Richard A. Ellis Commands Global Shield ’79 Nuclear Exercise Aboard EC-135

SAC commander tests airborne command post survivability two months before EC-135s strand in Suriname coup.

Date: December 1, 1979

SAC Commander General Richard Ellis Oversees Global Shield ’79 Aboard EC-135 Command Post

Details:

This photo, taken during Exercise Global Shield '79, shows Gen. Richard A. Ellis, Commander in Chief of Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC), in the battle staff compartment of a Boeing EC-135 “Looking Glass” aircraft—America’s airborne nuclear command post. Global Shield tested nuclear war readiness, including command survivability and C3I continuity during strategic escalation.

The EC-135 platform, a militarized Boeing 707, was designed to:

  • Function as an airborne National Command Authority (NCA) node
  • Direct retaliatory and theater nuclear strikes if land-based systems were destroyed
  • Maintain secure communication with SSBNs, bombers, and missile silos

This image was taken just two months before two similar EC-135s (A/RIA variants) were stranded in Suriname during the February 1980 Sergeant’s Coup—an event that would trigger an internal U.S. reassessment of:

  • EC-135 basing and exposure
  • Vulnerabilities in the C3I architecture
  • The feasibility of __survivable command in peripheral geopolitical theaters
    __

Significance:

This exercise visually anchors the centrality of EC-135 aircraft in pre-COG strategic doctrine. It highlights the precariousness of America's nuclear command capability—only months before that vulnerability would be catastrophically exposed in a forgotten airstrip in Suriname. The juxtaposition of high-level, real-time command management in Global Shield with the EC-135 trap at Zanderij underscores the profound doctrinal consequences that followed — including PD-58, PD-59, and ultimately the Reagan-era COG/covert fusion seen in NSDD-61.

Source:

“Gen. Richard Ellis, CINCSAC, in Battle Staff Compartment, 1979.” In Wikipedia, May 16, 2025.

Link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boeing_EC-135&oldid=1290626287

Internal Link:

Date:
December 1, 1979
Categories:
Foiled Coups & Plots, Log, Matthew Smith, Nuclear Warfare, The Suriname Archive
Tags:
1980 Suriname Coup, C3I architecture, C3i, EC-135 aircraft, Global Shield 1979, Nuclear Command, PD-58, PD-59, Richard A. Ellis, Strategic Vulnerability, pre-COG strategic doctrine
Boxes:
MW Zotero
Years:
1979
Persons:
Richard A. Ellis
META DATA
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