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

DTRA Key Personnel

(October 1, 1998 through December 31, 2001)

DIRECTOR

Dr. Stephen M. Younger September 1, 2001–

Maj. Gen. Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF

(Acting Director) June 25, 2001 – August 31, 2001

Dr. Jay C. Davis October 1, 1998 – June 24, 2001

DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Maj. Gen. Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF June 1, 2000 –

Maj. Gen. William F. Moore, USAF October 1, 1998 – May 31, 2000

CHIEF OF STAFF

Mr. William R. Faircloth December 17, 2001 -

Col. William R. Faircloth, USA May 13, 2000 – December 16, 2001

Capt. Richard L. Towner, USN February 1, 1999 – May 12, 2000

Col. Arthur T. Hopkins, USAF October 1, 1998 – January 31, 1999

SENIOR ENLISTED ADVISOR

Chief Master Sgt. Lewis L. O’Bryant, USAF September 1, 2000 –

Sgt. Maj. Steve Crawford, USA October 1, 1999 – August 31, 2000

Sgt. Maj. Clinton Adams, USA October 1, 1998 – September 30, 1999

CHAIRMAN, THREAT REDUCTION ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Threat Reduction Advisory Committee (TRAC) is a panel of distinguished

experts commissioned with providing advice and Weapons of Mass Destruction

(WMD) defense initiatives to senior DoD officials including the DTRA director.

The panel reports to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology

and Logistics. DTRA provides logistical support to TRAC meetings and

implements the initiatives developed by the committee.

Gen. Larry D. Welch, USAF (Ret.) October 1, 1998 –
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 71

DIRECTOR, ADVANCED SYSTEMS AND CONCEPTS OFFICE

The Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (ASCO) is a small group of scientists

and military experts who work closely with the TRAC and senior DTRA

leadership. ASCO is responsible for developing and maintaining an evolving

analytical vision of necessary and sufficient capabilities to protect U.S. and allied

forces and citizens from nuclear, chemical and biological attack. ASCO also

identifies gaps in these capabilities and initiates programs to fill them.

Dr. Charles R. Gallaway June 1, 2001 –

Dr. Randall S. Murch December 1, 1999 – May 31, 2001

Dr. Victor Utgoff November 1, 1998 – November 30, 1999

SENIOR ADVISOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Mr. Michael O’Connell October 1, 1998 – September 30, 2000

SENIOR ADVISOR, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Dr. Edward M. Ifft October 1, 1998 –

SENIOR ADVISOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Mr. Perry Smith October 1, 1998 – August 10, 2001

SENIOR ADVISOR, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Dr. Starnes Walker January 3, 2000 –

DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE DIRECTORATE

The Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate was formed from elements of the

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological

Defense Programs (OASD(NCB)). Its mission is to oversee a coordinated, jointly

integrated and internationally recognized chemical and biological defense program.

Col. Craig A. Walling, USA (Acting Director) October 13, 2001 –

Dr. I. Gary Resnick March 24, 2000 – October 12, 2001

Mr. Carmen J. Spencer December 1, 1998 – March 23, 2000

Col. Edwin P. McDermott, USAF October 1, 1998 – November 30, 1998
72 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

DIRECTOR, ON-SITE INSPECTION DIRECTORATE

The On-Site Inspection Directorate was formed from elements of the On-Site

Inspection Agency and retained the missions of that agency. These missions

include conducting U.S. government inspections of foreign facilities, units or

events under arms control treaties, coordinating and escorting foreign inspections

of U.S. facilities, units or events under arms control treaties, and planning and

preparing for arms control treaties under negotiation.

Maj. Gen. Michael S. Kudlacz, USAF November 15, 2000 –

Mr. Douglas M. Englund

(Acting Director) July 1, 2000 – November 14, 2000

Rear Adm. Jacqueline O. Barnes, USN October 1, 1998 – June 30, 2000

DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORATE

(Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate,

October 1998 – September 2000)

The Technology Development Directorate was formed in October 1998 by

combining the Defense Special Weapons Agency’s (DSWA) Electronics and

Systems Directorate, the DSWA Weapons Effectiveness Directorate, two DSWA

program offices, and the Test Directorate of the DSWA Field Command

(Albuquerque). The directorate’s mission was to create capabilities to support

commanders-in-chiefs (CINCs) for WMD facility targeting and consequence

management, to maintain DoD skills and capabilities for nuclear effects testing,

and to develop specialized ordnance. In February 1999, the directorate added the

personnel and missions from DTRA’s Force Protection Directorate and the

Counterproliferation Directorate; this new organization was named the

Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate. In September 2000,

the directorate added elements from DTRA’s On-Site Inspection Directorate

and Nuclear Support and Operations Directorate. Simultaneously, it transferred

its operational elements to the newly formed WMD Combat Support Directorate.

The Technology Development Directorate develops, manages, and coordinates

research and development activities to enhance and enable WMD operations

support, combat support, and threat reduction.

Dr. Arthur T. Hopkins September 16, 2000 –

Col. Arthur T. Hopkins, USAF February 1, 1999 – September 15, 2000

Dr. George W. Ullrich October 1, 1998 – February 1, 1999
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 73

DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY SECURITY DIRECTORATE

The Technology Security Directorate was formed exclusively from the Defense

Technology Security Administration. Its mission is to develop and implement

DoD policies on international transfers for defense-related goods, services, and

technologies and to ensure that transfers are consistent with U.S. national security

interests.

Ms. Lisa Bronson September 23, 2001 –

Mr. David S. Tarbell October 1, 1998 – September 22, 2001

DIRECTOR, COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION DIRECTORATE

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate was formed from elements of

DSWA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Execution program office and Cooperative

Threat Reduction policy planners from OASD(NCB). The mission of the

directorate is to serve as the executive agent for the congressionally-mandated

Nunn-Lugar Program, which supports the destruction and dismantlement of

nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in states of the former Soviet Union.

Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., USAF (Ret.) October 1, 1998 –

DIRECTOR, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION COMBAT SUPPORT

DIRECTORATE

(Nuclear Support and Operations Directorate, October 1999 – September 2000)

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Combat Support Directorate was originally

formed from elements of DSWA’s Operations (Stockpile) Directorate, elements

of DSWA’s Field Command (Albuquerque), and individuals from OASD(NCB).

