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GCHQ Post War

From VJ day 1945 until the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 the dominant military threat to the United Kingdom was the military forces of the Soviet Bloc. These were therefore, unsurprisingly, the main focus of GCHQ's SIGINT efforts; while adequate defence against the perceived current and likely future SIGINT capabilities of the USSR was the standard to which CESG devices, designs and doctrine aspired.

Starting in November 2007 GCHQ has been releasing to The National Archive at Kew copies of its intelligence reports on Bloc military and paramilitary activities up to 1950. There are no plans at present to release any later reports, nor to confirm or deny that any other named entity was the target of GCHQ's SIGINT efforts after 1945. But GCHQ has since 1946 always provided intelligence and Information Assurance support to military, diplomatic and law enforcement Departments of the UK Government and its Allies. Information Assurance subsumes traditional COMSEC but also, more recently, Computer Security and secure data handling advice and products.

With the launch of Communications Satellites starting in the 1960s many communications disappeared from the traditional media of High Frequency (Short Wave) Morse and teleprinter; although neither has disappeared altogether, nor seems likely to. These changes enabled a dramatic reduction, from the 1970s, in the numbers of intercept stations owned or directed by GCHQ, required the opening of some new ones, and result in the much changed appearance and technology of those that remain.

GCHQ made a major breakthrough in the field of secure communications in 1973 when it developed what is now known as public-key encryption and in 1983, GCHQ gained a national profile when its function was avowed to Parliament. In 1984, the organisation that had shunned the limelight for so many years was thrust into the public eye when trade union rights were removed from its staff. The unthinkable happened in 1989: the Berlin Wall came down, symbolic of the thaw in East-West relations. It was the dawning of a new period and 1991 saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In May 1999, the Foreign Secretary announced that he had chosen the site of GCHQ's new accommodation. The two existing sites made way for a single site at Benhall by means of a major new construction project. The circular, space-age design - which was almost fully occupied by the summer of 2004 is well suited to support GCHQ in meeting the challenges the future will bring.

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