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Political Geodesy: The Army,the Air Force, and the WorldGeodetic System of 1960Deborah Jean Warner aa National Museum of American History ,Washington, DC, 20560-0636, USAPublished online: 05 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Deborah Jean Warner (2002) Political Geodesy: The Army,the Air Force, and the World Geodetic System of 1960, Annals of Science, 59:4,363-389, DOI: 10.1080/0003790110044756

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Annals of Science, 59 (2002), 363–389

Political Geodesy: the Army, the Air Force, andthe World Geodetic System of 1960

Deborah Jean Warner

National Museum of American History, Washington, DC 20560-0636, USA

Received 19 September 2000; revised paper accepted 4 January 2001

SummarySince military planners must know the size and shape of the earth if they hopeto track earth-orbiting satellites and to target missiles on distant lands, geodesywas an important concern of the two superpowers during the Cold War. Themost important geodetic product in the United States was a series of increasinglypowerful World Geodetic Systems, the � rst of which (WGS 60) was publishedfor the Department of Defense in 1960. Although WGS 60 was created becauseof intense international rivalries, it re� ected the intense rivalries betweenAmerica’s Army and its Air Force, and it introduced the notion of ‘politicalgeodesy’. My attention to American events does not indicate a lack of interestin the Soviet story; rather, I hope that historians with better language skills andbetter access to Soviet documents will examine geodetic research on the otherside of the former Iron Curtain.

Contents1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3632. Geodesy at the Army Map Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3663. The Air Force and Ohio State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3754. Aeronautical Chart and Information Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3805. Department of Defense WGS 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3846. World Geodetic Systems and Corona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3857. Subsequent World Geodetic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3878. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

1. IntroductionAs military planners in the United States began to appreciate the military

potential of long-range missiles, and to realize that the successful deployment ofthese missiles would demand an improved understanding of the size and shape ofthe earth, the Department of Defense began funding geodetic research.1 The mostimportant result of this military geodetic project was a series of increasingly powerfulWorld Geodetic Systems (WGSs), each of which was keyed to a new missile system.The � rst WGS, introduced in 1960, was actually a compromise between two diVerentsystems, one produced by the Army Map Service and the other by its Air Forcecounterpart, the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center. While the Army andAir Force geodesists were in essential agreement about some aspects of the problem,

1 In his otherwise remarkable historical sociology of nuclear missile guidance, Donald Mackenzie allbut ignores the geodetic problem. See D. Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,1990).

Annals of Science ISSN 0003-3790 print/ISSN 1464-505X online © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk /journalsDOI: 10.1080/0003790110044756

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they had a fundamental disagreement about the best way of going about theirbusiness. The Army geodesists favoured traditional astrogeodetic techniques (thatis, a combination of astronomical observations and geodetic triangulations) , whichwould produce ever more accurate maps of ever larger regions of the earth. The AirForce geodesists favoured the new gravimetric technique, which had not yet producedmuch reliable data but which promised the sort of earth-centred WGS that the AirForce demanded. The intense competition for funds and prestige between the Armyand the Air Force added fuel to this scienti� c debate.

The Research and Development Board (RDB), which was designed to evaluateand coordinate the scienti� c projects funded by the National Military Establishment,provides important insights into the background of the geodetic project. The mosttelling document comes from Helmut Landsberg, deputy executive director of theRDB Committee on Geophysical Sciences, who attempted to answer ‘the frequentlyheard question of why the military departments should be sponsoring research workin the � eld of geophysical sciences’. Calling attention to geodesy, Landsberg notedthat missiles with ranges of thousands of miles will soon ‘be a reality’, and thus thegeometric reference frame within which they � y ‘must be known precisely’. Toestablish this reference frame, geodesists must confront such problems as the inter-relationship of the geodetic networks of various countries, the distance betweencontinents, the precise determination of the de� ection of the vertical at variousplaces, and the theory of isostasy.2 Another document, this one dated 25 April 1951and presented to the Panel on Cartography and Geodesy, a subset of the RDBCommittee of Geophysical Sciences, noted that diVerences between the ellipsoid andthe geoid could lead to errors in astronomical position determinations that ‘mayamount to several miles’. In other words, precision mapping and navigation ‘requirean accurate knowledge of the con� guration of the geoid’.3

The ellipsoid and the geoid are two diVerent but interconnected ‘� gures’ of theearth. The ellipsoid is regular, imaginary, and contested. The standard was theInternational Ellipsoid that the International Association of Geodesy had adoptedin 1924, but many countries, including the United States, did not use this ellipsoidfor their national datums. The geoid, irregular but real, is that surface on which thegravitational potential is everywhere the same, and to which the direction of gravityis everywhere perpendicular. While there are many possible geoids, geodesists usethe term to refer to that geopotential � gure that corresponds to the mean sea levelof the earth. The terms ‘undulation of the geoid’ and ‘geoid height’ refer to thevarying separation of the geoid and the ellipsoid. The Oxford English Dictionarytraces the word ‘geoid’ to M. Merriman’s 1881 book, Figure of the Earth, butMerriman credited Johann Benedict Listing, professor of physics at Gottingen, withhaving coined the term in 1872. The theory behind the geoid, however, had begunin the 1740s when, building on the ideas developed by Newton, mathematicianssuch as C. Maclaurin and A.C. Clairaut considered the earth as a � gure in hydrostaticequilibrium.4

2 It is impossible to know what Landsberg believed in 1948, as this edition of his report was classi� edCon� dential, and no copies of it are now known. My quotes come from a later edition, titled Geophysicsand Warfare, which was published by the Research and Development Coordinating Committee onGeneral Sciences, OYce of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Research and Development, in March 1954.

3 Panel on Cartography and Geodesy, Committee on Geophysics and Geography, Research andDevelopment Board, ‘Application of Gravity Measurements to Geodetic Problems’, NARA, RG 330,entry 341, box 389, folder 34.

4 W.D. Lambert, ‘The Figure of the Earth from Gravity Observations’, Journal of the WashingtonAcademy of Sciences, 26 (1936) , 491–506.

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Concern with the de� ection (or deviation) of the vertical began in the eighteenthcentury when geodesists found that mountains and other surface features aVectedthe position of a plumb bob (or thus the apparent direction of the vertical ), andthat some terrestrial positions determined by geodetic triangulation diVered fromthose determined by astronomical observation. The de� ection of the vertical at anyparticular point is a way of expressing the diVerence between the perpendicular tothe ellipsoid and the perpendicular to the geoid at that point. Moreover, the de� ectionof the vertical and the height of the geoid are diVerent mathematical representationsof the same reality, the de� ection being the derivative of the height, and the heightbeing the integral of the de� ection.

Gravity observations with pendulums began in the seventeenth century, but itwas nineteenth century instruments and ideas that really put gravity on the map.The main rationale for gravity surveys came from George Gabriel Stokes, theLucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, who showed that the height ofthe equipotential surface above or below the reference ellipsoid could be determinedby analysing gravity anomalies over the earth’s surface.5 The Coast and GeodeticSurvey, the main centre of gravimetry in the United States, began its � rst gravityproject in the 1870s, using pendulums imported from Europe. A new pendulumdesign introduced in 1890 by then director of the Survey, T.C. Mendenhall, remainedin use until the early 1930s, when Edwin J. Brown, also of the Survey, introduceda further improved design.6 The development of reliable and portable gravimeters,which began in the 1940s, allowed geodesists to conduct gravity surveys rapidly ona worldwide basis. Cold War imperatives provided the requisite funds, and high-speed computers enabled geodesists to perform the appropriate calculations.

Isostasy was a theory that used the heterogeneity of terrestrial matter to explainthe obviously irregular topography of the surface of the earth. In the words ofClarence E. Dutton, the US Army Major who coined the word in 1889, isostasydescribed the condition of hydrostatic equilibrium ‘to which gravitation tends toreduce a planetary body, irrespective of whether it be homogeneous or not’.7

John F. Hayford, then of the Geodetic Division of the US Coast and GeodeticSurvey, published the � rst important map of the geoid and the � rst importantobservational evidence of isostasy in 1909. This work attracted many scientists tothe theory of isostasy, and brought Hayford many honours, including membershipin the National Academy of Sciences.8 Although Hayford worked primarily withastrogeodetic data, he acknowledged that ‘determinations of the intensity of gravity’might prove useful ‘in connection with this and similar investigations’. Interest ingravimetry and isostasy grew steadily over the course of the next several decades

5 G.G. Stokes, ‘On the Variation of Gravity at the Surface of the Earth’, in Mathematical and PhysicalPapers (Cambridge, 1883) , ii, 131–71, originally published in Transactions of the CambridgePhilosophical Society.

6 V.F. Lenzen and R.P. Multhauf, ‘Development of Gravity Pendulums in the 19th Century’,Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution,1965).

7 C.E. Dutton, ‘On Some of the Greater Problems of Physical Geology’, Bulletin of the PhilosophicalSociety of Washington 11 (1888–91), 51–64 (p. 53). The best historical account of isostasy is in NaomiOreskes, The Rejection of Continental Drift (New York, 1999).

8 J.F. Hayford, The Figure of the Earth and Isostasy from Measurements in the United States(Washington, DC: Government Printing OYce for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1909) , p. 10.W.H. Burger, ‘John Fillmore Hayford’, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 16(1936), 159–292.

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and, with re� nements of Stokes’ theorem made by various geodesists, the theoreticalstage was set for a gravimetric approach to the geoid.

Hayford’s successors at the Survey, William Bowie and Walter D. Lambert, werealso strong proponents of isostasy and gravimetry. In 1932, for instance, Lambertargued that ‘Stokes’ formula furnishes the only known method—accurate or not—for obtaining the absolute elevations of the geoid referred to the spheroid withoutmaking some hypothesis as to the distribution of densities within the earth’.Astrogeodetic techniques, on the other hand, can ‘give relative elevations only’.9 Bythe 1940s, Lambert had become the best-known and most-honoured geodesist inthe United States—a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a recipient ofthe William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union, and a Presidentof the International Association of Geodesy. Also, as a frequent consultant to theRDB Panel on Cartography and Geodesy, he probably had a major in� uence onLandsberg’s argument.10

In 1953, Lambert prepared a report on ‘Geodetic Controls for the Flight ofGuided Missiles’ for the Panel on Cartography and Geodesy. In this once Restricteddocument Lambert admitted that much of the background information was classi� ed,and thus his knowledge was ‘necessarily imperfect’. Nonetheless, he said, ‘Accordingto my understanding derived from consultations and committee meetings, I assumethat the requirements are ‘‘Actual and absolute de� ections of the vertical at launchingpoint and the target point’’, and ‘‘Average de� ections (with regard to sign) over theaerial path of the missile’’ ’.11 While most missile planners agreed with Lambert’sargument, some remained cautious. Even as late as 1958, a leading Air Force civiliangeodesist could note that scientists were ‘at odds with one another concerning theproblem of just what eVect the earth’s gravity � eld has upon the trajectories of missileweapon systems’.12 There was also the matter of the diVerent needs of guided andballistic missiles. In February 1953, for instance, the RDB Working Group onNavigation of Long-Range Guided Missiles noted that, for guided missiles such asthe Navajo and the Snark, knowledge of geoid undulations along the path ‘is notconsidered a requirement to attain the expected maximum system accuracy, namely3000 feet CEP’.13 The acronym CEP stands for ‘circular error probable’. As usedhere, CEP means that the missile has a 50% chance of landing in a circle that iscentred on the target, and that has a radius equal to the CEP value.

2. Geodesy at the Army Map ServiceThe Army Map Service (AMS) was created in 1942 as a Field OYce of the

Army Corps of Engineers. It was integrated into the US Army TopographicCommand in 1969, which was integrated into the newly formed Defense MappingAgency in 1972, and which, in turn, was integrated into the newly formed NationalImagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) in 1996.