The directorate maintained this organization initially as the Nuclear Support

Directorate and subsequently as the Nuclear Support and Operations Directorate

until September 2000. In September 2000, the directorate added elements from

DTRA’s Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate, transferred

elements to the newly formed Technology Development Directorate, and took

on its current identity. The directorate provides combat support to the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, the CINCs, and the military services to engage

the WMD threat posed to the United States, its forces, and allies by WMD. The

directorate also supports the essential WMD response capabilities, functions,

activities, and tasks necessary to sustain all elements of forces in theater at all

levels of war.

Brig. Gen. Richard J. Casey, USAF December 12, 2001 –

Brig. Gen. Robert P. Summers, USAF January 1, 1999 – December 11, 2001

Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Gioconda, USAFOctober 1, 1998 – December 31, 1999
74 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND LOGISTICS DIRECTORATE

(Acquisition Management Directorate, September 2000 – October 2001)

The Acquisition and Logistics Directorate was formed on October 1, 2001, by

combining the functions of the Acquisition Management Directorate with the

Logistics Division and selected elements of the Albuquerque Operations. The

mission of the Acquisition and Logistics Directorate is to provide policy,

management, and execution, for all contracts and logistics supporting the agency

and its mission directorates.

Ms. Ann Bridges Steely September 26, 2000 –

DIRECTOR, RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE

The Resource Management Directorate was formed on September 26, 2000, by

combining two offices, Manpower and Personnel and Financial Management,

which had formerly reported through the chief of staff to the director. On

October 1, 2001, the directorate expanded incorporating the Health and Safety

Office, Quality Management Office, and selected elements of the Albuquerque

Operations. The mission of the Resource Management Directorate is to manage

fiscal and human resources in support of the agency’s mission.

Mr. Myron K. Kunka September 26, 2000 –

DIRECTOR, SECURITY AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE

The Security and Counterintelligence Directorate was formed on October 1,

2001, by combining the functions of the Security Office and the

Counterintelligence Office. The mission is to provide timely security and

counterintelligence support and services that protect the agency’s people,

information, and facilities.

Mr. James E. Wright, Jr. October 1, 2001 –

DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE

(Information Systems Directorate, September 2000 - October 2001)

The Information Management Directorate was formed on October 1, 2001 by

combining the functions of the Information Systems Directorate with the Public

Affairs Office, Administrative Office, and elements of the Albuquerque

Operations. The directorate’s mission is to prepare an information technology

strategic plan, manage administrative and corporate communications, and

maintain the agency’s information operating systems.

Mr. Iftikhar Jamil (Acting Director) August 30, 2001 –

Mr. Mario G. Vizcarra (Acting Director) May 21, 2001 – August 29, 2001

Dr. Michael M. McGreer September 26, 2000 – May 20, 2001
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 75

Former Directorates

FORCE PROTECTION DIRECTORATE

(October 1998 – February 1999)

The Force Protection Directorate was formed exclusively from the Force

Protection program office of the Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA)

Programs Directorate. It was responsible for performing Joint Staff Integrated

Vulnerability Assessments for DoD forces, installations, and agencies. In February

1999, the directorate, its mission, and personnel were absorbed into the

Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate.

Col. Richard T. Kingman, USAF October 1, 1998 – February 1, 1999

COUNTERPROLIFERATION DIRECTORATE

(October 1998 – February 1999)

The Counterproliferation Directorate was formed by elements from DSWA’s

Counterproliferation Directorate and parts of the Office of the Assistant Secretary

of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense (OASD(NCB)). Under

DTRA, it became the Counterproliferation Directorate. The directorate’s mission

was to oversee the DoD counterproliferation program, develop and demonstrate

counterforce capabilities, and provide operational capabilities to warfighters. In

February 1999, the directorate was disbanded and its personnel and missions

were transferred to the Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate.

Mr. Vayl S. Oxford October 1, 1998 – February 1, 1999
76 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

DTRA Operating Locations

October 1, 2001

Headquarters, DTRA Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Acquisition and Logistics Directorate Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Information Management Directorate Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Resource Management Directorate Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Security and Counterintelligence Directorate Fort Belvoir, Virginia

On-Site Inspection Directorate Dulles International Airport, Virginia

Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate Alexandria, Virginia

Technology Development Directorate Alexandria, Virginia

Technology Security Directorate Alexandria, Virginia

WMD Combat Support Directorate Alexandria, Virginia

Albuquerque Operations Kirtland Air Force Base,

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Defense Threat Reduction Office – Moscow Moscow, Russia

Defense Threat Reduction Office – Kiev Kiev, Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Office – Almaty Almaty, Kazakhstan

European Operations Division Rhein-Main Air Base,

Frankfurt, Germany

START/Nuclear Division Detachment – San Francisco Travis Air Force Base,

San Francisco, California

START/Nuclear Division Detachment – Japan Yakota Air Base, Tokyo, Japan

START/ Nuclear Division Detachment – Magna Magna, Utah

CWC/Chemical Division Detachment – Tooele Tooele, Utah
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 77

	








 





	





 

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DTRA Locations in 2001
78 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Chronology

1997 November 7 November 7 Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen releases the

Defense Reform Initiative (DRI), proposing the consolidation of

three existing Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) agencies

into a new “Threat Reduction and Treaty Compliance Agency” in

the Defense Reform Initiative Report.

1998 May 8 Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre selects Dr.

Jay C. Davis of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as first

Director, DTRA.

May 22 President William J. Clinton signs Presidential Decision

Directives 62 and 63, which expand the role of the Department of

Defense in WMD consequence management operations. DTRA

is assigned selected tasks to accomplish missions delineated in these

directives.

June 11 Deputy Secretary of Defense Hamre discusses organization

and missions of soon-to-be-formed Defense Threat Reduction

Agency in a speech at the DSWA Conference on Controlling Arms

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the first public mentioning

of the agency’s name.

July 15 Threat Reduction Advisory Council established by Deputy

Secretary of Defense Hamre.

August 25-28 Dr. Davis hosts off-site meeting for agency leaders

to develop agency leadership team and to define DTRA’s mission,

vision, and values.

October 1 DTRA established in ceremony at agency headquarters

at Washington Dulles International Airport, Dulles, Virginia.

