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Precedents to the Development of a National Emergency
In 1919 a young lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army accompanied the Army's first transcontinental motor convoy from Washington, DC to San Francisco, California. Encountering traffic congestion, poor road conditions and narrow passes, the eighty-one vehicles, including nine motorcycles, traveled 3,251 miles in 62 days to test the mobility of the Army under simulated wartime conditions. The often-primitive state of the roads exposed the convoy to what one historian called an endless series of difficulties: "Vehicles stuck in mud or sand; trucks and other equipment crashing through wooden bridges; roads as slippery as ice or the consistency of 'gumbo.'" Later, as President, Dwight Eisenhower recognized the inadequacies of two-lane state roads that meandered indirectly to their destinations and could not handle the weight and size of the military traffic. He worked with Congress to craft legislation that provided a new highway system with adequate federal financing and practical design and engineering. These essential elements have ensured that motorists today can journey unimpeded across vast distances in a relatively short time. Eisenhower noted that without a reliable, dynamic transportation system, the United States would be a mere alliance of many separate parts. Instead, the interstate highway system has united the nation economically, culturally and financially in countless ways. It has, in Ike's words, literally "changed the face of America." (Adapted from Creating The Interstate System by Richard F. Weingroff) Similarly, in the 1970's the nation's leadership became aware of the danger of having a major communications failure within the country if the nation comes under attack, especially a nuclear attack. A priority was placed on maintaining telecommunications in operation among the many national research centers located at major academic institutions. The Defense Advanced Research the Projects Agency (DARPA) was tasked with responding to this need. The Agency responded by developing a multi-modal telecommunications network providing multiple interconnected pathways that would survive the destruction on individual node. The network, termed "DARPA-Net" was later renamed the Internet.
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