9 W.D. Lambert, ‘Stokes’s Formula in Geodesy’, Nature, 129 (1932) , 831–32.10 C.A. Whitten, ‘Walter Davis Lambert’, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences,

63 (1973), 147–62.11 W.D. Lambert, ‘Geodetic Controls for the Flight of Guided Missiles’, Ohio State University

Research Foundation no. 504/AF 19 (604)–287.12 O.W. Williams, ‘AFCRC Geodesy and Gravity Program’, in Proceedings of Military Geodesy

Seminar, December 1958, pp. 1–5.13 RDB, Committee on Geophysics and Geography, Panel on Cartography and Geodesy, Working

Group on Navigation of Long-Range Guided Missiles, ‘Progress Report, Feb. 25, 1953’, NARA, RG330, entry 341, box 389, folder 34.

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AMS provided cartographic support for troops on the ground, and most of itsresources were devoted to producing and publishing maps. It did, however, have aGeodetic Division. In 1949, the Joint Chiefs of StaV gave AMS the responsibilityof procuring geodetic data for the common use of all three departments, the Army,the Navy and the Air Force. Floyd W. Hough, the � rst Director of the GeodeticDivision of AMS, had been a geodetic hero before he became a geodetic bureaucrat.His most notorious exploit had occurred at the end of World War II when heorganized a team of intelligence specialists and led them to the European Theatreof Operations. Moving into Germany in March 1945, the Hough team found andcaptured many tons of geodetic and cartographic material in enemy hands. Theirmost dramatic � nd, and probably the most important, was the entire geodeticarchives of the German Army, including the military maps and geodetic data thatthe Germans had captured from the Russians.14

Hough’s right-hand man at the AMS was John A. O’Keefe, a brilliant andgenerous astronomer with a PhD from the University of Chicago who served asChief of the Research and Analysis Branch of the Geodetic Division. Bernard H.Chovitz and Irene K. Fischer worked in the Geoid Section of the Division, in agroup that Chovitz described as ‘few in numbers, but ‘‘elite’’ in quality’.15 Chovitzwas a young Jewish man who had joined the AMS in 1948 after having received anMSc in mathematics from Harvard University. Fischer was a Jewish woman whohad studied mathematics at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Institute ofTechnology, � ed Austria before the war began, and joined the AMS in the early1950s. Both Chovitz and Fischer called attention to the Univac, terming it ‘a uniqueprize’ which placed AMS ‘in the forefront of computing agencies’.16 Also, both hadenormous regard for O’Keefe. Fischer saw him as ‘The soul and driving force ofthe Research and Analysis Branch’. When I asked Chovitz about the work he didat the AMS he replied, ‘this was undoubtedly an assignment handed me by JohnO’Keefe. I’m pretty sure he must have spelled out the problem to me, and pointedout the current sources of data.’17 Fischer noted that, when she expressed doubtsabout contributing to military capabilities, she was reassured by O’Keefe’s comment,‘No matter what you want, the generals will shoot. You are working for accuracy.’18

The AMS involvement with guided missiles began in January 1947, whenCol. Herbert Milwit, Head of the Intelligence Division in the OYce of the Chiefof Engineers, received a letter from the Headquarters of the Army Air Forces. Thisletter was headed ‘Navigation of Long Range Guided Missiles’—‘guided’ was thestandard term, at the time, for all missiles—and it concerned the problem of‘resolving to one datum all existing world-wide geodetic surveys or establishing aconsistent system for adjusting world-wide geographical positions’.

Milwit passed this letter down the line to Floyd Hough and he, in turn, organizeda meeting of leading geodetic experts to consider ‘the possibility of rede� ning the

14 J. Dille, ‘The Missile-Era Race to Chart the Earth’, Life, 44 (12 May, 1958), 124–138 (pp. 132 and135). ‘The Houghteam’, report transmitted by J.G. Ladd, Colonel, Corps of Engineers, to Chief, HistoricalDivision, OCE, 29 June 1950, NARA, RG 77, box 36, folder 5. E.B. Espenshade to Lt. Col. Johannson,8 July 1945, NARA, RG 77, box 35, folder 2.

15 I. Fischer, ‘Autobiography’, p. 8. Copies are at the Schlesinger Library at RadcliVe, and at theNiels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics.

16 ‘The Univac’, 6 October 1954, NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 3/3, notebook no. 1. See also, Fischer,‘Autobiography’ (note 15), pp. 14 and 18.

17 Conversation with B. Chovitz, 12 January, 2000.18 O’Keefe’s comment is quoted in I. Fischer, ‘Autobiography’ (note 15 ).

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� gure of the earth with modern methods’. One report of this meeting noted that ‘anaccurate � gure of the earth becomes more and more important to the WarDepartment when we consider the use of guided missiles and other long rangeweapons’.19 In August 1947, after further negotiation, the General StaV of the Armyordered the Chief of Engineers to develop a ‘Geodesy for Guided Missiles’.20 Thepurpose of this Secret project was ‘To establish a rapid method for computing exactazimuths and lengths of long geodetic lines; [and ] to resolve to a common datumall existing world wide geodetic surveys’. A sum of US$207,000 was spent on theproject in 1948, a huge US$400,000 was authorized for 1949, and funding remainedat this level throughout the 1950s.21

The Geodetic Division of the AMS published its � rst Technical Report, ‘GeodeticResearch and the Compilation of Data for the Use of Guided Missiles, Artillery,and Radar’ in 1949. I have not been able to � nd a copy of this report, but assumethat it re� ected the ideas of John O’Keefe. I also assume that it met with favourableapproval because, by 1950, the geodetic operations of the AMS were said to be‘principally concerned with a geodetic research project investigating problems con-nected with navigation of guided missiles’.22

The AMS brought out a revised agenda under the same title in 1952. The textof this once Secret Technical Report noted that ‘The development and employmentof guided missiles creates new and unusual demands for geodetic data and requiresa worldwide geodetic control net or some system of locating any point on the earth’ssurface with respect to a common datum. Investigations are required in connectionwith current geodetic operations to improve methods and obtain additional data tomeet these new demands.’23 The revised agenda then identi� ed the several projectsthat contributed to a ‘geodesy for guided missiles’. These included strengthening ofthe several regional datums, constructing continental datums through the re-adjustment of regional and/or national datums, reworking maps on the UniversalTransverse Mercator grid, reducing regional datums into a single global system, andmeasuring distances from one continent to another using such techniques as solareclipses and lunar occultations.24

The � rst of these ‘current geodetic operations’ tasks was the creation of a singleEuropean datum. This project, designed in the pre-missile era, had begun in April1945 when the Hough team found Erwin Gigas and his staV of the geodetic oYce

19 F.W. Hough to Acting Executive Director, AMS, 2 April 1947, in NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3,folder 914.

20 The relevant documents—including Report from Sub-Committee on Development to Corps ofEngineers Technical Committee, dated 25 July 1947, Memo from OCE to Director of Research andDevelopment Division, WDGS, dated 19 August 1947, Endorsement to this Memo from Acting Director,Research and Development Division, WDGS, by order of Secretary of Warm to Chief of Engineers,dated 26 August 1947, Letter from Chief, Engineer Research and Development Division, MilitaryOperations, OCE, to Commanding OYcer, AMS, dated 5 September 1947, and Research andDevelopment Project Card, ‘Geodesy for Navigation of Long Range Guided Missiles’, dated 30 September1947—are mentioned in a memo of 10 April 1953 from J.G. Ladd of the Corps of Engineers to theChairman, Research and Development Board, in NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 456, folder 6.

21 RDB Committee on Geophysics and Geography, The National Military Establishment Digest ofCurrent Research Projects, 1 August 1949, NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 173.

22 ‘Data on Engineer Service, Army, Project 440—Military Surveys and Maps’, in NARA, RG456-91-3079 , box 3/4, folder ‘AMS Post-Hostilities’.

23 Harry Lieberman,‘Geodetic Research and the Compilation of Data for the Use of Guided Missiles,Artillery, and Radar’, AMS Technical Report no. 11 (1952) .

24 F.W. Hough, ‘Military Geodesy’, 16 February 1954, NARA, RG 77, box 2/3, folder 908. Forintercontinental measurements see D.J. Warner, ‘From Tallahassee to Timbucktu: Cold War eVorts tomeasure intercontinental distances’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 30 (2000), 393–415.

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of the Reichsamt fur Landesaufnahme in Friedrichroda, a small town in Thuringiarecently captured by the US Third Army, relieved them of allegiance to the Nazigovernment, moved them and their families to Bamberg in the US Occupation Zoneof Germany, and had them begin preparations for a least-squares re-adjustment ofthe � rst-order triangulation in Central Europe.25 In August 1946, when Houghproposed that this pilot project be extended to cover the whole of Europe, he foundthat his European colleagues were in favour of the goal but opposed to having thework done by the German unit at Bamberg. Accordingly, he arranged for thecomputations to be done by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, under the auspicesof the International Association of Geodesy, and � nanced by the AMS.26 Thispattern of civilian agencies doing work on contract for military services would occurtime and again during the Cold War period.

While the European re-adjustment was underway, the Geodetic Division of theAMS undertook a similar project in China, trying to create one single datum froma plethora of local maps, each with a diVerent scale and orientation.27 They alsoworked closely with the Inter-American Geodetic Survey, the unit within the ArmyCorps of Engineers that organized and coordinated geodetic surveys throughoutCentral and South America.28

The construction of continental datums forced geodesists to consider the problemof the de� ection of the vertical. Hough preferred the astrogeodetic approach to thisproblem, but was somewhat receptive to the gravimetric approach, especially aschampioned by Walter Lambert. In a paper prepared for the Committee on theAdjustment of the Triangulation of Europe in the summer of 1946, Lambert notedthat a great many gravity measurements had been made in Europe in recent decades,and thus it should be possible to use gravity in the projected European project.O’Keefe gave Hough a copy of Lambert’s paper, with a cover memorandum statingthat Lambert believed that ‘a better datum would be obtained for Europe if thegravity material were incorporated, so as to correct the astronomic values beforecomparing with the geodetic.’29

In March 1947, Lambert informed the AMS that the US Coast and GeodeticSurvey was using gravity observations to determine elevations of the geoid andde� ections of the vertical in Missouri, and mentioned that, although the projectlooked promising, money was scarce.30 A few months later, when the AMS receivedfunding for the guided missile assignment, Hough transferred some US$54,000 so

25 F.W. Hough, ‘The Readjustment of European Triangulation’, Bulletin Geodesique, 2 (1946), 29–37,and Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 28 (1947) , 62–66. Hough to Commanding OYcer,US Military Government, Bamberg, Germany, re: Cooperation of German Civilian, E. Gigas, 31 August1945, NARA, RG 77, box 36, folder 6.

26 F.W. Hough, ‘The Triangulation Adjustment of Western Europe’, paper presented to theCommission on the Adjustment of European Triangulation, at Oslo, Norway, August 1948, and ‘Progressof the European Triangulation Adjustment’, 1948, both in NARA, RG 456-91-3079 , box 3/4. Hough,‘International Cooperation on a Geodetic Project’, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 32(1951), 106–09.

27 Conversation with J.A. O’Keefe, 4 November, 1998.28 R. Conley and J.E. Fletcher, ‘Men who Measure the Earth’, National Geographic Magazine, 109

(March 1956), 335–62.29 W.D. Lambert, ‘The Use of Values of Gravity in the Adjustment of the Triangulation of Europe’,

and J.A. O’Keefe to Chief, Geodetic Division, 21 November, 1946, NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3,folder 914.

30 F.W. Hough to Acting Executive Director, AMS (note 19). See also W.D. Lambert, ‘De� ectionsof the Vertical from Gravity Anomalies’, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 28 (1947),153–56, and ‘Digest on the Determination of De� ections of the Vertical from Gravity Anomalies’, sentto RDB, c. 1947, in NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 457, folder 6.

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that the Survey could ‘expedite’ its ongoing work in this area. The results of thiswork appeared as AMS Technical Report no. 2, ‘De� ections of the Vertical fromGravity Anomalies’, and also in the open, scholarly literature.31 This pattern ofclassi� ed publication and open discussion would be found with several WGS-relatedprojects.

