During World War II, the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service took over a girl's school in Arlington, Virginia, then outside the Washington metropolitan area.
Arlington Hall was a junior college with a 100-acre campus. But when USA SIS outgrew the Munitions Building in Washington (formerly located at 19th and Constitution Ave), SIS took over Arlington Hall and made it the headquarters for attacks on Japanese cipher systems including PURPLE. It was reasonably convenient to the new radio intercept site at Vint Hill Farms near Warrenton, Virginia, and just four miles from Washington.
1942-1945 — SIS
1945-1977 — HQ, US Army Security Agency (ASA)
1977-1989 — US Army Intelligence and Security Command (USA INSCOM)
1993-present — Department of State Foreign Service Institute
By the early 2000's it had been unused for SIGINT for many years and was by mid-2007 (when these photos were taken) primarily a training center for the U.S. Department of State — the George P Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC).
Above — The entrance and some of the former girls' school buildings.
Below — The sign at the gate.
As I took the above picture, a car passed on the highway. Two U.S. Army soldiers were in the car, wearing desert camoflague and black berets. The one in the passenger seat leaned out the window to scream at me:
HEY, YOU!!! DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS!!!
Ah, America the confident, where the photography of the signs in front of diplomatic schools causes panic and screaming.
Why am I reminded of warnings about travel to third-world failed states run by paranoid thugs, where you are warned not to photograph the post offices or minor bridges and overpasses, lest the security apparatus panic and imprison you?
To get there:
— Take the Metro to the Ballston station in Arlington
— Walk south of there to Glebe Road,
— Continue south to where Glebe crosses Arlington Boulevard,
— Arlington Hall is at the southern quadrant of that crossing.
See "On the Trail of Military Intelligence History: A Guide to the Washington DC Area", U.S. Army INSCOM History Office, 2007 (36 pages, 2.6 MB PDF): http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/inscom/trail.pdf
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