December December December DTRA deploys Open Skies OC-135B in support of

humanitarian operations in Honduras following Hurricane Mitch.

The aircraft is used to map mud flows and assists local officials in

efforts to target relief to affected areas.

December 16-21 DTRA modeling and simulation teams support

U.S. forces during Operation Desert Fox, a series of air raids against

Iraq.

1999 January Ethnic tensions in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians

and Serbs result in deployment of diplomatic observers sponsored

by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

DTRA deploys inspection teams to support the United States

Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 79

January 14 DTRA moves START/Nuclear Division Detachment

– San Francisco into new office space on Travis Air Force Base,

California.

February 1 DTRA reorganizes. The Force Protection, Special

Weapons and Counterproliferation directorates are combined to

form the Counterproliferation Support and Operations Directorate

under the leadership of Colonel Arthur T. Hopkins, USAF.

February 26 DTRA completes a Cooperative Threat Reduction

program initiative in Ukraine, destroying the last of 130 SS-19

missile silos.

March 25-J ch 25-June 20 Operation Allied Force, NATO’s air

campaign against Yugoslavia, takes place. DTRA provides input

to European Command and Pentagon target lists.

April 1 Dr. Davis releases the DTRA Six-Month Status Report.

This report includes first mention of agency consolidation at Fort

Belvoir, Virginia.

April 23-25 NATO hold its 50th Anniversary Summit in

Washington, D.C., and DTRA provides summit staff with

modeling and simulation support for potential crisis response or

consequence management.

May DTRA receives the “Hammer Award” from Vice President

Albert Gore’s Reinvention of Government Program.

October 1 DTRA’s Technology Security Directorate establishes

the Space Launch Monitoring division to monitor the launch of

U.S.-owned satellites on foreign boosters.

October 1 U.S. Atlantic Command (later U.S. Joint Forces

Command) establishes the Joint Task Force – Civil Support (JTFCS). The JTF-CS is the headquarters responsible for planning and

executing military assistance to civil authorities within the United

States and its possessions in the event of a crisis.

November Russia opens the Nuclear Weapons Security

Assessment and Training Center at Sergiev Posad, Russia. The facility

enables Russia to better protect its strategic assets and is completed

with CTR funding and support.

December 31 DTRA participates in DoD contingency

consequence management planning for the national millennium

celebration, 2000.
80 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

2000 January 27 Secretary Cohen announces consolidation of DTRA

at Fort Belvoir.

February 1 DTRA and the Arnold Engineering Developing Center

at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, open the Decade Radiation

Test Facility (DRTF). The facility provides data on how a nuclear

explosion in outer space would affect sensitive optical and electronic

equipment.

February 3 Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced

Technology Joseph J. Eash III, tasks DTRA to conduct an Advanced

Concept Technology Demonstration entitled Restoration of

Operations (RestOps). RestOps is a large-scale program designed

to better prepare military sites from a chemical or biological attack.

March 2 The Ukrainian Rada votes to approve the Treaty on

Open Skies.

March 6 Dr. Davis publishes the agency’s Strategic Plan 2000,

which provides the strategic vision and direction for the agency.

March 6 Secretary Cohen awards DTRA Joint Meritorious Unit

Award for the period October 1, 1998 to March 5, 2000.

May 15-25 ay 15-25 DTRA participates in exercise TOPOFF 2000, a

large-scale congressionally-mandated domestic counterterrorism

response exercise designed to test national leaders’ capability to

respond to a domestic WMD incident.

June 1 DTRA activates consolidated operations center at Telegraph

Road facility, Alexandria, Virginia.

July 5 DTRA turns over a Central CW Destruction Analytical

Laboratory in Moscow to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

June 15 The first 150 DTRA employees, including the ChemicalBiological Defense Directorate and Manpower and Personnel

offices, move into the Headquarters Complex at Fort Belvoir.

July 29 In Kazakhstan, DTRA closes Deglen Mountain, once

the world’s largest nuclear test site. The closure removed Kazakhstan

from the list of nations capable of testing and launching nuclear

weapons.

August 14-18 DTRA conducts exercise DINGO DAWN at

Bangor Sub Base, Silverdale, Washington. The interagency nuclear

weapons accident exercise attracts over 500 participants from

national, state, and local agencies.

September 26 DTRA reorganizes. The Nuclear Support and

Operations Directorate becomes the WMD Combat Support

Directorate, the Counterproliferation Support and Operations
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 81

Directorate becomes the Technology Development Directorate, and

three new directorates are formed: Resource Management,

Information Systems and Acquisition Management.

September 27 DTRA headquarters moves into a modular

structure on the Headquarters Complex grounds at Fort Belvoir.

2001 February 2 The final Soviet Blackjack bomber (Tu-160) is

eliminated at Priluki Air Base, Ukraine.

February 11-21 DTRA participates in the Restoration of

Operations (RestOps) Exercise in South Korea. More than 6,700

U.S. Air Force, South Korean Air Force, and DTRA personnel are

involved in the 10-day exercise.

April 18 The Russian Duma ratifies the Open Skies Treaty. Belarus

follows, ratifying on May 3. Both Russia and Belarus deposit their

instruments of ratification on November 2, 2001, clearing the way

for entry into force in January 2002, almost 10 years after it was

signed.

May 31 The on-site inspection protocols of the Intermediate

Nuclear Forces Treaty cease, 13 years after they began. During

May, ceremonies are held at Washington, D.C., Magna, Utah, and

Votkinsk, Russia.

June 24 Dr. Jay C. Davis ends his tenure as DTRA’s first director.

Deputy Director Major General Robert P. Bongiovi becomes the

acting director the following day.

September 1 Dr. Stephen M. Younger becomes the second

director of DTRA. Dr. Younger was a senior associate laboratory

director at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

September 7 A $5 billion CTR Integrating Contract is awarded

to five major U.S. firms. It is the largest contract award in DTRA’s

history.

September 11 The United States is stunned by a series of terrorists

attacks in Washington, D.C., New York, and Pennsylvania. DTRA

contributes directly to U.S. combat commands fighting the war

on international terrorism.

October 1 DTRA undergoes an agency-wide reorganization. The

most notable of the changes had eight staff offices being absorbed

into four new enabling directorates.