The AMS’s growing appreciation of gravimetry can be seen in the revised agendaof 1952, which noted that de� ections of the vertical ‘can accurately be determinedfrom gravimetric data’, and that gravimetry might yield a better determination ofthe geoid and oVer a better way to determine the relative positions of isolated areas.However just to be sure, Irene K. Fischer was assigned the task of comparing thede� ection of the vertical as determined by gravimetric and astrogeodetic techniquesat twenty-three stations in the western and central Mediterranean area. She found‘a fair agreement’ between the two sets of values.32

While this work was underway, AMS geodesists began recognizing the impor-tance of the geoid. Technical Report no. 9, which was written by Chovitz, publishedin 1951, and classi� ed Con� dential, concerned ‘The EVect of the Undulations of theGeoid on Guided Missile Paths’. It explained: ‘It has been estimated that theallowance in guided missile performance for geodetic error should not be more thanaround 70 meters.’ However, since current understanding produces positional errors‘which far exceed this allowance. . . the undulations of the geoid must be studiedmuch more seriously than heretofore in considering guided missile � ights’. Chovitzwas also responsible for Technical Report no. 16, ‘A Statistical Analysis of the EVectof De� ections of the Vertical on Inertial Guidance Systems’. AMS also tried to keepabreast of geodetic research done by Soviet scientists. Thus, Technical Report no. 12,‘Development of a Method of Utilizing Gravimetric Surveys for Cartographic–Geodetic Networks’, was an English translation of B.V. Dubovskiy’s 1939 study ofthe geoid across the USSR; this was one of very few reports on this part of theworld that was available to Americans.

In 1952, Chovitz and Fischer were asked to produce a new calculation of the� gure of the earth from all available data.33 Since geoids are drawn in relation toan ellipsoid, since the best ellipsoid would reduce the size of the undulations of thegeoid and, since many geodetic surveys had been made since the InternationalEllipsoid had been chosen in 1924, Chovitz and Fischer began by reworking theellipsoid. They unveiled their results in 1956, acknowledging that their ellipsoid wasnot necessarily the best � t for various local or regional datums, but claiming that itwas the best overall � t ‘from the various individual solutions’. In this ellipsoid, the� attening of the earth ( f) was equal to 1/(297 Ô 1), while the semimajor axis (a) wasequal to 6,378,260Ô 100 m. The full account of this work appeared as TechnicalReport no. 19 and classi� ed Con� dential. The basic results were presented at theMay meeting of the American Geophysical Union, and caught the attention of the

31 D.A. Rice, ‘De� ections of the Vertical from Gravity Anomalies’, Army Map Service TechnicalReport no. 2, 1949; ‘Gravimetric De� ections by the Method of Condensation’, Transactions of theAmerican Geophysical Union, 30 (1949), 323–27; ‘De� ections of the Vertical from Gravity Anomalies’,Bulletin Geodesique, 25 (1952) , 285–312. The ‘Missouri project’ is also described in W.D. Lambert to P.Kissam, 17 October, 1951, NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 172, folder 6.

32 I. Fischer, ‘The De� ection of the Vertical in the Western and Central Mediterranean Area’, AMSTechnical Report no. 13 (1954); this was originally Con� dential. I. Fischer,‘The De� ection of the Verticalin the Western and Central Mediterranean Area’, Bulletin Geodesique, 34 (December 1954), 343–53.Fischer, ‘Autobiography’ (note 15), p. 31.

33 ‘Long Range Guided Missile Program (permanent report)’, 30 June 1954, NARA, RG 77, AMS,box 2/3, notebook no. 1.

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popular press. The New York Times reported that the earth was now known to be‘slightly smaller than believed’.34

Chovitz and Fischer termed their work ‘A New Determination of the Figure ofthe Earth from Arcs’. These arcs included a north–south line extending from Alaskato southern Chile, part of which was run by the Inter-American Geodetic Survey,a parallel traversing the United States from east to west, and another parallelextending from Western Europe to Siberia. The most important arc, however, wasthat of the thirtieth meridian, which stretched more than 4000 miles from Cairo tothe Cape of Good Hope, and which was the longest meridian that could be measuredon the earth’s surface. The thirtieth meridian project had been begun by Sir DavidGill in 1879, and carried out, in large part, by the British Colonial Survey OYce.In 1952 the great arc was about 85% complete when the AMS stepped in and oVeredto supervise the completion of the last 640 or so miles running through Sudan,Uganda, and the Congo. Hough explained the reason: because ‘military exigencies’demanded an improved determination of the ellipsoid and the major undulations ofthe geoid, and because the thirtieth meridian would contribute to this goal, theDepartment of Defense ‘felt that it should assist the native countries to close theremaining gap at an early date’. After the line in Africa was completed, and the AirForce provided a Hiran (high precision Shoran) tie across the Mediterranean,geodesists had an unbroken meridian extending from Scandinavia to South Africa.35

Weikko A. Heiskanen, a geodesist supported by the Air Force, hailed the ‘NewFigure of the Earth’ as ‘one of the most important papers in the geodetic literatureof the last decades’, and noted that the AMS should be congratulated for thisachievement. He then proceeded to detail the paper’s several shortcomings. Mostnotably, since he favoured the gravimetric approach—indeed, he was the leadingproponent of gravimetric geodesy in the United States—he regretted ‘that thegravimetric evidence has been neglected’.36 Chovitz and Fischer thanked Heiskanenfor his ‘kind words’. Then, detailing the shortcomings of his critique, they notedthat he had failed to recognize that the purpose of their paper was to investigatethe contributions of the astrogeodetic evidence only. They also noted that the AMShad amassed a great deal of reliable astrogeodetic data, and that reliable gravimetricdata were fairly rare.37

As expected, the ‘New Figure of the Earth’ had practical as well as academicimportance. In December 1956, the Director of Range Development at the Air ForceMissile Test Center informed the Commander of the AMS that ‘A decision must bereached in the near future regarding a standard reference ellipsoid for use atAFMTC’, and requested six copies of ‘any published or available data regardingthis latest ellipsoid determination’.38 In recognition of this work, Chovitz and Fischer

34 B. Chovitz and I. Fischer, ‘A New Determination of the Figure of the Earth from Arcs’, ArmyMap Service Technical Report no. 19, 1956, and Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 37(1956), 534–45. ‘New Report Shrinks Earth by Half a Mile’, New York Times, 3 May, 1956, 33, column 3.‘It’s a Smaller World’, Scienti� c American, 195 (July 1956) , 50.

35 F.W. Hough, ‘The 30th Arc in Africa and its Signi� cance to Military Topographic Mapping’, paperread at International Topographic Mapping Conference held at AMS, 12–17 May 1952, typescript atNARA, RG 456-91-3079 , box 3/4. J. Dille, ‘The Missile-Era Race to Chart the Earth’, Life, 44 (12 May1958), 124–38.

36 W.A. Heiskanen, ‘Discussion of ‘‘A New Determination of the Figure of the Earth from Arcs’’ ’,Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 38 (1957), 579–80.

37 B. Chovitz and I. Fischer, ‘Discussion of ‘‘A New Determination of the Figure of the Earth fromArcs’’ ’, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 38 (1957), 580.

38 C.E. Ewing to Commander, Army Map Service, 3 December 1956, in NARA, RG 77, AMS, box2/3, folder 908.

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received the Army’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award in March 1957; it was,apparently, the � rst time that AMS employees had ever quali� ed for such adistinction.

With the ellipsoid well in hand, Fischer turned her attention to the geoid, relyingagain on astrogeodetic data. Fischer presented the � rst results of this geoidal workat the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics meeting in Toronto in 1957.At the same meeting, she and Chovitz read a paper arguing that the AMS procedurefor determining the eVect of distant topography was preferable to that employed byHeiskanen and his colleague, T.J. Kukkamaki.39 A photograph of John O’Keefeexamining a three-dimensional model of the geoidal contours in North Americaappeared in Life in May 1958. The full text of Fischer’s ‘Tentative World Datumfrom Geoidal Heights’ appeared in June 1958 as Con� dential Technical Reportno. 22, while a slightly expurgated version appeared in the open literature.40

Fischer based these � rst geoidal contours on the new Hough ellipsoid (a=

6,378,270 m and f= 1/297), explaining that these round � gures were close enoughto those that Chovitz and Fischer had presented in 1956, and represented ‘ourpresent best guess for the � gure of the earth as a whole’. Fischer also noted thatthis new ellipsoid, named for her former boss, was chosen ‘to be used in problemsof world-wide extent as in Project Vanguard’.41

As it happened, analysis of the motions of Explorer I and Vanguard I showedthat the Hough ellipsoid was not good enough. This satellite analysis began in thespring of 1958 when John O’Keefe asked Hans Hertz and Marvin Merchant, bothof the AMS, to derive the earth’s parameters from the orbits of these early satellites,and they found that the � attening of the earth was 1/298.3 (which, ironically, wasthe � gure deduced, around 1940, by the Russian geodesist, F.N. Krassovsky, andwhich was used for the Russian datum).42 O’Keefe’s interest in geodetic satellitessurfaced in 1954 when, in a proposal that the American Rocket Society preparedfor the National Science Foundation, he noted that satellites could provide informa-tion about the relative positions of the continents, the absolute value of the accelera-tion of gravity averaged over a large extent of terrain, and the length of the earth’ssemimajor axis.43 In 1957, O’Keefe chaired a special committee of the American

39 I. Fischer, ‘The Hough Ellipsoid or the Figure of the Earth from Geoidal Heights’, BulletinGeodesique, 54 (1959), 45–49. B. Chovitz and I. Fischer, ‘The In� uence of the Distant Topography onthe De� ection of the Vertical’, Bulletin Geodesique, 54 (1959), 37–43.

40 I. Fischer, ‘A Tentative World Datum from Geoidal Heights Based on the Hough Ellipsoid andthe Columbus Geoid’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 64 (1959), 73–84. J. Dille, ‘The Missile-Era Raceto Chart the Earth’, Life, 44 (12 May 1958), 124–138 (p. 130). [I. Fischer], ‘Map of Geoidal Contours’,Military Engineer, 51 (1959) , 406.

41 I. Fischer, ‘The Hough Ellipsoid or The Figure of the Earth from Geoidal Heights’, BulletinGeodesique, 54 (1959) , 45–49. See also I. Fischer, ‘A Tentative World Datum from Geoidal Heights’,Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 39 (1958), 514–15; ‘A Tentative World Datum fromGeoidal Heights’, Army Map Service Technical Report no. 22, 1958; ‘A Tentative World Datum fromGeoidal Heights based on the Hough Ellipsoid and the Columbus Geoid’, Journal of Geophysical Research,64 (1959), 73–84.

42 ‘Oblateness of the Earth by Arti� cial Satellites’, Harvard College Observatory, Announcement Card1408, 12 June 1958. ‘Satellites Show Earth not so Flat as Thought’, Science News Letter, 74 (1958), 19.

43 J.A. O’Keefe, ‘The Geodetic Signi� cance of an Arti� cial Satellite’, Jet Propulsion (February 1955),75–76; this was part of a proposal to the National Science Foundation prepared by the Space FlightCommittee of the American Rocket Society. See also J.A. O’Keefe, ‘Scienti� c autobiography’, p. 12,Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics, quoted with O’Keefe’s approval. O’Keefe’s ideas weresoon picked up by others. For this see the memo on ‘A Scienti� c Satellite Program’ prepared by RocketDevelopment Branch, Atmospheric & Astrophysics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, 13 April 1955,which stated that ‘The most useful function that can be served by the � rst arti� cial satellite lies in the� eld of geodesy’, and to which Mike Neufeld called my attention.

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Geophysical Union concerning the geodetic uses of arti� cial satellites. Given thishistory, it was only � tting that O’Keefe should reap the � rst bene� ts of the newtechnology.

