US Army Foreign Science and Technology Center

The United States Army Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC) was an intelligence production agency located, for much of its existence, in Charlottesville, Virginia. It began in the 1960s being housed in the Munitions Building (no longer a standing building) on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. FSTC produced scientific and technical intelligence concerning ground forces weapons, equipment, and technology of foreign armies. Most of the effort was on enemies and potential enemies of the United States. FSTC provided scientific and technical intelligence in support of military commanders, materiel developers, and of Department of the Army, Department of Defense, and National-level decisionmakers.

FSTC was established on 1 August 1962. It was created using personnel and resources belonging to Army Technical Services intelligence agencies:

as well as intelligence resources from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Technical Intelligence Field Agency. (Sec. X., Department of the Army General Order 46, 25 July 1962)

At the same time, some of the intelligence resources from the former Army Technical Services intelligence agencies were used to create the US Army Area Analysis Intelligence Agency (AAIA). A short time later the AAIA was absorbed by the new Defense Intelligence Agency. (Sec. I, Department of the Army General Order 12, 19 March 1962)

The predecessor agencies had grown out of the intelligence staffs created in the offices of the Chiefs of the Army Technical Services shortly before World War II. FSTC was created to consolidate Army technical intelligence activities when McNamara reorganizations in the early 1960s restructured Army procurement and supply activities and eliminated several of the Army Technical Services. (Department of the Army General Order 47, DA, 26 July 1962) FSTC was made subordinate to the US Army Materiel Command which was created as the main procurement agency of the Army in place of the Army Technical Services. "The McNamara Revolution" is described in detail in From Root To McNamara by James E. Hewes, Jr. (Washington: Center of Military History, 1975. Chapters VIII, IX, and X, Pages 296-365).

The new Center found a home in the Munitions Building on the Mall in Washington, DC. When President Nixon ordered that the Munitions Building be demolished in 1970, FSTC relocated to a federal office complex in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. During the move, part of FSTC was temporarily located in building T-7 near National Airport. Once needed building modifications were completed, the remainder of the organization was moved to Charlottesville.

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