December 5 Secretary of State Colin Powell announces that the

United States had met its final limits outlined in the START Treaty.

All five signatory nations—the United States, Russia, Belarus,

Kazakhstan, and Ukraine—were in compliance with the treaty.
82 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Lineage & Honors

MANHATTAN ENGINEERING PROJECT, 1942-1947

ARMED FORCES SPECIAL WEAPONS PROJECT, 1947-1959

DEFENSE ATOMIC SUPPORT AGENCY, 1959-1971

DEFENSE NUCLEAR AGENCY, 1971-1996

DEFENSE SPECIAL WEAPONS AGENCY, 1996-1998

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1984

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1995

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1998

DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION, 1981-1998

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1991

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1998

ON-SITE INSPECTION AGENCY, 1988-1998

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1988

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1993

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1996

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 1998

DTRA FORMED OCTOBER 1, 1998

 JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD, 2000
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 83

DESCRIPTION: On a sphere azure (oriental blue) gridlined in deep azure an

eagle displayed overt and proper is grasping an olive branch in dexter talons and a

bundle of thirteen arrows in sinister talons. Charged upon its breast a target

bordured or with azure chief to gules surmounted by three bolts or. All within a

designation band deep azure bordured or with inscription argent DEFENSE

THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY chief to UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA.

SIGNIFICANCE: The globe represents the worldwide importance and

implications of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s mission. The designation

band reflects the Agency’s service to the Department of Defense. The eagle is

adapted from the Great Seal of the United States. The colors of the shield reflect

the Agency’s central task: to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction,

while preparing for future and uncertain threats. The three arrows, adapted from

the Seal of the Department of Defense highlight the military departments of the

United States; they appear in parallel, symbolizing unity and direction.

Approved July 1999

DTRA Seal
84 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

DTRA Web Site

DTRALink is the official web site of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The

site contains information about each of DTRA’s operational directorates, updated

news about the agency and conference registration data. The site’s address is

http://www.dtra.mil.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 85

Further References

Clear, Staff Sgt. Kirk W. and Steven E. Block. The Treaty on Open Skies.

Washington, D.C.: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 1999.

Cohen, William S. Defense Reform Initiative Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S.

Government Printing Office, November 1997.

Department of Defense Annual Report to the President and the Congress.

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000, pp. 79-81.

Defense Special Weapons Agency, 1947-1997: The First 50 Years of National Service.

Washington, D.C.: Defense Special Weapons Agency, 1997.

Deutch, John M., Arlen Specter et al. Combating Proliferation of Weapons of

Mass Destruction. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, July

1999.

Gosling, F.G. The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb. Oak Ridge,

Tenn.: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information,

1994.

Harahan, Joseph P. On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty. Washington

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

Harahan, Joseph P. On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty. Washington D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996.

Harahan, Joseph P. “Ten years, twelve treaties and agreements, hundreds of people:

One Agency.” On-Site Insights, January 1998. Washington D.C.: On-Site

Inspection Agency, 1998, page 14-21.

Miller, Judith, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad, Germs, Biological Weapons

and America’ Secret War. New York: Simon and Schuster. 2001.

Snyder, Pat and Dick Cole. “Ten Successful Years.” On-Site Insights, January

1998. Washington D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, 1998, page 28-31.

The White House. A National Security Strategy for a New Century. Washington,

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1998.

Wilford, Master Sgt. David M. A Brief History of the On-Site Inspection Agency.

Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, 1997.
86 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

Endnotes

1

 For a case history of this attack see, Jeffrey D. Simon, The Terrorist Trap (Bloomington,

Indiana, 1994), pp 13-21; Bruce Hoffmann, Inside Terrorism (New York, 1999), pp. 199-

205, and Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists, (New York, 1999), pp. 76 & 186.

2

 Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down, (New York, 1999), pp. 3-20 & 32-67.

3

 “Independent Review of Khobar Towers Bombing,” Lieutenant General James F.

Record, USAF, October 31, 1996, www.af.mil/current/khobar/record.htm.

4

 A good survey of these terrorist incidents is, Wayman C. Mullins, A Sourcebook on

Domestic and International Terrorism: An Analysis of Issues, Organizations, Tactics, and Responses

(Springfield, Illinois, 1997); see also, “The Covert NBC Threat in Historical Perspective,” in

Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, et al., America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological,

and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998), pp. 27-96,

and Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad, Germs, and Judith Miller, Stephen

Engelberg, and William Broad, Germs, Biological Weapons and America’ Secret War, (New

York, 2001), pp 151-154, 160-163, 200.

5

 David Hoffman, The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, (Venice,

Calif., 1998).

6

 See Presidential Decision Directive 39, cited in Report, Dr. William S. Cohen,

Secretary of Defense, “U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism,” June 21, 1995, www.fas.org/irp/

offdocs/pdd39.htm.

7

 Public Law 104-201, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997,

Title XIV: Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction, Congressional Record, vol. 142, no.

114, Part II (July 30, 1996), pp. H-9073-9078.

8

 Mullins, A Sourcebook on Domestic and International Terrorism: An Analysis of Issues,

Organizations, Tactics, and Responses; see also, Miller, Engelberg, Broad, Germs, pp 202-203,

213-220.

9

 Secretary Cohen’s statement cited in Department of Defense, Defense Science

Board, “The Defense Science Board’s 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to

Transnational Threats,” Volume I, Final Report (Washington, D.C., October 1997).

10 Department of Defense, Defense Science Board, “The Defense Science Board’s

1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats,” Volume I-II,

Final Report (Washington, D.C., October 1997).

11 Interview, General Larry D. Welch, USAF (Retired), with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan,

Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., February 14, 2001, p. 1.

12 DoD News Briefing, Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, October 1,

1998, www.defenselink.mil/news/oct1998. In his remarks, Dr. Hamre explained the historical and policy origins of the new agency.

13 Interview, Dr. John J. Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, with Dr.

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., March 13, 2001, p. 2.

14

 Interview, Hamre, p. 1.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 87

15 Interview, Hamre, pp. 7-11, & 31-32; Interview, Welch, pp. 3-4; See also, DSB,

“1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats,” Volume I,

pp. 40-55.

16 DSB, “1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational

Threats”, Volume I, pp. 40-55.