In December 1958, soon after learning ‘that the eccentricity of the orbit ofVanguard was oscillating with a period equal to the period (of some 80 days) inwhich the axis of the orbit was revolving’, O’Keefe realized that ‘the eVect must bedue to an odd harmonic in the � gure of the earth.’ Working with the mathematician,Ann Eckels, he ‘found that the observed eVect implied an amplitude of about 4milligals for the third harmonic in the gravity’.44 In the words of the popular press,O’Keefe had discovered that the terrestrial geoid was ‘pear-shaped’, � atter near thesouth pole than near north.45 O’Keefe also used this observation to criticize thetheory of isostasy on which Heiskanen had based so much of his work—and, byextension, the Air Force which was funding so much of Heiskanen’s work. InO’Keefe’s words, isostasy ‘calls for an extremely smooth gravitational � eld, apartfrom local irregularities’, but satellite measurements showed that ‘the actual rough-ness is about an order of magnitude greater’ than that demanded by theory. Thatis, Heiskanen was wrong to claim that isostasy was ‘the basic hypothesis of geodesy’.Although Heiskanen does not seem to have ever admitted the validity of O’Keefe’sargument, he must have eventually realized that isostatic compensation was lesscomplete than he had hoped.46

Fischer’s geoidal contours, as well as the ellipsoid that resulted from O’Keefe’stwo insights, were incorporated into the Army’s WGS, along with William M.Kaula’s statistical and harmonic techniques for the analysis of gravity observations.47Kaula had joined the AMS in 1957, after having graduated from the United StatesMilitary Academy and serving in the Corps of Engineers; he had also studied geodesyat Ohio State University, and written an MSc thesis on ‘Gravimetrically ComputedDe� ections of the Vertical’. Chovitz has described Kaula as ‘the preeminent andmost in� uential American geodesist of the second half of the twentieth century’,noting that he would become the � rst geodesist since Walter Lambert elected to theNational Academy of Sciences.48

Part I of the US Army WGS, ‘Methods’, was issued in November 1959, andopenly available from the start. Part 2, ‘Results’, appeared in January 1960; it wasoriginally classi� ed Secret, downgraded to Con� dential in 1970, and declassi� ed in1993. Kaula, however, published a fairly full account of this work in the openliterature in 1961.49 The stated purpose of this WGS was ‘to make the best possiblecombination of gravimetry, astrogeodetic networks, intercontinental geodetic con-

44 ‘Satellite 1958 b2’, Harvard College Observatory, Announcement Card 1420, 29 Dececember 1958.J.A. O’Keefe, A. Eckels, and R.K. Squires, ‘Vanguard Measurements Give Pear-Shaped Component ofEarth’s � gure’, Science, 129 (1959), 565–66. J.A. O’Keefe, ‘IGY Results on the Shape of the Earth’,Journal of the American Rocket Society, 29 (December 1959), 902–04. J.A. O’Keefe, A. Eckels and R.K.Squires, ‘The Gravitational Field of the Earth’, Astrophysical Journal, 64 (1959), 245–53.

45 ‘Satellite Shows Earth Pear-Like’, New York Times, 29 January 1959, p. 17. ‘Earth is Pear Shaped,Scientists Now Find’, Washington Post, 29 January 1959, p. 1.

46 J.A. O’Keefe, ‘Zonal Harmonics of the Earth’s Gravitational Field and the Basic Hypothesis ofGeodesy’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 64 (1959), 2389–92. W.A. Heiskanen, ‘Isostasy’, inInternational Dictionary of Geophysics, ed. by S.K. Runcorn and others (Oxford, 1967), i, 776–82.

47 W.M. Kaula, ‘The World Geodetic System’, in Proceedings of Military Geodesy Seminar, December1958, pp. 45–49. W.M. Kaula, ‘Statistical and Harmonic Analysis of Gravity’, Army Map ServiceTechnical Report 24, 1959.

48 Conversation with B. Chovitz, 12 May 2000.49 W.M. Kaula, ‘A Geoid and World Geodetic System Based on a Combination of Gravimetric,

Astrogeodetic, and Satellite Data’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 66 (1961), 1799–1811.

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nections, satellite motions, and radar measurements of lunar distance to estimatethe Earth’s external form and gravitational � eld as expressed by spherical harmonicsup to the eighth degree, the equatorial radius and � attening of the ellipsoid, and thepositioning of the principal geodetic systems. An important subsidiary purpose is toestimate the variances and covariances of both the input data and results of theadjustment.’50

The Military Engineer, one of the few open publications that acknowledged theArmy WGS, explained that the goal of this project was to ‘obtain more accuratepositional relationships between the continental geodetic systems and a better expres-sion of the earth’s gravity � eld for application to orbits of arti� cial satellites andtrajectories of guided missiles’. The article then explained that this system was basedon de� ections of the vertical obtained from astronomic and geodetic positions (these‘were integrated over the earth’s surface to obtain an astrogeodetic estimate of thegeoid shape’), and a statistical and harmonic analysis of gravimetric data (these‘resulted in a world-wide estimate of gravity anomalies and statistical parametersapplicable to both gravimetric and astrogeodetic data’). It also relied on the Hirantie which provided an improved determination of the distance across the NorthAtlantic, and O’Keefe’s analysis of Vanguard I ‘to obtain very accurate estimatesof coeYcients of the zonal harmonics of the gravity � eld’.51

The Army WGS marked the high point of the Geodetic Division of the AMS.By the time it appeared, Hough had retired and O’Keefe had transferred to theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Kaula, who succeededto O’Keefe’s position at the AMS, transferred to NASA in 1960. Chovitz left theAMS in 1961, and joined the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1964. Each of thesedefections might have resulted from personal decisions. Taken as a whole, however,they indicate a growing realization that the AMS would not play a major role inmissile-related geodesy, especially since the Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson,had decided, in 1956, that the Army would not deploy missiles with a range greaterthan 200 miles.

Robert C. Miller, the new Commander of the AMS, clearly understood that hismandate was to support the speci� c needs of the Army. As he explained to theDefense Intelligence Agency in 1964, the Army’s geodetic expertise was designed tosupport the conventional artillery and missiles of relatively short range deployed bythe Army, rather than the intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles deployedby the Air Force and the Navy. To that end, the AMS was ‘primarily concernedwith the various existing local datums and in reducing their number until all mapinformation and geodetic data can be referred to a single uni� ed world datum’.Once this goal had been achieved, the AMS would feel ‘that the ultimate in a worldsystem will have been reached’.52

Irene Fischer felt comfortable with this position, and so remained at the AMS,contributing astrogeodetic data for subsequent WGS projects, and publishingextensively in the open literature.53 In 1960 she brought out a revised Astrogeodetic

50 ‘US Army World Geodetic System 1959. Part 1, Methods’, Army Map Service Technical Report27, 1959; the quote is on p. 1. ‘US Army World Geodetic System, 1959. Part II, Results’, Army MapService Technical Report 28, 1960.

51 ‘Army World Geodetic System, 1959’, Military Engineer, 52 (1960), 226.52 R.C. Miller to Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, 6 January 1964, NARA, RG 77, AMS, box

3/3, folder 920.53 See, for instance, I. Fischer, ‘Is the Astrogeodetic Approach in Geodesy Obsolete?’, Surveying and

Mapping , 34 (1974), 121–30.

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World Datum. Geonautics, Inc., a NASA contractor led by her former boss, FloydHough, termed this work the ‘Mercury Datum’, and adopted it for America’s � rstmanned space � ight programme. Fischer would later recall that it ‘� lled a generalneed for a system unencumbered by classi� ed strings and locks’. It was also used forthe Gemini and Apollo programmes, and by the Department of Defense.54 Fischerproduced a modi� cation of the Mercury Datum in 1968.55 At her retirement in 1977,Fischer was one of the most accomplished women scientists in the Federal govern-ment, with many honours including election to the National Academy ofEngineering.56

3. The Air Force and Ohio State UniversityAir Force interest in science is often traced to World War II when General ‘Hap’

Arnold, then of the Army Air Forces, realized that science would provide the keyto air supremacy and began building an infrastructure to support research in relevant� elds. This scienti� c interest blossomed in the immediate post-war period, especiallyafter the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. To give but one example,Air Force Regulation 80-4 dated 1 March 1949 and signed by Chief of StaV HoytVandenberg states that ‘Air Force research is the fundamental investigation of allactivities where the discovery of applications of interest to the Air Force may beexpected.’57

On 11 March 1949 the Science Advisory Board of the Air Force called attentionto the ‘almost complete lack of target information within the impenetrable land massof Eurasia’ and the need for ‘extensive research and development of methods, tech-niques and equipment for locating these targets and � xing their geographic positions’.Noting that ‘Our map knowledge stops at Stalingrad—so did the Germans’, theBoard recommended that ‘the research and development budget for Fiscal Year 1950be readjusted to re� ect the importance of this basic military problem’.58

As it happened, the Mapping and Charting Branch of the Materiel Division(soon to become the Air Materiel Command) of the Army Air Forces at WrightField (soon to become Wright-Patterson Air Force Base), had begun providing fundsfor contract research by civilian scientists in the mid-1940s. The Geophysics ResearchDirectorate of the Air Force Cambridge Research Center took on this contractingrole in the early 1950s. Some of these contracts were designed to support projectsundertaken by the Aeronautical Chart Service (soon to become the AeronauticalChart and Information Center).

The � rst important geodetic contractor was Ohio State University (OSU ). OSUhad had several military contracts during World War II, and many Buckeyes(Ohioans) were eager to continue this relationship in the post-war period. Underthe umbrella of the OSU Research Foundation—an oV-campus organization

54 I. Fischer, ‘An Astrogeodetic World Datum Based on the Flattening of 1/298.3’ Journal ofGeophysical Research, 65 (1960), 2067–76; ‘The Present Extent of the Astro-Geodetic Geoid and theGeodetic World Datum Derived From It’, Bulletin Geodesique, 61 (September 1961) , 245–64;‘Autobiography’ (note 15), pp. 104–15 and 222.

55 I. Fischer, ‘A Modi� cation of the Mercury Datum’, Army Map Service Technical Report 67, 1968.56 American Men and Women of Science, 12 (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1972), 1835 and 15 (New

York: R. R. Bowker, 1982), 1024.57 Air Force Regulation 80-4, 1 March 1949, NARA, RG 341, entry 165, box 22.58 Science Advisory Board Recommendations, 11 March 1949, NARA, RG 341, entry 165, box 23,

folder 21.

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designed to manage military and other research contracts—a Mapping, Chartingand Reconnaissance Laboratory (soon to become the Mapping & Charting ResearchLaboratory, or MCRL) was formed in 1947. The driving force of this organizationwas George Harding, an OSU engineer who, having spent the war years workingin the Intelligence Branch of the War Department, recognized that the Americanmilitary establishment needed men with advanced training in geodesy, cartography,and photogrammetry , and would support research in these � elds.59

The � rst contract between the Mapping and Charting Branch of the MaterielCommand and OSU, signed in early 1947, called for ‘improving, initiating, anddeveloping techniques and equipment essential to photogrammetric and precisesurveying processes necessary to mapping and charting operations’. The word geo-desy was not used, but certainly implied. The � rst Technical Paper produced underthis contract concerned ‘Computed Data for Comparison of Clarke, Internationaland Bessel Spheroids’.60 The geodetic relationship between the Air Force and OSUwould remain strong for the next thirty years, despite several changes of organiza-tional names and personnel.

A key element of the OSU geodesy programme was its emphasis on gravity.This began with N.T. BobrovnikoV, an astronomer of Russian descent who wasdrafted into the MCRL in 1947, and who wrote the second Technical Paper, ‘[A]Translation and Analysis of Zhuravlev’s Paper on [the] Ellipticity of [the] TerrestrialSpheroid by Gravity Observations’. BobrovnikoV returned to the subject on30 November 1949, when OSU held an ‘open house’ for the Air Force. In hispresentation, BobrovnikoV noted that Russian scientists claimed to have developeda ‘much more exact � gure of the earth than the International Spheroid’, that two-thirds of all gravity measurements in the world had been made in Russia, and thatthe Russians ‘make much use of the combination of gravimetric and astronomicmeasures to obtain the de� ection of the vertical’.61 The Air Force got the hint and,within months, provided funds so that Weikko A. Heiskanen could come toColumbus and ‘continue on a world-wide scale his studies on the size and shape ofthe earth which were started in Finland twenty-� ve years ago’.

