ee oe ee ee ee ee ee PART ill, CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 7 SECURITY, CLASSIFICATION, AND PUBLIC INFORMATION PLANNING 7.5 7.1 A series of conferences and the interchange of correspondence between Headquarters, JTF-Seven, and TG 7.5 contributed to the establishment or reaffirmation of basic security policies for Operation HARDTACK. Among these policies were controls for access to EPG; minimum security clearances for military and civilian participants; designation of security areas; strength and deploymentof military guards; security badge system; security briefing media; control of photography; use of couriers; and shipment of test devices and other classified materials and documents between the Mainland and EPG. These subjects, with the exception of the latter one, were formalized in the JTF-Seven SOP series. The shipping instructions are contained in Appendix 1 to Annex C, JTF-Seven Administrative Plan 1-58. 7.2 The minimum clearances for HARDTACK participants at EPG were established as “Confidential” for military personnnel and “L” for AEC Contractor personnel, as of the 1 March 1958 “cut-off” date. This date was later extended to 15 March 1958. 7.3 At the request of AEC, CJTF-Seven made the arrangements necessary to obtain Military Police from units having had previous experience in guarding nuclear weapons storage areas. Due to economic limitations and the inability of the Department of the Army to provide such experienced guard personnel in quantities equivalent to those during Operation REDWING,it was necessary to reduce the number of Military Guards for Operation HARDTACK. The REDWINGtotal of 260 Military Police (252 enlisted men and 8 officers) was reduced to 141 “Top Secret’”-cleared MP’s (133 enlisted men and 8 officers) for HARDTACK. This decrease in force necessitated the elimination of certain “travel control” points and the reduction of the ratio of guards for contingency use. A joint JTF-Seven and AECtraining session was held for several weeks in January, 1958, at Sandia Base to train the Military Police in the fundamentals of the AEC physical security procedures and in the HARDTACKsecurity badge system. 7.4 A detachment of “Top Secret”-cleared Marines wasassigned to TG 7.3, based on the USS BOXER, and detailed te guard shot barges at Bikini Atoll and to provide a military guard for inter-atoll water shipments of test evices. The normal complement of AEC security personnel assigned to the Pacific Operations Division of the Office of Test Operations ALO, was increased to handle the anticipa operational work load, This was accomplished by obtaining personnel from other ALO offices and from the San Francisco Operations Office. For the most part, such personnel were inexperienced in test security problems; and, as the were assigned to the EPG for varying peri of TDY, considerable on-the-job training was required. 7.6 Test devices for the DOD-sponsored underwater and high altitude shots were transported to the EPG via the USS BOXER. By agreement with CJTF-Seven, the Commanding Officer of the USS BOXER was designated an AEC Military Courier by the Manager, ALO, to provide security protection to the nuclear materials enroute to the EPG and to certain items remaining aboard after arrival. Custody of the materials off-loaded from the USS BOXER at EPG was assumed by the AEC SS Materials Accountability Representative (AC/S, E-2. TG 7.5). Accountability for all HARDTACK SS materials was the delegated responsibility of the AEC SS Materials Accountability Representative. 7.7 Arrangements were made with the US Bureau of Customs to identify official bulk mail of TG 7.1 to eliminate customs interception and examination. which were encountered during Operation REDWING. OPERATIONAL PHASE 7.8 In addition to the Category 1 materials brought to-the EPG via the USS BOXER,there was a total of 52 special flights used to transport the bulk of. such materials to the test site. Whenever possible, classified spare test device components were brought back to the Mainland on “sample return’ aircraft, using armed officer couriers operating under the provisions of SOP 205-4. Nine special flights were required to return test devices or components, which, for various reasons, could not be sent on “sample zeturn” aircraft. From a security standpoint, there were no incidents to cause concern. In the early phases of the Operation, some couriers of classified nuclear materials of subordinate exigency were not receiving complete instructions on the Mainland regarding where and to whom to surrender the nuclear materials upon arrival at EPG. That condition was quickly corrected by Headquarters JTF- ee Page 53