17 Presidential Decision Directive/National Security Council PDD/NSC-30, “Nuclear

Posture Review Implementation ,” September 1994, http://dn.net/irp/offdocs/pdd30.htm.

18 Ibid.

19 Interview, Welch, p. 1.

20 Ibid.

21

 Interview, Hamre, p.2.

22 Ibid.

23

 Interview, Hamre, p. 5.

24 Interview, Hamre, pp. 1-6.

25

 Interview, Hamre, p 5.

26 Interview, Dr. Jaques S. Gansler, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington,

D.C., February 8, 2001, pp. 1-2.

27 Interview, Hamre, p. 6.

28

 Interview, Hamre, p. 7.

29

 Interview, Hamre, 7 - 13.

30

 Interview, Hamre, p. 18.

31 Interview, Gansler, p. 2.

32 Dr. William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, “Defense Reform Initiative Report,”

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, November 1997). This was a large,

comprehensive report; the defense agency consolidation was only one aspect. The creation of

DTRA discussed on pp. 19-20.

33 DoD News Briefing, Vice President Albert Gore, Secretary of Defense William S.

Cohen, and others, “Defense Reform Initiative Briefing,” November 10, 1997,

www.defenselink.mil/news/nov1997/b1110.

34 Ibid.; See also, Cohen, “Defense Reform Initiative Report,” pp. 19-20.

35 Historical Report, “Defense Special Weapons Agency, 1947-1997: The First 50

years of National Service,” (Washington, D.C.: Defense Special Weapons Agency, 1997).
88 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

36 Master Sergeant David M. Willford, A Brief History of the On-Site Inspection

Agency, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, 1998); Joseph P. Harahan, On-Site

Inspections Under the INF Treaty, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, 1993).

37 Department of Defense, DoD Organizations and Functions Guidebook, (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, September 1996).

38 Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the Secretaries

of the Military Departments, et al., “Department of Defense Reform Initiative Directive 30:

Initial Organizational Activity Regarding the Establishment of the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency,” February 25, 1998.

39 Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Statement to the House National Security Committee,” March 11,1998, www.defenselink.mil/speeches/1998/

di1315.html.

40 Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the Secretaries

of the Military Departments, et al., “Department of Defense Reform Initiative Directive 6:

Appointment of the Team to Create the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” December 3,

1997.

41

 Interview, Hamre, p. 11.

42 Briefing Summary, Larry Lynn, Colonel James Etchechury, Colonel Daniel McCorry.

For the Defense Management Council, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” January 28,

1998.

43 Ibid, p.16-17

44

 Interview, Hamre, p. 11

45

 Interview, Hamre, p. 12.

46 Interview, Hamre, pp. 4-5.

47

 Interview Hamre, pp. 12-13; Interview, Gansler, p. 3.

48 Lynn, Etchechury, and McCory, Briefing to the Defense Management Council,

“Defense Threat Reduction Agency.”

49 Interview, Hamre, p. 14.

50 This team was established by a departmental memoranda, see George T. Singley,

III, Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, “Memorandum:

Overarching Integrated Product Team (OIPT) for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,”

February 11, 1998.

51 For the process and progress of this major committee, see OIPT Weekly Briefing

Charts, March – July 1998. Two other sources for developments during these important

weekly meetings are the memos to their staffs and agency people from Major General Gary L.

Curtin, Director, Defense Special Weapons Agency, and Brigadier General John C. Reppert,

Director, On-Site Inspection Agency.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 89

52 Hamre, “Statement to the House National Security Committee,” March 11, 1998.

53 Interview, Gansler, pp. 3-4 & 23-25; Gansler said that Hans Mark had been

instrumental in recruiting Jay Davis; Interview, Hamre, pp. 15-17. Hamre said it was not

possible to get the military service to give up a 3-star billet for the new agency’s director, and

that he wanted the position to be at that level because of the serious nature of the new

agency’s mission and its significance.

54 Biographical Fact Sheet, “Dr. Jay Davis,” DTRA, Office of Public Affairs, April

25, 2000.

55 Biographical Fact Sheet, Major General William F. Moore, USAF, DTRA Office of

Public Affairs, May 15, 1998.

56 Interview, Welch, p 4-5, Interview, Hamre, p. 27; Interview Gansler, p. 12.

57 Interview Gansler, p. 12

58 Interview, Welch, p. 10

59 Briefing, General Larry D. Welch, USAF (Retired), TRAC Chairman, “DTRA

TRAC Concept of Operations,” July 15, 1998; See also, Briefing, Dr. Jacques S. Gansler,

Deputy Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, “Threat Reduction Advisory

Committee,” July 15, 1998.

60 Briefing, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA, “DTRA’s Mission, Organization, and

Challenges,” July 15, 1998; Interview, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA, with Dr. Joseph P.

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, DTRA Headquarters, Dulles, Virginia, July 10, 2000.

61 Briefing, Gansler, July 15, 1998.

62 Memo, Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, to Dr. Hans M. Mark, Dr.

Jay C. Davis, et al., “Ribbon Cutting for DTRA Standup,” August 13, 1998.

63 Author’s discussion with David J. Rigby, Chief, DTRA Public Affairs, December

29, 2000.

64 Dr. William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, “Remarks on the Standup Ceremony

of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” October 1, 1998, www.defenselink.mil/speeches/

1998/r19981101-secdef.html.

65 Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Remarks at the Defense Threat

Reduction Agency Rollout Ceremony,” October 1, 1998,  ́www.defenselink.mil/speeches/

1998/r19981101-depsecdef.html.

66

 Interview, Hamre, p. 18.

67 Ibid.

68 Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA, “Remarks at the Defense Threat Reduction

Standup Ceremony,” October 1, 1998, www.dtra.mil/spch_jd.html.

69 Ibid.
90 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

70 Ibid.

71 Department of Defense, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA),” Department of Defense Directive Number 5105.62, September 30, 1998.

72 DTRA Fact Sheet, “Technology Security,” www.dtra.mil/st/ts; DTRAnet Item,

“Technology Security directorate history,” http://dtranet/directorates/pa/connection/3_99/

shistory.html.