Heiskanen was the Director of the Finnish Geodetic Institute and the foundingdirector of the International Isostatic Institute, an organization that had beenestablished in 1936, that was funded, in part, by the International Union of Geodesyand Geophysics, and that gathered and analysed gravity data from around theworld. Heiskanen also taught his students about the importance of the gravimetricgeoid. Under Heiskanen’s direction, R.A. Hirvonen wrote a PhD dissertation on‘The Continental Undulations of the Geoid’ (1934), which represented the � rsteVort to apply Stokes’ formula, and L. Tanni continued this work with a dissertation‘On the Continental Undulations of the Geoid as Determined from the PresentGravity Material’ (1948).

59 G.H. Harding, ‘A New Era in Surveying and Mapping Curricula’, Surveying and Mapping, 6 (1946),186–92. See also John Cloud, ‘Crossing the Olentangy River: the Figure of the Earth and theMilitary–Industrial–Academic Complex’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31(2000), 371–404.

60 Ohio State University Research Foundation contract no. 306, OSU Archives.61 N.T. BobrovnikoV, Russian Science (15 December 1949), issued by the MCRL of OSU. Interest

in Soviet work in this area continued over the years; see, for instance, Yu D. Bulanzhe et al., Report onthe Research in the Field of Gravimetry Conducted in the Soviet Union in 1962–1965, Engl. trans. byLinguistic Section, Western Area Branch, Chart Research Division, ACIC, December 1965.

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After the war, having come to realize that the advancement of his science requiredthe kind of support that only the United States could aVord, Heiskanen had begunseeking an American home.62 In March 1949, in a laudatory remembrance of therecently deceased geodesist William Bowie, Heiskanen paid tribute to the US Coastand Geodetic Survey. This large and well-established organization, he said, did notlimit its sights to practical results, but tried ‘to draw conclusions of a purely scienti� ccharacter’ and gave its staV ‘time for such purposes’.63 Heiskanen’s analysis ofAmerican scienti� c policy was largely wishful thinking. While the Survey had alwayssupported some excellent science, much of its work was immediately practical.

Heiskanen arrived at OSU in August 1950, ready to devote his considerabletalent and energy to geodesy in general, and the gravimetric method in particular.His � rst and arguably most important step was to establish an academic programmein geodesy, the � rst such in the Western Hemisphere, under the umbrella of the oV-campus Institute for Geodesy, Photogrammetry , and Cartography.64 This pro-gramme would play a major role in American geodesy for the next � fty years. Mostof its students were aYliated with the Armed Forces, and most were sent there bytheir services. William Kaula, then with the Army Engineers, received the � rstgraduate degree, in 1953. Clair Ewing, a Colonel in the Air Force, received the � rstPhD, in 1955, and went on to become Director of Range Development at the AirForce Missile Test Center.65 Soon after the launch of Sputnik in October 1957,managers at the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) worked withthe Institute to establish an intensive programme to produce ‘a nucleus of academic-ally-trained geodesists’ who would be able to contribute to the ‘program needs inthe � eld of missile support’. Fifty Air Force students attended OSU in 1958–59: � vewere on active duty, and forty-� ve were civilians employees from ACIC. Anothernineteen ACIC employees attended OSU in 1959–60. About half of these earnedmaster’s degrees in geodesy or photogrammetry , and some eventually earned doctor-ates, either from OSU or from other universities.66

Although Heiskanen might have favoured a disinterested pursuit of truth, hesoon learned that military patrons favoured research with practical applications.Thus he promoted the World Geodetic System. Indeed, he may even have coinedthe term. In early November 1950, when the Institute for Geodesy, Photogrammetry ,and Cartography hosted a meeting of the RDB Panel on Cartography and Geodesy,Heiskanen touted a WGS as ‘the ideal, the end goal of all geodetic study’. Unlikenational or other local datums, a WGS would enable one to compute the geodeticcoordinates of any point in the world where astronomical observations exist orwhich is plotted on a local map with a reliable grid. It would also enable one to

62 ‘Proposal for Relocation of the Isostatic Institute of the International Association of Geodesy’ andsupporting documentation from 1949, in NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 173, folder 13.

63 W.A. Heiskanen, ‘William Bowie as an Isostasist and a Man’, Transactions of the AmericanGeophysical Union, 30 (1949), 629–35.

64 H.E. Landsberg to H.L. Bevis, 13 October 1950, and Announcing the Establishment of The Instituteof Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography (Columbus, OH, 1951), NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box456, folder 6. C.E. Ewing, ‘Training Ground for Surveyors and Mappers’, Bulletin Geodesique, 40(1956), 57–61.

65 C.E. Ewing, ‘The Parallel Radius Method of Solving the Inverse Shoran Problem’ (unpublisheddoctoral thesis, OSU, 1955) . C.E. Ewing, ‘Research and Development in the Field of Geodetic Science’,USAF Surveys in Geophysics, no. 124 (August 1960). C.E. Ewing and M.M. Mitchell, Introduction toGeodesy (New York: American Elsevier, 1970) .

66 ACIC History, July–Dec. 1958, p. 38. C.H. Frey, in Geodesy in the Space Age (Columbus, OH,1961), pp. 7–8.

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compute the distances and directions between any points in the world.67 Also,because he was primarily interested in gravity, Heiskanen argued, repeatedly, thatgravimetry oVered the best method for creating a WGS. Indeed, he even went sofar as to describe a WGS as a World Gravimetric System.68

In the winter of 1950–51, Harding drafted a proposal asking the Air Force forUS$150,000 a year for three years, so that Heiskanen and an international team ofgeodesists could collect and analyse gravity data from around the world. Becausethis project was so broad and so expensive, the RDB deliberated long and hard.The Army Engineers argued that the OSU proposal was ‘more applicable to a longrange scienti� c approach than to urgent military needs’. Moreover, it entirely over-looked the AMS programme that had been underway for several years, and thatwould soon produce the ‘common world datum on a new spheroid’ that would be‘entirely adequate for guided missiles and all military purposes’.69 Floyd Houghwrote to Harding, saying essentially the same thing: ‘I wish, George, that I could atthis point give you my unquali� ed support of your proposal for I recognize the highquality of scienti� c talent which has been responsible for its formulation. However,I cannot escape the feeling that these gentlemen are giving altogether too muchemphasis to the importance of one phase of geodesy in which they are primarilyinterested, and that they are largely overlooking the potentialities of direct measure-ments already available to us in the existence of extensive triangulation arcs through-out the world, as a result of enormous survey eVorts by geodesists over the pasttwo centuries.’70

The Coast and Geodetic Survey acknowledged ‘the basic soundness of usinggravity data in the solution of geodetic problems’, but argued against the OSUproposal. In particular, the Survey noted that it had led the American eVort to obtainand analyse gravity observations and that, if substantial funds were to be allocatedfor this purpose, Survey scientists were eager and able to do the job.71 Walter Lambert,however, now retired from the Survey and serving as a consultant to OSU, arguedfor the proposal, pointing out that the International Union of Geodesy andGeophysics had passed a resolution that ‘Records with great satisfaction the establish-ment of the program of research’ at OSU ‘and strongly approves its objectives’.72

67 W.A. Heiskanen, ‘On the World Geodetic System’, Publications of the Isostatic Institute 26 (1951);this also appeared as Publication no. 1 of the Institute for Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography.See also ‘Suggested Program, Technical Papers, Afternoon, November 3, 1950’, NARA, RG 330, entry341, box 456, folder 6.

68 W.A. Heiskanen, World Gravity Needs for Geodetic Purposes (Columbus, OH, 1950), TechnicalPublication no. 118 of the Mapping and Charting Research Laboratory. In a second paper—The GeodeticSigni� cance of World Wide Gravity Studies (Columbus, OH, 1950) , Technical Paper no. 124 of theMapping and Charting Research Laboratory—Heiskanen added � esh to his outline, and acknowledgedhis debt to the Dutch geodesist, Vening Meinesz, J. de Graaf Hunter, former director of the GeodeticBranch of the Indian Geodetic Survey, and the Russian geodesist, I. Kasansky. He also noted that WalterD. Lambert, the ‘grand old man’ of American geodesy, had raised the issue in 1947, as had W.O. Byrdat OSU.

69 J. Ladd to Chief of Engineers, 8 January 1950, in NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3, folder 914. Seealso J.A. O’Keefe to Chief, Geodetic Division, AMS, 6 March 1952, in the same folder, which arguedthat it was premature to spend ‘a major fraction of one million dollars’ on the gravity project.

70 F.W. Hough to G. Harding, 31 December 1950, carbon copy in NARA, RG 77, box 2/3, folder 914.71 W.O. Byrd, ‘Comments on the letter of February 27, 1951, addressed to Mr. Robert R. Randall,

Bureau of the Budget, by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, concerning the Proposed Gravity Programof the Mapping and Charting Research Laboratory, Ohio State University Research Foundation’,22 August 1951, NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 457, folder 6.

72 W.D. Lambert to P. Kissam, 17 October 1951, in NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 457, folder 6.The resolution appears in Bulletin Geodesique, 22 (1951), 495.

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Further support for the OSU proposal came from a Russian article describing thevarious gravimetric programmes in the Soviet Union.73

In the end, the RDB appreciated the scienti� c value of the OSU proposal but,with the guided missile programme in mind, as well as a general retrenchment offederal spending, decided that the National Military Establishment should supportonly those phases ‘which relate to the procurement, analysis, and processing ofgravity data necessary for the determination of de� ections of the vertical at stationsin the USSR east of the line Leningrad–Moscow–Stalingrad’. Thus, Harding wasasked to submit a new proposal, this one calling for ‘the reduction to a speci� edellipsoid of points in the USSR for which only astronomical position data isknown’.74 He apparently did so and, in March 1952, the Air Force CambridgeResearch Center signed a contract with OSU calling for research directed towardthe ‘Application of Gravity Data to the Determination of the Geoid in Eurasia’,with funding at about US$65,000 per year.75

In September 1952, the Air Force Cambridge Research Center issued a classi� edreport on ‘Geodesy and Gravimetry’, explaining the rationale for programmes inthis area. Since the earth’s shape can be determined from gravity measurementsalone and the earth’s size can be determined by triangulation, gravity measurementsplus triangulation should yield a determination of the exact size and shape of theearth. Then, if the undulations of the geoid were computed using a suitable ellipsoidof reference, the geodetic position of any point whose astronomical coordinates areknown could be computed in reference to any other point. The � rst step of thisproject would be ‘a worldwide gravity program of reasonable extent’, conducted incooperation with civilian institutions and other agencies of the Department ofDefense. The report concluded by saying that the Center ‘holds a contract whichcould serve as a basis for such a project’.76 Extensions and expansions of this originalcontract enabled Heiskanen and his team to cast their eyes over the entire earth.

With money in hand, Heiskanen set about constructing the so-called ColumbusGeoid, using gravimetric rather than astrogeodetic observations. Much of the actualwork on this project was done by U.A. Uotila, a native of Finland who had receivedan MSc in geodesy and surveying from the Finnish Technical Institute in 1949 andwho followed Heiskanen to Ohio soon thereafter. Uotila would later earn a PhD,writing a dissertation on ‘Investigations on the Gravity Field and Shape of theEarth’, and join the OSU faculty.77

Military funds also enabled Heiskanen and his colleagues to purchase surveyinginstruments, desk-top calculators, cartographic plotters, and a Worden gravimeter(this cost US$8,100 in 1953). Kaula used the gravimeter to determine the gravity at

73 M.S. Molodenskiy and V.V. Fedynskiy, ‘Thirty Years of Soviet Gravimetry’, Reports of the Academic[sic] of Sciences, USSR, Serie Geographic and Geodesic, 11, no. 5 (1947); Engl. trans. prepared by theRDB Technical Intelligence Branch, NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 457, folder 6.

74 N.A. Haskell to C.H. Harding, 10 August 1951, copy sent to F.W. Hough in NARA, RG 77,AMS, box 2/3, folder 914.

75 For relevant RDB documents see NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 389, folder 34. See also ‘ExtractReport of Working Group on Utilization of World Gravity Data’, NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3,folder 914.

