Construction of the Infiltration Surveillance Center Begins

March 21, 1967

IBM System/360 Model 65 Operator’s console. The Infiltration Surveillance Center (ISC) housed two of

Overview

The United States directs the Air Force to begin construction of the Infiltration Surveillance Center (ISC) at Nakhon Phanom Air Base, in northeastern Thailand. By 1968, the ISC becomes the monitoring location for Project IGLOO WHITE. This project deploys thousands of acoustic and seismic sensors designed to detect vehicles moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia. ISC computers then sift through sensor data and pass it to analysts who assign air strikes against select targets. The ISC also mines sensor data to predict the times and routes of future convoys.¹

¹Herman S. Wolk, USAF Plans and Policies: Logistics and Base Construction in Southeast Asia, 1967 (Washington, D.C.: USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, 1968), 25, 55–56, 60–61 (http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-110322-009.pdf (link is external)); Carl Berger, ed., The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1977), 109, 118, 213, 218; Jacob Van Staaveren, Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1960–1968, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993), 230; William Rosenau, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets: Lessons from Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 11–13; Mai Elliott, RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010), 216; Tucker, ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, 416–17; John T. Correll, “Igloo White,” Air Force Magazine 87 (November 2004) (http://www.airforcemag.com/magazinearchive/pages/2004/november%202004/1104igloo.aspx (link is external) (accessed 4/8/14).