73 DefenseLink, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,” November 1998,

www.ctr.osd.mil; Report, “The Nuclear Roundtable, April 28, 1997,” Henry L. Stimson

Center, Washington, D.C., www.stimson.org/rd-table/apr97sum.htm; Program Review Briefing, CTR Program Office, OSD, “Cooperation Threat Reduction Program,” May 20, 1997;

For a larger perspective see John M. Shields and William C. Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold

War: US and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997).

74 Willford, A Brief History of the On-Site inspection Agency, 1998; Dr. Joseph P.

Harahan, On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection

Agency, 1993); Dr. Joseph P. Harahan and John C. Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE

Treaty, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, 1997).

75 Brochure, “The Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” DTRA Office of Public

Affairs, October 1998; Pat Snyder, “Chemical-Biological defense: A deterrent to the use of

chemical and biological agents,” DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 3, (March 1999), pp. 12-14.

76 DTRA Fact Sheet, “Counterproliferation Support Directorate,” http://dtranet/

directorates/cp/default.html; Brochure, “The Defense Threat Reduction Agency”; DoD Directive 5105.62, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).”

77 Briefing, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel A. Lykins, Counterproliferation Directorate,

“Counterproliferation ACTD UPDATE,” July 23, 1999.

78 Ibid. General Canavan quote, p. 25.

79 Pat Snyder, “Force Protection: Worldwide Vulnerability Assessment,” DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 6 (June 1999), pp. 18-21; Brochure, “The Defense Threat Reduction

Agency.”

80 Briefing, DTRA Nuclear Support and Operations directorate, “The Nuclear Support and Operations Directorate,” no date (c. February 1999); Brigadier General Thomas F.

Gioconda, USAF, “Guest Commentary: Directorate for Nuclear Support and Combat Operations,” DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 7 (July 1999), pp. 1 & 24; DoD Directive 5105.62,

“Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA);” Briefing, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA,

“Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” to U.S. Commanders in Chief, National War College,

September 1998.

81 DoD Directive, Number 5105.62, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA),”

September 30, 1998; Brochure, “The Defense Threat Reduction Agency.”

82

 Interview, Davis, p. 28-29.

83 Interview, Gansler, p. 8.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 91

84 Ibid.

85 Interview, Gansler, pp. 8-9.

86 Interview, Gansler, pp. 18-19.

87

 Interview, Hamre, p. 19.

88

 Interview, Hamre, p. 20.

89

 Interview, Davis, p. 38-39.

90 Briefing, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA, “Candidate TRAC and ASCO Topics,” to the Threat Reduction Advisory Council, July 15, 1998.

91 Interview, Welch, p. 15.

92 Briefing, Welch, “DTRA TRAC, Concept of Operations,” July 15, 1998; Interview, Welch, p. 21.

93 Briefing, Davis, “Candidate TRAC and ASCO Topics,” July 15, 1998; For information on this new office’s initial cadre of scientists see article, Cindy McGovern, “ASCO

serves as pathfinders for agency,” DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1999), pp. 18-19.

94 Letter, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Director’s Six-Month Status Report to the Secretary of

Defense,” March 17, 1999, http://dtranet/directorates/pa/news&info/dtra6mon.html.

95 Ibid.; For the space launch monitoring mission, see DTRA Fact Sheet, “Space

Launch Monitoring Division,” http://dtranet/directives/pa/public-info/factsheets/

spacelanch.html.

96 Letter, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Director’s Six-Month Status Report to the Secretary of

Defense,” March 17, 1999, http://dtranet/directorates/pa/news&info/dtra6mon.html; For

quote, see article, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “From the Director: Connecting to the Strategic Plan,”

DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 2 (February 1999), pp. 2 & 16.

97 Interview, Welch, p. 6.

98

 Interview, Hamre, p. 21.

99 Ibid.

100 E-mail, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Reorganization Announcement,” to All Personnel,

January 19, 1999.

101 Davis, “From the Director,” February 2000.

102 Ibid., quote on p. 2.

103 See Defense Threat Reduction Agency Strategic Plan 2000, no date (c. March

2000); For the planning process, see article, Diana Nickels and Paul Murphy, “The DTRA

Off-Site,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 2000), pp. 3 & 14.

104 Dr. John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “A New Agency for a New Era,”

DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 3 (March 2000), pp. 2 & 20.
92 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

105 Ibid.

106 Hamre quote cited in article, Cindy McGovern, “Agency Receives Joint Meritorious Unit Award as Hamre bids farewell,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 3 (March 2000), p.

3.

107 Briefing, CTR directorate, “Cooperative Threat Reduction, FY 2001 President’s

Budget,” March 15, 2000.

108 Letter, General Henry H. Shelton, USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to

Senator Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senate, March 31, 2000.

109 For the START Treaty figures see, Arms Control Reporter, 2000, pp. 611, E-1.1-

611, & E-2.2; for the CFE Treaty see, Harahan and Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE

Treaty, 1997; for the CWC reductions see, Arms Control Reporter, 2000, pp. 704 & E-1.9;

For preparations for the Open Skies Treaty, see Staff Sergeant Kirk W. Clear and Steven E.

Block, The Treaty on Open Skies, (Washington, D.C., April 1999) and an article, Clem Gaines,

“Open Skies Mission brings Russian team to US,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 8 (August

2000), pp. 1-4.

110 Colonel William Smith, USAF, “Guest Commentary: Defense Threat Reduction

Office – Moscow,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 1 & 23; See also

article, Cindy McGovern, “Moscow Office is ‘out in front’ for agency in Russia,” DTRA

Connection, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 1 & 4-13; Article, Cindy McGovern, “Arms

Control Implementation units provide critical agency link,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 7

(July 2000), pp. 1 & 4-7.

111 “Stopping ‘dirty’ bombs,” U.S. News and World Report, April 17, 2000; Cindy

McGovern, Interagency program receives international acclaim,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2,

no. 5 (May 2000), pp. 16-17.

112 Agenda, DTRA’s 9th Annual Conference on Controlling Arms, Norfolk, Virginia,

May 30-June 2, 2000, with reference materials; See also, Report, “Summary of DTRA’s 9th

Annual Conference on Controlling Arms, Globalization of the Security Environment, May

30-June 2, 2000,” (Washington, D.C., 2000) pp. 1-95.

113 Clem Gaines, “Globalization of the Security Environment is theme of annual

conference,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 7 (July 2000), pp. 8-9.