76 R.J. Ford, ‘Geodesy and Gravimetry, Preliminary Report’, Air Force Surveys in Geophysics, no. 11(September 1952), especially pp. 7–8; ‘Geodesy and Gravimetry’, Air Force Surveys in Geophysics, no. 22(December 1952).

77 W.A. Heiskanen, ‘The Columbus Geoid’, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 38(1957), 841–48. U.A. Uotila, ‘Determination of the Shape of the Geoid’, in Size and Shape of the Earth,ed. by W.A. Heiskanen (Columbus, OH, 1957), pp. 90–97.

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some 170 points in the neighbourhood of Columbus; Uotila extended this workthroughout the state. The resultant publication, Gravity Survey of the State of Ohio(1956) presented a detailed analysis of the gravimeter, as well as a gravity mapshowing both free-air and Bouguer anomalies.78

Throughout the 1950s, Heiskanen continued to make the case for gravimetricgeodesy through symposia, textbooks, and numerous popular and scholarlyarticles.79 He also used the press to his advantage. One newspaper described ‘Aseven-year research study based on hundreds of thousands of gravity measurementsthroughout the world [that] is leading for the � rst time to accurate mapping of thebumps and dips of the earth’s surface’. This study was led by Heiskanen, a ‘world-renowned Finnish scientist’, and it had cost the Air Force US$464,576. When thisarticle came to the attention of the Army Assistant Chief of StaV for Intelligence,the geodesists at the AMS explained that the OSU gravity project was ‘a valuablecontribution to geodesy’, but warned that ‘allowances must be made for the enthusi-asm of Dr. Heiskanen as to the accuracy, dependability, and inexpensiveness of thegravity methods’.80

The oV-campus Institute for Geodesy, Photogrammetry, and Cartographybecame the on-campus Department of Geodetic Science in 1961. A brochure pre-pared at that time explained that, in the era of aviation, rockets, and arti� cialsatellites, ‘the assumption that the earth is an ellipsoid of revolution is no longersuYcient as the reference surface for geodetic computations. One must know thedetailed shape of the sea level, or geoid, to be able to connect diVerent countriesand continents to the same World Geodetic System’. Also since the geoid ‘dependson the irregular distribution of visible and invisible masses of matter near the earth’ssurface’, it ‘must be determined by observations, point by point’. The brochure wenton to say that the major research project of the OSU programme involved collectinggravity data from around the world and converting gravity anomalies to a WorldGravimetric System. Other studies pertained to methods for reducing gravity meas-urements to sea-level values, methods for the extrapolation of gravity anomalies tounsurveyed areas, performance of isostatic reductions on a worldwide scale, com-putation of geoid undulations and vertical de� ections, the derivation of gravityformulae, gravitational equipotential surfaces of the earth at diVerent elevations,formulae for fast interpolation of irregularities in equipotential surfaces and gravity� elds, the normal and disturbed gravity � elds of the earth, gravity � eld computationsutilizing high-speed computers, gravity anomalies expressed in spherical harmonicform, and geoid undulation and vertical de� ection values at sea level and at highelevations.81

4. Aeronautical Chart and Information CenterThe US Army Air Corps established a Map-Chart Section in Washington, DC

in 1940. Later known as the Aeronautical Chart and Information Service (ACIS),this organization became the ACIC in the summer of 1952, and its headquarters

78 W.A. Heiskanen and U.A. Uotila, Gravity Survey of the State of Ohio (Columbus, OH, 1956).79 W.A. Heiskanen, ‘Symposium on Geophysics and Geophysical Geodesy’, Bulletin Geodesique, 31

(1954), 67–84. W.A. Heiskanen (ed.), New Era of Geodesy (Columbus, OH, 1961) . W.A. Heiskanen(ed.), Size and Shape of the Earth (Columbus, OH, 1956).

80 F.O. Diercks to Assistant Chief of StaV, Intelligence, 26 June 1958, concerning analysis of newspaperarticle, ‘Scientists Use Gravity For Earth Measurement’, in NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3, folder 914.

81 Geodetic Science at Ohio State [1961] , OSU brochure, pp. 22–23.

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were relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where the Aeronautical Chart Plant had beenestablished in 1943. Whatever its name, this organization enjoyed close ties with thecartographic and geodetic programmes supported by other Air Force oYces. ACICbecame part of the Defense Mapping Agency in 1972, and was renamed the DefenseMapping Agency Aerospace Center; it became part of NIMA in 1996.

During the immediate post-war period, the Army Air Force was more concernedwith long-range bombers and target maps than with guided missiles and geodeticconstructs. In early 1951, for instance, ACIS recommended that the Air MaterielCommand (the umbrella organization for ACIS and for the above-mentionedMapping and Charting Branch) renew their contract for the apparently secret‘Project 379’ with the Mapping and Charting Research Laboratory of OSU. Project379 seems to have pertained, primarily, to N.T. BobrovnikoV ’s work on cities ofthe USSR and his guidebook of Russian geography.82

As America’s guided missile programme took on steam, ACIS/ACIC developeda strong geodetic capability. This capability would grow in 1954, when the US AirForce (as it had become in the summer of 1947) was given responsibility forAmerica’s major missile programmes. That growth would accelerate in early 1956,when ICBM and IRBM research and development programmes were accordedhighest national priority. Donald A. Quarles became the � rst Assistant Secretary ofDefense for Research and Development on 1 October 1953, and within a month heasked Paul A. Smith, a Commander in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, to conducta study of ‘Military Geodetic Research Needs’. Although I have not been able to� nd a copy of this study, I have no doubt that it supported an enhanced researchagenda in this � eld. Also, there is no doubt that Quarles continued to supportgeodetic research after becoming Secretary of the Air Force in August 1955, or thatsubsequent Secretaries followed his lead.83

As part of this eVort, the Air Force sponsored numerous meetings in whichgeodesists from the several military services could talk with one another, as well aswith the missile planners who needed their results. In January 1957, for instance,the Air Force Directorate of Intelligence sponsored a symposium on ‘Geodesy andits Relation to the Air Target Materials Program’.84 Owen W. Williams, then ofACIC, chaired the � nal session, and in December 1958, having moved to theGeophysics Research Directorate of the Air Force Cambridge ResearchLaboratories, Williams organized a military geodesy seminar. That seminar wouldlater be described as ‘a platform for the state-of-the-ar t exchange among DODorganizations conducting geodesy and gravity research’, and it led to ‘an establishedannual convocation of all military geodetic, cartographic and air targeting materialsgroups’. Williams organized the � rst Department of Defense Conference on satellitegeodesy, in 1960.85

82 Classi� ed Supplement to the Aeronautical Chart Service History, Jan.–June 1951, p. 72. See also Listof Technical Papers Issued by the Mapping and Charting Research Laboratory , July 1947–May 1959.

83 D.A. Quarles to Rear Admiral R.F.A. Studds, Director, USC&GS, 22 October 1953, and D.A.Quarles to Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaV, re‘Study of Military Geodetic Research Needs’, NARA, RG 330, entry 341, box 456. folder 6. The studyis also mentioned in a memo from F.W. Hough in NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3, folder 908. ForQuarles, see http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/quarles_da.htm and for Smith, see http://www.history.noaa.gov/bios/cgs/bios13.htm

84 Agenda for ‘Geodesy and its Relation to the Air Target Materials Program’, in NARA, RG 77,AMS, box 213, folder 908.

85 Williams’ nomination for a USAF Meritorious Civilian Service Award, in Williams folder, HistoryOYce, Geophysics Directorate, Hanscom Air Force Base.

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ACIC managers and scientists attended these geodetic conferences on a regularbasis, served on geodetic committees, and held brie� ngs for Air Force headquartersand then for top decision-makers in the Pentagon. They were aware of geodeticconcerns of the National Military Establishment, and they made sure that ACICplayed an important role in the establishment of the national geodetic agenda.86

ACIC’s � rst major geodetic project was an expedition to Africa to observe thesolar eclipse of 25 February 1952. ‘Our object’, said Colonel Paul C. Schauer, thecommanding oYcer of ACIS and the leader of the expedition ‘is to obtain informa-tion of immediate practical value and of future scienti� c utility.’ In fact, the mainpurpose of this exercise was to test equipment that might be used for eclipses visibleon two sides of an ocean, and thus provide better measurements of intercontinentaldistances. Schauer’s report on this work was accepted as a dissertation for a Masterof Science degree in astronomy at Georgetown University.87

Pleased with the results of the 1952 eclipse, the Air Force planned to observethe solar eclipse that would occur on 30 June 1954, that would be visible fromWisconsin through Labrador to Norway and Sweden, and on to Russia and India,and that would provide yet one more geodetic link between Europe and NorthAmerica. Observers would come from ACIC, OSU, and other institutions. Whenthe Research and Development Board asked the Army Engineers to vet this proposal,they were told that the Army Map Service had been ‘very active in the procurementof intercontinental connections’ by various means, and thus the investment of their‘funds and skilled manpower’ into this project would be ‘unwarranted for geodeticpurposes’. In the end, however, the Research and Development Board believed thatthis project, if successful, would ‘contribute to a better determination of the ellipsoid’,and authorized the requisite funds for the Air Force geodesists.88

ACIC was assigned ‘the precise geodetic data program’ on 4 March 1954. StaVwere immediately dispatched to the three factories manufacturing ‘pilotless aircraft’in order to understand their geodetic requirements, and to prepare the � rst draft ofa report on ‘Geodetic Data Requirements for Air Force Weapons Systems’.89 On1 April 1955, ACIC released a study of ‘positional information needs’ on 150 selectpoints on the Eurasian continent. This study concluded that the Air Force neededto determine the relationship between the major geodetic datums, to obtain betteraerial photographs and maps of the areas in question, and to obtain informationabout gravity and gravity anomalies ‘which aVect the size and shape of the earthand which have an undetermined eVect on guidance systems’. This project led to a‘comprehensive study’ of Air Force geodetic requirements for the next twenty years.90

Responsibility for the WGS aspect of this programme devolved on Bela Szabo,

86 Wells HuV, ‘The Decades of DMAAC’, The Orientor (1993) , the in-house newsletter of the DefenseMapping Agency Aeronautical Center. The semi-annual histories are available, on micro� lm, at the AirForce History OYce Library, Bolling Air Force Base.

87 ACIS Press Release, ‘USAF Expedition in Jungle and Desert to Seek Earth Secrets ThroughEclipse’, 20 February 1952. ACIS History, July–Dec. 1951, pp. 62–68. P.C. Schrauer, ‘Determination ofGeodetic Positions and Distances by Means of Solar Eclipse’, ACIS Technical Report RL-ACIS-1, 1952.Minutes of ‘Eclipse Conference’ held at the Pentagon on 6 April 1951, in NARA, RG 456-91-3079 , box4/4, folder ‘Conference Report 1953’.

88 J.G. Ladd to Chairman, Research & Development Board, 10 April 1953, and undated reply fromW.G. Whitman, in NARA, RG 330, entry 431, box 456, folder 6.

89 ACIC History, Jan.–June 1954, pp. 21–22, 68. ACIC History, July–Dec. 1954, p. 16. The � nalreport, dated 19 November 1953, has not been found.

90 Classi� ed Supplement to History of ACIC, Jan.–June 1955, p. 9. Classi� ed Supplement to History ofACIC, July–Dec. 1955, p. 16. The report itself has not been found.

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a geodesist who had been born in Hungary and educated at the University ofBudapest, and who had served as Chief of the Geodetic Computation OYce of theFrench Army Map Service, in Germany, in the immediate post-war period. Szabothen spent a short while with the AMS before joining the Washington oYce ofACIC in 1954. In 1957, when the ACIC geodetic oYce moved to St. Louis, Szaboacquired two assistants. Robert W. Ballew had studied at Washington University inSt. Louis and served in the Navy. Charles F. Martin had earned a BA in mathematicsfrom Lincoln University, the historically black college in JeVerson City, Missouri.91Both men would later earn advanced degrees at Air Force expense.

