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Menwith Hill (UK)

(...) On September 15, 1960, after five years and $6.8 million worth of cement and antennas, the 13th U.S. Army Security Agency Field Station formally opened. Named Menwith Hill Station, the four-hundred-man base, virtually free from urban electromagnetic interference, was ideally suited for eavesdropping. (...) On August 1 [1966] the formal transfer from ASA to NSA officially, yet secretely, took place. Eventually, the sole military person on the base was a junior lieutenant recruited as commissary officer.

Principal targets of Menwith Hill, according to Frank Raven [chief of G Group until 1975], are western Europe, eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union east of the Urals. "It wouldn't be any good on Siberia," he added. Most of the signals intercepted are too sophisticated to be attacked at the station and are therefore forwarded by satellite back to Fort Meade for analysis.

Some of Menwith Hill's strategic intercept capabilities were probably inherited from a U.S. Air Force Security Service listening post at Kirknewton, near Edinburgh – which just happened to cease operations the very day before NSA began operating the Yorkshire station. Some reports indicate that many of the operations formerly performed by Kirknewton were simply transferred down the road to the new NSA base. (...)

Like Pine Gap, Menwith Hill has both a strategic intelligence collection mission and also an early-warning mission. And like the Australian station, it was transformed into an advanced satellite activity only a few weeks before the formal inauguration of DEFSMAC [Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center]. It is probable, then, that at least part of its function is to serve as a ground station for one of the DSP early-warning satellites, possibly parked over the South Atlantic. Other antennas are most likely used to receive data transmitted by orbiting SIGINT satellites. A new antenna array, in fact, was added in 1973, the same year in which the first Rhyolite SIGINT bird became operational. The location of Menwith Hill would appear to be ideal for the collection of data from satellites orbiting over the Soviet Union's northern and coastal areas. Covered by such a satellite trajectory would be Russia's Plesetsk missile test site, as well as the sensitive Murmansk and Arkhangelsk seaport areas.

Still another satellite apparently associated with Menwith Hill is Big Bird. Evidence of this is the large number of employees from Lockheed Corporation, builder of Big Bird, attached to the station. (PP 268-271)

-- [PP] James Bamford: THE PUZZLE PALACE, 1982.


33. In August 1966, NSA transferred ILC collection activities from its Scottish site at Kirknewton, to Menwith Hill in England. Ten years later [1976], this activity was again transferred, to Chicksands. Although the primary function of the Chicksands site was to intercept Soviet and Warsaw Pact air force communications, it was also tasked to collect ILC and "NDC" (Non-US Diplomatic Communications). Prominent among such tasks was the collection of FRD traffic (i.e., French diplomatic communications). Although most personnel at Chicksands were members of the US Air Force, diplomatic and ILC interception was handled by civilian NSA employees in a unit called DODJOCC.(17)

39. The expanded mission given to Menwith Hill after 1985 included MERCURY collection from the Middle East. The station received an award for support to US naval operations in the Persian Gulf from 1987 to 1988. In 1991, a further award was given for support of the Iraqi war operations, Desert Storm and Desert Shield.(22) Menwith Hill is now the major US site for Comint collection against its major ally, Israel. Its staff includes linguists trained in Hebrew, Arabic and Farsi as well as European languages. Menwith Hill has recently been expanded to include ground links for a new network of Sigint satellites launched in 1994 and 1995 (RUTLEY). The name of the new class of satellites remains unknown.

44. No other nation (including the former Soviet Union) has deployed satellites comparable to CANYON, RHYOLITE, or their successors. Both Britain (project ZIRCON) and France (project ZENON) have attempted to do so, but neither persevered. After 1988 the British government purchased capacity on the US VORTEX (now MERCURY) constellation to use for unilateral national purposes.(24) A senior UK Liaison Officer and staff from GCHQ work at Menwith Hill NSA station and assist in tasking and operating the satellites.

68. NSA and CIA then discovered that Sigint collection from space was more effective than had been anticipated, resulting in accumulations of recordings that outstripped the available supply of linguists and analysts. Documents show that when the SILKWORTH processing systems was installed at Menwith Hill for the new satellites, it was supported by ECHELON 2 and other databanks.

-- Duncan Campbell: INTERCETPION CAPABILITIES 2000.
src://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/ic2kreport.htm

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