114 General Henry H. Shelton, USAF, Chairman, JCS, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, “Combat Support Agency Review Team Assessment of the Defense Threat

Reduction Agency,” March 28, 2000.

115 Ibid.

116 Ibid.

117 See, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Strategic Plan 2000, no date (c. March

2000).

118 This account is based on an interview by the author with Dr. Jay C. Davis,

Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, DTRA Headquarters, March 20, 2001.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 93

119 Interview, Davis, p. 14.

120 Interview Davis, pp. 14-15.

121

 Interview, Hamre, p. 23.

122 Interview, Hamre, p. 24.

123 Interview, Davis, p. 15-16.

124 Interview, Davis, pp. 16-17.

125

 Interview, Davis, p. 20.

126 Keith J. Costa, “Pentagon Developing Joint Task Force to Support Domestic

WMD Defense,” Inside the Pentagon, March 11, 1999; For DTRA participation see article,

Captain Robert J. Bennett, “Agency team supports Joint Task Force-Civil Support Exercise,”

DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 4 (April 2000) pp. 19-20.

127 Jason Tudor, “DoD Supports nationwide exercise,” and “Agency’s modeling efforts track dangerous materials,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 6 (June 2000), pp. 2-3.

128 Kay Peterson, “WMD Symposium plays to a full house,” DTRA Connection, vol.

2, no. 3 (August 2000), pp. 8-9 & 16.

129 Ibid., quote from DTRA Connection, p. 8.

130 Ibid.

131 DTRA Course Notebook, “Space Technology Safeguard Monitoring Course,”

DTRA Defense Nuclear Weapons School, Pilot Course, October 25-29, 1999; Pat Snyder,

“Space Launch Monitoring division: A watchful eye over satellite technology,” DTRA Connection, vol. 1, no. 12 (December 1999), pp. 1, 4, 5, & 24; DTRA Fact Sheet, “Space Launch

Monitoring Division, December 14, 2000, http://dtranet/directives/pa/public-info/factsheets/

spacelanch.html.

132 Briefing, David G. Harrison, DTRA Chemical-Biological Defense directorate,

“Restoration of Operations (RestOps), Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration,” October 6, 2000; Article, Captain Robert J. Bennett and David G. Harrison, “Technology

demonstration approved for chemical/biological attack,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 2

(February 2000), pp. 12-13; DTRA Fact Sheet, “Restoration of Operations – Advanced

Concept Technology Demonstration,” http://dtranet/directorates/pa/public%finfo/factsheets/

restorationops.html.

133 E-mail, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Adjustments in Assignments and Organizational Functions,” to All Personnel, September 26, 2000.

134 Ibid.

135 Briefing, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, Deputy Director and Colonel

William R. Faircloth, USA, Chief of Staff, “Analysis,” to DTRA Off-Site participants, August

4, 2000.
94 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

136 E-mail, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Adjustments in Assignments and Organizational Functions,” to All Personnel, September 26, 2000; Briefing, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi,

USAF, Deputy Director and Colonel William R. Faircloth, USA Chief of Staff, “Defense

Threat Reduction Agency,” to the DTRA Board of Advisors, September 22, 2000.

137 Author’s discussion with Colonel William R. Faircloth, USA, Chief of Staff,

December 18, 2000.

138 DTRA Corporate Council Minutes, September 5, 2000. See page 2 for discussion of the corporate council’s charter.

139 Author’s discussion with Colonel William R. Faircloth, USA, Chief of Staff,

December 18, 2000; Briefing, Bongiovi and Faircloth, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency,”

September 22, 2000.

140 E-mail, Davis, “Adjustments in Assignments and Organizational Functions,”

September 26, 2000; Briefing, Bongiovi and Faircloth, “Defense Threat Reduction Agency,”

September 22, 2000.

141 Letter, Dr. Jay C. Davis, “Director’s Six-Month Status Report to the Secretary of

Defense,” March 17, 1999, http://dtranet/directorates/pa/news&info/dtra6mon.html; See

also, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Memorandum for All Employees, (no subject), December 11, 1998.

142 Dr. Jay C. Davis, Memorandum for All Employees, (no subject) December 11,

1998.

143 Dr. Jay C. Davis, Memorandum to all DTRA Personnel, “Move Update,” November 16, 1999.

144 Article, “Agency begins move to Ft. Belvoir in earnest,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2,

no. 10 (October 2000), p. 19.

145 Dr. Jay C. Davis, “From the Director: Igniting the Second Stage,” DTRA Connection, vol. 2, no. 10 (October 2000), pp. 2-3.

146 Ibid. Quote on p. 2.

147 Dr. Jay C. Davis, “From the Director,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no 2 (February,

2001), pp 2-5.

148 Ibid, p. 5

149 Ibid.

150 Cindy McGovern, “Agency employees support presidential inauguration,” DTRA

Connection, vol. 3, no.2 (February 2001), p 6.

151 Ibid., p 7.

152 DTRA, Strategic Plan 2001, March 2001, p.5.

153 “Divine Buffalo tests focus on protecting the public,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3,

no 10, (October 2001), pp 12, 16.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 95

154 Cindy McGovern, “Focus Day serves as model for future,” DTRA Connection,

vol. 3, no 4, (April 2001), p. 2, 15.

155 Ibid, p 2.

156 McGovern, “Focus Day,” April 2001, p. 15.

157 David G. Harrison, Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate, Briefing, “RestOps

, Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration,” August 29, 2000. See also, John

Norgren, “Wing Begins RestOps Saturday,” The MIG Alley Fighter Newspaper, Osan Air base,

February 9, 2001, p.1, and James Lea, “Osan exercise testing base’s reaction to chemical

attack,” Stars and Stripes, p. 2, February 12, 2001.

158 David G. Harrison, Chemical-Biological Defense Directorate, RestOps Project

Description, www.restops.net/restops-pd.htm

159 See Clem Gaines, “Restoration of Operations exercise looks at new technologies,”

DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no.3 (March 2001), pp 4-6. Quote on p. 4.

160

 Harrison, RestOps Project Description, www.restops.net/restops-pd.htm

161 See Washington Post, October 12, 2000, p 1.

162 Cindy McGovern, “Agency team travels to Arctic Circle to monitor satellite

launch,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no. 5 (May 2001), pp 1, 5-7, 12. Quote on p. 7.