The � rst Air Force WGS was put into ‘operational use’ in early March 1958,but was apparently never published.92 A revised version, incorporating informationabout the � attening of the earth derived from satellite observations, was issued asACIC Technical Report no. 82 in July 1959.93 It was probably declassi� ed in theearly 1990s, but I have yet to � nd a copy.

While the results of the Air Force WGS were Secret, the outlines of the projectwere not. Szabo had discussed the project in November 1956, at an OSU symposiumon ‘The Size and Shape of the Earth’, relating it to ‘long-range navigation andguidance systems’. The result, he said, would be earth centred. That is, the geometriccentre of the ellipsoid would be located at the centre of mass of the earth, and itsreference frame would be tied to the prime meridian. Although the task of convertingexisting geodetic data to an earth-centred system involved a substantial initial eVort,it would produce a system that ‘will require less information and result in higheraccuracy’.94

Charles H. Frey, Szabo’s colleague at ACIC, discussed the WGS at the 1961meeting of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. After stating thatthe purpose of this project was ‘to relate the launch sites and targets for intercontin-ental weapons’, Frey went on to explain that the programme ‘was designed toconvert, by the gravimetric method, the origins (or equivalent points) of the NorthAmerican, European, and Tokyo Datums to the Hough ellipsoid oriented so thatits center coincides with the earth’s center of gravity’. Thus, ‘Any point known interms of any one of these datums could then be converted into the new earth-centredsystem.’95

Szabo discussed the project at the twelfth meeting of the International Union ofGeodesy and Geophysics in 1962. After stating that the ‘rapid advance of space andmilitary technology has imposed exacting demands on geodetic science’, he explainedthat the ACIC team had been using the gravimetric method to consolidate the majorgeodetic datums into one ‘ideal’ earth-centred system. This involved placing theseveral national geodetic systems on to the reference ellipsoid, determining thedimensions of the reference ellipsoid, and establishing the values for the geoid heights

91 Telephone conversations with R. Ballew (19 November 1999) and K.I. Daugherty (23 November1999).

92 ACIC History, Jan.–June 1958, p, 39; B. Szabo, The Department of Defense World Geodetic System(1960) (April 1960) , p. 1; R. Burkhard, Geodesy for the Layman (St. Louis: US Aeronautical Chart andInformation Center, 1962), p. 61.

93 B. Szabo, ‘United States Air Force World Geodetic System’, ACIC Technical Report 82, July 1959,and Supplement, October 1959.

94 B. Szabo, ‘The Signi� cance of the World Geodetic Datum to Long-Range Navigation and GuidanceSystems’, in Size and Shape of the Earth (Columbus, OH, 1956) , pp. 99–102.

95 C.H. Frey, ‘USAF Applications of Gravity Data’, paper presented at annual meeting of AmericanCongress on Surveying and Mapping, 1961; copy at NIMA Library in St. Louis. See also Frey’s commentsin Geodesy in the Space Age (Columbus, OH, 1961), p. 7.

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and de� ections of the vertical at the initial points of the several geodetic systems.Szabo also noted that the computation of gravimetric data for some 30 � rst orderastronomical stations had been done, on contract, by geodesists at OSU.96

5. Department of Defense WGS 60The Air Force and the Army WGSs diVered from one another in several ways.

As mentioned above, the ACIC System was earth centred, while the AMS Systemwas not. Moreover, the geodesists at ACIC used the mean of the diVerences betweenthe gravimetric and astrogeodetic de� ections and geoid heights at speci� c stationsin the major datums to determine the orientation of the gravimetric datum, whilethose at the AMS minimized the diVerence between astrogeodetic and gravimetricgeoids. These diVerences came to light at the � rst Seminar on Military Geodesy,which was held at the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in December 1958.Irene Fischer opened the discussion by explaining why geoidal heights gave a betterworld datum than did de� ections of the vertical. In her words, ‘geoidal heights varyonly gradually from place to place, while de� ections are much more in� uenced bylocal irregularities and may vary rapidly in an unpredicted way.’97 Kaula thendetailed the several important features of the AMS WGS: the ellipsoid parameters,geoidal heights, datum connections, and the statistical and harmonic techniquesused in the development. William L. Berry, of the Air Force Directorate of Targets,made the case for the ACIC System. He noted that Air Force Headquarters hadassigned this project ‘as a necessary input to the publication of special target materialsrequired for operation of the intermediate and long-range missiles now coming intothe weapons arsenal’. Because inertial guidance systems depended on the directionof the actual gravity acceleration, he said, the Air Force needed geodetic dataexpressed in terms of an earth-centred ellipsoid—and could not use the eccentricworld geodetic datum associated with the AMS ellipsoid. By implication, the AirForce was more concerned with orientation than with accuracy.98

In the ensuing discussion, Major Parker of the Strategic Air Command expresseda ‘strong feeling’ that the Air Force and the Army ‘should resolve their diVerencesin approach suYciently to agree on a single geodetic system for use by theDepartment of Defense’.99 While there seems to have been general agreement onthe goal, the method of resolution was far from clear. In his report on the Seminar,Kaula noted that ‘The AMS and ACIC World Geodetic Systems diVer from eachother by about 50 meters for the diVerence in location of the North American andEuropean Datums.’ Moreover, ‘the AMS system is based on more material, andagrees better with the North Atlantic HIRAN tie (about 200 meters discrepancy).’100

Since each organization believed in its approach, and neither was willing tochange, the Pentagon forced a compromise. Thus, on 6 October 1959, Fischer and

96 B. Szabo, ‘Application of the Gravimetric Method for a World Geodetic System’, BulletinGeodesique, 65 (September 1962), 221–27; ‘Comparison of the De� ection of the Vertical ComponentsComputed by Astro-Geodetic, Gravimetric and Topographic-Isostatic Techniques’, pp. 227–37.

97 I. Fischer, ‘The World Geodetic System’, in Proceedings of Military Geodesy Seminar, December1958, pp. 33–44.

98 W.L. Berry, ‘The United States Air Force World Geodetic System’, in Proceedings of MilitaryGeodesy Seminar, December 1958, pp. 51–68.

99 ‘Synopsis of Open Discussion of Military Geodetic Systems’, in Proceedings of Military GeodesySeminar, December 1958, p. 73.

100 W. Kaula, ‘Report on Seminar on Military Geodesy, ARCRC, Dec. 1958’, NARA, RG 77, AMS,box 2/3, folder no. 908/2, ‘Guided Missiles, 1955–1958’.

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Kaula of the AMS, Frey and Szabo of ACIC, and U.R. Ullom of the NavyHydrographic OYce, hammered out an agreement for a Department of DefenseWGS that would become eVective January 1960. According to Kaula’s report ofthat meeting, the new WGS ‘will be the arithmetic mean of the 1959 solutions byAMS and ACIC, rounded oV to the nearest meter for datum shifts; to the nearest5 meters for ellipsoid radius; and to the nearest milligal for equatorial gravity.’101Fischer was disgusted. In her words, ‘the Air Force managed to get into the act atthe 1958 Conference on Military Geodesy, and the WGS-60 was decreed to be amean between their and our proposals. Naturally, we had felt that our product wasbetter—as future developments con� rmed; but that had been the beginning of‘‘political geodesy’’.’102

‘The Department of Defense World Geodetic System (1960)’, as the result ofthis compromise was known, was published in April 1960 as ACIC Technical Reportno. 82 (Revised). It included a newly derived equatorial radius, a theoretical gravityformula with respect to an ellipsoid � attening of 1/298.3, gravimetrically computedde� ections of the vertical components and geoid heights, de� ection and geoid heightdiVerences, positional errors, radial spherical errors, relative spherical errors, conver-sion constants for rectangular space coordinates, datum transformation formulae,geodetic coordinates, and positional relationships between the major datums. Unlikesubsequent World Geodetic Systems, WGS 1960 did not have an earth gravitationalmodel. WGS 1960 was originally classi� ed Secret, but was downgraded toCon� dential in 1970 and declassi� ed in 1993.103

6. World Geodetic Systems and CoronaNews of the � rst successful Corona recovery of an object from space on 12 August

1960 appeared in the public press, but nothing was said about the recovery of imagestaken by a Corona satellite six days later. Indeed, the � rst public acknowledgmentof America’s � rst photoreconnaissanc e satellite programme came in February 1995,when President Clinton signed an Executive Order authorizing the declassi� cationand public release of Corona imagery up to 1972, and the National ReconnaissanceOYce transferred a Corona camera and related artefacts to the SmithsonianInstitution.

Popular accounts of Corona tend to focus on its imagery, especially that per-taining to the supposed ‘missile gap’ between the US and the USSR, and only referin passing to its contributions to cartography. However, as the historian John Cloudhas pointed out, ‘the intellectual exercise of identifying a Soviet missile site pales incomparison to the exercise of determining the missile site’s position in the vastEurasian landmass.’104 The centre of this geo-referencing work was ACIC. Whilethe full story of this global geo-referencing has yet to be told, some aspects haverecently come into the open.

101 W. Kaula, ‘Memorandum for the Record’, 6 October 1959, NARA, RG 77, AMS, box 2/3,folder 920.

102 I. Fischer, ‘Autobiography’ (note 15), p. 214.103 ‘The Department of Defense World Geodetic System (1960)’, Aeronautical Chart and Information

Center Technical Report 82, revised April 1960. This report may also have been available, to those withclearances, as Army Map Service Technical Report 60. The basic results appeared � rst in ‘US Army WorldGeodetic System 1959. Part 2: Results’, Army Map Service Technical Report 28, January 1960, p. 64.

104 J.C. Cloud and K.C. Clarke, ‘Through a Shutter Darkly: The Tangled Relationships betweenCivilian, Military and Intelligence Remote Sensing in the Early American Space Program’, paper for theWorkshop on Secrecy and Knowledge Production, sponsored by the Peace Studies Program, CornellUniversity, p. 8.

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ACIC leaders learned about the project that would become Corona sometime inthe second half of 1955, when they were briefed on design proposals for what wasthen termed the ‘Advanced Reconnaissance System’.105 Two years later, at a brie� ngon plans for the data reduction phase of Project 117L (as the system was thenknown), ACIC argued that it should be the ‘primary intelligence center’ for data ofthis sort.106 Thomas Finnie of ACIC and Arthur Lundahl of the Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) developed this idea into a formal proposal and, with the help ofAllen Eldridge, saw it win approval by the Director of Air Force Intelligence andthen by higher oYcials. This led to Project Shoe Lace, a Special Activity ‘related tothe application of geodetic, photogrammetric and cartographic sciences for theaccurate location of ICBM/IRBM targets on the Eurasian landmass; and the pre-paration of supporting graphic air target materials and navigation and planningcharts required by the United States Air Force’. Project Shoe Lace was funded atsome US$3.5 million a year, authorized to build a staV of about 275 persons, andgiven ‘Special Access’ to reconnaissance intelligence. It ran from 1 April 1958through 20 December 1967, and was followed by Project Sentinel Lace, which lasteduntil January 1972.107

William C. Mahoney, the leader of Project Shoe Lace, was a photogrammetristwho had received an MSc from OSU in 1955 and a PhD in 1961, and who was anearly champion of analytical as opposed to analogue photogrammetry . Speaking atthe 1995 Corona symposium, Mahoney explained that although U-2 and Coronawere designed to ‘detect and catalogue’ missile targets, the geodetic control neededto tie these targets to a worldwide geodetic system was ‘practically non-existent’.Indeed, available cartographic and geodetic resources limited American ability topinpoint Sino-Russian targets with at best a 2–3 mile degree of accuracy, and, forsome parts of Russia, it was possible to make errors of up to 30 miles. To addressthis problem, low-resolution index cameras were placed on some of the reconnais-sance satellites. One series, developed at Mahoney’s request, was the so-called KH-4.These used very small index cameras (1 inch focal length in the early missions; 3inch focal length in later missions) that � tted in with, and did not compromise, thepanoramic cameras required for intelligence work. Another series, developed for theArmy Engineers, was the so-called Argon or KH-5. These used substantially largercameras, leaving no room in the satellite for the panoramic cameras. The success ofthese systems enabled Project Shoe Lace to exceed expectations. The original goalof Project Shoe Lace, to be achieved by 1970, was a CEP (50%) of 600 ft ( launchto target) , and a circular error (90%) (that is, of 90% probability) of 1000 ft, bothwith respect to WGS. By May 1965, however, the ACIC team was were boasting acircular error (90%) of 450 ft, and a linear error (90%) of 300 ft. This was, of course,geodetic accuracy, and independent of the accuracy of any guidance system.108

105 Classi� ed Supplement to History of the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, July–Dec.1955, p. 14.

106 Classi� ed Supplement to History of the HQ Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, July–Dec.1957, p. 4.

107 Classi� ed History of the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, 1 July 1970–30 June 1971,p. 138. There is a copy in the Public AVairs OYce of DMAAC/NIMA, in St. Louis. Details are said tobe reported in the ‘Supplemental History of the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center’, one copyof which was sent to the Special Activity � les of ACIC, and the other to Headquarters, USAF. Also,telephone conversation with T. Finnie, 7 August 2000.

108 See Mahoney’s comments in D.A. Day, J.M. Logsdon, and B. Lattell (eds), Eye in the Sky. TheStory of the Corona Spy Satellites (Washington, DC, 1998), pp. 201–08. This is a revision of Mahoney’scomments at the symposium, ‘Piercing the Curtain. Corona and the Revolution in Intelligence’, on23–24 May 1995.

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Robert Ballew, the key man on the geodetic side of Project Shoe Lace, hadworked on the � rst USAF WGS. He was then sent to study geodesy at OSU(although he completed the work for an MS, he could not receive the degree as hehad not earned a BS), and to Purdue University in the late 1960s for a PhD inanalytical photogrammetry. According to Ballew, Project Shoe Lace had two sides,photogrammetry and geodesy, and there was a ‘locked door’ between the two. Histask was to be to champion the integration of these two subjects. The CIA, he said,was satis� ed with a ‘pretty picture’, and did not appreciate the contributions ofgeodesy to precise positioning.109

7. Subsequent World Geodetic SystemsEven as the early WGSs were being developed, military planners were becoming

aware of the need for an expanded geodetic eVort. In January 1962, Colonel RobertHerndon, USAF, was named Deputy Assistant Chief of StaV of the newly formedDefense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and charged with writing the plans for intelli-gence activities related to mapping, charting, and geodesy. The following year,Herndon became Assistant Director of DIA for Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy.Herndon had previously served as Commander of ACIC, and most of the top staVin his Washington oYce (known as DIA/MC ) came from that organization.110

The � rst important task of DIA was to educate decision-makers in the Pentagonand on Capitol Hill about the relationship between geodesy and missile guidance.To this end, they made good use of Geodesy for the Layman, a booklet that � rstappeared in 1959 and that remained in print throughout the Cold War. Afterexplaining that geodesists aimed to provide suYcient geodetic support so that weaponsystems could achieve their strategic or tactical goals, the 1962 edition of thisremarkably intelligent and intelligible publication outlined the work ahead: ‘Acommon scale must be adopted by all countries of the world. New geodetic arcsmust be measured which are very accurately positioned on the reference ellipsoid.A more accurate earth ellipsoid must be determined. Very precise geoid heights andde� ections must be determined on a worldwide basis.’111 The story of Geodesy forthe Layman seems to have begun in 1958 when the Army Assistant Chief of StaV,Intelligence asked representatives of the Army Map Service, the Naval HydrographicOYce, and the Air Force Directorate of Targets, to begin planning a ‘Manual aboutGeodesy for Guided Missiles’.112 The manual was eventually written by CaptainRichard K. Burkhard, a staV oYcer at ACIC who had received an MSc from OSUwith a thesis on ‘Changes in the Formula of Normal Gravity Resulting from Changesin the Reference Ellipsoid of the Earth’.

While DIA/MC lobbied for geodetic funds, geodesists were developing the gravi-metric and other data needed to produce a more accurate WGS, and missile designerswere developing inertial guidance systems to the point where a more accurate WGSwould be needed. In a report prepared in February 1966, the Ballistic Systems

109 In a conversation on 3 August 2000, R. Ballew stated ‘I never wrote anything down. I neverdocumented a thing’.

110 Information from R. Herndon. See also P.N. Mescall, ‘A Creature of Compromise: TheEstablishment of the DIA’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 7 (1994), 251–74.

111 R. Burkhard, Geodesy for the Layman (note 92), p. 63.112 L.Y. Dameron, Jr, ‘Preparation of Joint Manual Geodesy for Missiles’, 22 September 1958, and

W.L. Kaula, ‘Meeting on Manual about Geodesy for Guided Missiles’, 1 October 1958, in NARA, RG77, box 2/3, folder 908.

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Division of AF Systems Command noted, ‘The sophistication of ballistic weaponsystems is such that geodetic, gravitational and mapping factors have become majorconsiderations in system design. These factors are especially important in the mobileconcepts now being investigated. ’113

The federal gravity programme was huge. The Navy’s programme, begun in the1950s, had expanded signi� cantly in the 1960s, when gravimeters suitable for useon surface ships became available. The Army Map Service Far East had gravitysurvey crews in Cambodia and South Korea as early as 1961, and within a few yearsit had some 125 crews going ‘everywhere except behind the Iron Curtain’.114 The1381st Geodetic Survey Squadron of the Air Force made gravity surveys at andaround missile launch sites. Also, the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory(as AFCRC became known in 1960) maintained an active research programme ingeodesy, particularly as ‘inputs for missile guidance systems, directly improving theiraccuracy’.115 Other important geodetic information came from Transit, the NavyNavigation Satellite System.116

Already planning a revision of its � rst WGS, ACIC became the custodian of theAir Force gravity library in January 1960, and was charged with ‘operating, col-lecting, classifying, evaluating, and reducing activities for worldwide gravity dataand the publication of suitable graphics’.117 AMS geodesists were highly critical ofthis decision, fearing that this facility would turn out to be the central Departmentof Defense repository for gravity information, and noting that, since the Navy was‘the principal maker and user of gravity measurements’, the Naval HydrographicOYce should have responsibility for this library.118 But to no avail.

In April 1965, the Air Force admitted that guidance for Minutemen missilesrequired better geodetic and geophysical information than was available in WGS60.119 A secret ‘Joint Service Plan for Development of an Improved World GeodeticSystem’ was then formed, followed by a WGS Implementation Committee. ThisCommittee held its � rst meeting in February 1966 and issued its � nal report inOctober 1967.120 Originally classi� ed Con� dential, ‘The Department of DefenseWorld Geodetic System 1966 (U )’ was declassi� ed in 1993. The � attening of thereference ellipsoid was determined from Doppler and optical satellite data, and the

113 Investigations in the Area of Geodetic, Gravitational, and Mapping Factors in Ballistic WeaponsSystems, prepared by Ballistics Systems Division and Aerospace Corp. for USAF Military GeodesyCoordination Committee Meeting, Orlando AFB, 24–25 February 1966.

114 Army Map Service, South Korea: Report on Gravity Survey, 1961–62 (n.d.); Cambodia: PreliminaryReport on Gravity Survey (n.d.); Malaysia: Army Map Service Far East Gravity Survey of 1963 (n.d.). Seealso conversations with Robert M. ‘Ivy’ Iverson, who helped to organize and equip the AMS gravityprogramme.

115 AFCRL Report on Research for the Period July 1970–June 1972, p. 230, and later years.116 T.A. Stansell, Jr, ‘Transit, the Navy Navigation Satellite System’, Navigation, 18 (1971), 93–109.

B.W. Parkinson, et al., ‘A History of Satellite Navigation’, Navigation, 42 (1995), 109–64.117 C.H. Frey, ‘USAF Applications of Gravity Data’, paper presented at annual meeting of American

Congress on Surveying and Mapping, 1961, copy at NIMA Library in St. Louis.118 J.A. Bernard, ‘Memo for Record’, 2 March 1960, with comments by D.L. Mills, Chief, Deptartment

of Geodesy, in NARA, RG 77, box 2/3, folder 914.119 Investigations in the Area of Geodetic, Gravitational, and Mapping Factors in Ballistic Weapon

Systems, prepared by Ballistics Systems Division and Aerospace Corp. for USAF Military GeodesyCoordination Committee Meeting, Orlando AFB, 24–25 February 1966, argued that ‘The sophisticationof ballistic weapon systems is such that geodetic, gravitational and mapping factors have become majorconsiderations in system design. These factors are especially important in the mobile system conceptscurrently being investigated.’

120 The Joint Service WGS Implementation Committee, ‘The Department of Defense World GeodeticSystem 1966 (U )’, October 1967.

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semimajor axis was determined from Doppler satellite and astrogeodetic data. Theintercontinental distances were said to be better than those of WGS 60, but somelarge errors remained. Robert Ballew of ACIC served as Chair of the WGS 66development committee and led the eVort to complete and implement this system. 121

WGS 72 was issued on 1 January 1974.122 Although the full text remained classi� eduntil 1992, the basic results of the project were presented at an open and internationalsymposium held at Fredericton, New Brunswick (Canada), on 20–25 May 1974.123WGS 72 was produced under the aegis of the Defense Mapping Agency. This organ-ization had been formed in 1972 when ACIC was merged with the Army TopographicCommand (as the AMS had become in 1968), parts of the Naval OceanographicOYce, and the Mapping OYce of DIA. WGS 72 was much more successful than theprevious eVorts, largely because its underlying database was much more complete.This included a great many gravity observations made on land and at sea, as well asmuch-expanded geodetic triangulations and trilaterations. It also included a greatdeal of satellite data, particularly as determined by the BC-4 cameras of the US Coastand Geodetic Survey, the Baker–Nunn cameras operated by the SmithsonianAstrophysical Observatory, the SECOR (sequential collation of range) equatorialnetwork operated by the Army, and the Navy’s Transit satellites.

WGS 84, issued in 1987, was basically a re� nement of WGS 72 based on‘improved data, increased data coverage, new data types and improved tech-niques’.124 Although WGS 84 was essentially an open system, its Earth GravitationalModel and the associated geoid above degree (n) and order (m) 18 were classi� ed.These parameters were declassi� ed in 1990, and an eVort was made to cooperatewith other countries.

8. ConclusionThe WGS was the most ambitious geodetic project of the Cold War. The � rst

Department of Defense WGS, published in 1960, was a heroic but � awed achieve-ment. Each element was problematic, from both technical and theoretical points ofview. However the need for geodetic information of this sort was so great, or so themilitary planners believed, that funds were soon forthcoming, some to supportexpanded geodetic surveys, some to support gravity surveys on land and at sea, andsome to support the mathematicians who would compute, anew, the size and shapeof the earth. These, in turn, led to improved WGSs in 1966, 1972, and 1984.Although the WGS was designed so that Americans could target ballistic missileson distant lands, it ended up providing the geodetic underpinning needed for earth-orbiting satellites, including those used for reconnaissance and those used for globalpositioning, as well as the information needed for lunar and planetary probes.

121 R. Burkhard, Geodesy for the Layman (St. Louis: Defense Mapping Agency, 1983) , p. 72.122 ‘Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1972’: Part 1, ‘Methods, Techniques, and Data

Sources Used in WGS 72 Development’: Part II, ‘Parameters and Graphics for the Practical Applicationof WGS 72’. Both are Technical Reports of the DMA Aerospace Center in St. Louis, and both are dated1 January 1974

123 T.O. Sepplin, ‘The Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1972’, International Symposiumon Problems Related to the Rede� nition of North American Geodetic Networks, 1974, pp. 496–506. Seealso R. Burkhard, Geodesy for the Layman (note 121), pp. 72 and 74.

124 ‘The Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1984’, Defense Mapping Agency TechnicalReport, 1987. ‘Supplement to Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1984’, Defense MappingAgency Technical Report, 1987. ‘Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1984: Its De� nitionand Relationships with Local Geodetic Systems’, 2nd edn, Defense Mapping Agency Final TechnicalReport, 1 September 1991. R. Burkhard, Geodesy for the Layman (note 121) , p. 77.

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