163 Cindy McGovern, “Final Blackjack heavy bomber destroyed in Ukraine,” DTRA

Connection, vol. 3, no.3 (February 2001), pp 1,4,5. Quote on p. 4.

164 Marcus J. Wilson, “Last SS-24 missile destroyed in Ukraine,” DTRA Connection,

vol. 4, no. 1, (December 2001).

165 Department of Defense, “Contracts”, September 2, 2001, www.defenselink.mil/

news/sep2001/c09072001html . For an account of the process see, Cindy McGovern, “Billion dollar contract is new way of doing business for CTR,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no. 10

(October 2001), p 1,4.

166 Pat Snyder, “Chemical weapons destruction completed on Johnson Atoll,” DTRA

Connection, vol.3, no. 1 (January 2001). pp 7-8.

167 Brochure, “Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty: OnSite Inspections, 1988-2001,” DTRA Office of Public Affairs, May 2001.

168 “Missile Monitoring Ends, “ Washington Post, May 22, 2001, p.18; Cindy

McGovern, “On-site inspection under the INF Treaty comes to an end,” DTRA Connection,

vol.3, no. 6 (June 2001), pp 1-15; John Russell, “On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty:

A Post-Mortem,” Report, Verification Research, Training, and Information Center, London,

England, August 2001.

169 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, “Statement on the Achievement of the Final

Reductions under the START Treaty,” Press Release, U.S. Department of State, December 5,

2001.
96 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY

170 Walter Pincus, “Nuclear Warhead Arsenal Trimmed,” Washington Post, December

6, 2001, p. 36.

171 Interview, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, DTRA, with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA Headquarters, Dulles, Virginia, July 10, 2000, pp. 38-40.

172 Interview, Dr. John J. Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, with Dr.

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., March 13, 2001, p. 19-20.

173 Briefing, Dr. Charles R. Gallaway, Chief, ASCO, to Agency Newcomers, “Advanced Systems and Concepts Office,” October 2001.

174 Interview, Colonel Timothy J. Lampe, USAF, Deputy Director ASCO, with Dr.

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 19 December 2001. For a list of the ASCO studies and

workshops see, DTRA Brochure, “Perceiving, Achieving, Conceiving DTRA’s Advanced Systems Concept Office,” no date (c. 2001).

175 Workshop, “Human Behavior and WMD Crisis/Risk Communications,” Dec

11-12, 2000, Washington DC. For an account see article, Cindy McGovern, “Workshop

explores human dimension of potential WMD incident,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no. 1

(January 2001), pp 12-13.

176 Workshop, “Chemical-Biological Modeling and Simulation Future ‘Desirements’

,” January 30-31, 2001. See also, Dr. Peter B. Merkle, “Conference looks at modeling

chemical-biological hazards,” DTRA Connection, vol.3, no. 2 (February 2001), p. 19.

177 Interview, Davis, March 20, 2001, p 5.

178 Interview, Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, with Lieutenant Colonel Donald

Culp, USAF, TRAC Executive Secretary, December 18, 2001.

179 Dr. Jay C. Davis, “From the Director,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no 2 (February

2002), p 2.

180 DTRA, Strategic Plan 2001, March 2001, pp. 1-21.

181 Dr. Jay C. Davis, “From the Director,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no 2 (February

2002), p 2.

182 E-mail, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, to DTRA-ALL, “News From

the Acting Director,” July 16, 2001.

183 Ibid.

184 E-mail, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, to DTRA-ALL, “Reorganization and other news,” July 30, 2001.

185 Ibid.

186 E-mail, Dr. Jay C. Davis, Director, to DTRA-ALL, “Adjustments in Assignments

and Organizational Functions,” June 1, 2001.

187 E-mail, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, Acting Director, to DTRAALL, “Reorganization and other news,” July 30, 2001.
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 97

188 E-mail, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, Acting Director, to DTRAALL, “Reorganization and Other News from the Acting Director,” August 31, 2001; See also,

“Realignment streamlines agency,” DTRA Connection, vol. 3, no.9 (September 2001), p.3.

189 Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Memorandum for Secretaries

of the Military Departments ...,” August 31, 2001.

190 Ibid.

191 E-mail, Major General Robert P. Bongiovi, USAF, Acting Director, to DTRAALL, “News from the Deputy Director,” October 1, 2001.

192 U.S. Department of Defense, News Release, “New Director Selected to Head

Defense Threat Reduction Agency,” August 9, 2001. www.defenselink.mil/news/releases/

html

193 DTRA Office of Public Affairs “Dr. Stephen M. Younger, Biography,” Factsheet,

August 2001.

194 Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, “DTRA’s threat reduction conference brings WMD experts together,” DTRA Connection, vol.3, no. 10 (October 2001), pp 6-7.
98 CREAT ING THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCT ION AGENCY
DTRA HISTORY SERIES 99

This report was designed by William Alberque, David Brannegan, Vera MacBride, and Ian MacGregor, DynCorp

National Security Programs, Alexandria, Virginia. Together with the authors, they edited and designed the

manuscript, reference materials, cover, title pages, and page layout. The history was printed in AGaramond,

12-point typeface. All photographs, unless identified, were reproduced from official U. S. Government sources.

DTRA HISTORY SERIES

CREATING THE

DEFENSE

THREAT

REDUCTION

AGENCY

“Today’s harsh reality is too powerful to ignore ... at least twenty-five countries

have, or are in the process of acquiring and developing, nuclear, biological, or chemical

weapons and the means to deliver them.

Your charge is perhaps the most vital national security mission ever to face our

nation. To persevere in reducing the nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals of

the world. To prevent the seepage into the global arms bazaar of those that remain.

To protect America from those who would use these terror weapons against us. And

to peer into the opaque windows of tomorrow and to avoid the future shock of unknown weapons.”

- Secretary of Defense William Cohen, DTRA Establishment Ceremony

October 1, 1998

For more information about the

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, contact:

Corporate Communication Division

8725 John J. Kingman Road

MSC 6201

Fort Belvoir, Va. 22060-6201

Telephone: (703) 767-5870

Facsimile: (703) 767-4450

Email: dtra.publicaffairs@dtra.mil

Or at our Web site:

www.dtra.mil