FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Miami, Florida
PROPOSAL FOR DISSERTATION
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
Anthony D. Atwood
2007
I propose to the Major Professor and to the Committee Members a study of the following topic to be conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
History: This Old Headquarters: a study in American Public Military History and historic preservation, utilizing a project in historic preservation by the Friends of the Military Museum
©, in cooperation with Miami-Dade County, the state of Florida and the federal government.

Proposal Atwood
General Statement of Problem Area
Unknown to most residents of the state, Florida has played a critical role in American military activity in the fifty years since Pearl Harbor was attacked in December, 1941.
The military geography
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of Florida was crucial to the United States in World War II, and its place within the global landscape has remained important. In World War II large armies were stationed here. South Florida was home to the Gulf Sea Frontier, with extensive Navy operations in the Florida Straits and the Caribbean against the Nazi U-boat attacks on America. Florida protected the Panama Canal, which was vital to the war in the Pacific. Air bridges went from
Florida to Brazil. Using Brazilian bases Allied aviation moved men and material across the
Atlantic narrows to Africa. South Florida was a depot for mountains of materiel transshipped around the world, particularly to the Middle East, India and China. Florida supported the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, projecting power across the Mediterranean in preparation for the final assault into the Nazi stronghold of Europe. All this activity was linked to the local historic headquarters building of Naval Air Station Richmond (Richmond Heights) built in 1942. Known prosaically as Building 25, the site is direct physical evidence of the axiom that history is geography.
South Florida and this building remained at the center stage of significant military activity in the 1960s. The American Cold War response to the Cuban Revolution and Soviet rivalry in the Caribbean was shaped and implemented by overt and covert military operations originating in South Florida. Military activity of critical national and international relevance occurred here, including the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
In the post-Cold War period, Florida contributed to the creation of the modern All-Volunteer military standing force of today, especially its reserve component. Throughout all these phases
1 Military geography is an attempt to understand the geopolitical sphere within a military context.
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Proposal Atwood of our history, large numbers of South Floridians passed through the site and participated in its historic processes by their activity there. These people are living today throughout South
Florida. The building is a physical legacy and a vital resource to our understanding of the larger mosaic of the history of Florida, and of America.
Modern military history in the State of Florida has not been adequately documented.
While Florida historians such as Charlton W. Tebeau, Gary R. Mormino, Nick Wynne and
Michael Gannon have touched on the military history of Florida, nonspecialist historians have largely ignored the topic. This dissertation will explore military activity in South Florida, focused around the history of Headquarters Building 25 itself, which was the center of significant local and national history for fifty years.
Research Purpose
This research has three purposes:
1.
To document events at Headquarters Building 25 during World War II. The
Richmond Naval Air Station (NAS) was important in this regard for a number of reasons:
Richmond NAS was home to the largest airship squadron (21 airships) deployed during World
War II. Richmond NAS was also the Airship Wing Headquarters for three more such squadrons stationed throughout the Caribbean south to Brazil. Richmond exercised command and control for airship operations in the Caribbean and South America at the time of the critical Battle of the
Atlantic, when Florida waters suffered repeated U-boat attacks. Richmond NAS was the maintenance and repair facility and depot for the Wing, whose airships and personnel were scattered at often temporary and makeshift stations from NAS Banana River, Florida (modern
Cape Kennedy) to the jungles of Recife, Brazil. Those activities and events funneled through
Building 25 and the radio station/communications center inside the building.
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Proposal Atwood
2.
Headquarters Building 25 also played a significant role in the Cold War. It is one of the few sites of Cold War activity accessible in North America.
2 Much of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, ninety miles from the U.S. was planned at Building 25. The subsequent naval blockade of Cuba and the Missile Crisis of 1962 were directly linked to the site. Among many air defense artillery field missile batteries set up at that time in South Florida to protect the
United States, a battery of Hawk missiles was deployed in the yard of Building 25.
3.
The formation of the modern American military is also linked to Building 25.
The place served as an Army Reserve Center throughout the 1970s. It then became the Marine
Corps Reserve Center for another decade after that. From here the local military reservists prepared for, and ultimately departed for Desert Storm. Much of the military ethos of the present
South Florida component of the All-Volunteer US Armed Forces was synthesized within
Building 25, and can be seen in the political and community heritage around us.
Research Questions and Hypothesis
Question #1: How does the building reflect changing military priorities of the U.S. since 1941?
Hypothesis #1: Headquarters Building 25 exemplifies the transformation of American military power between 1941 and 1991. Specifically, it was a WWII headquarters during a time of total war and mobilization. Then it was a secret site for the ambiguous activities of the Cold War.
Lastly it was a Reserve Center for two decades during the creation and consolidation of the professional standing force of today.
Question#2: What can an investigation of Building 25 say about the evolution of US military power vis-à-vis larger historical processes?
2 Cold War sites elsewhere, such as the Berlin Wall, the 38 th Parallel, Saigon; are readily accessible. Few sites in
North America of Cold War military activity are not off-limits to the public.
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Proposal Atwood
Hypothesis#2: The fifty years of activity onsite coincide with the United States’ rise to world power. Study of Building 25 can tell much about America’s rise to global prominence in WWII.
Afterwards, that the building was transformed into a safe house, as the military was transformed into a global police force, for contesting world hegemony with the rival USSR. Sporadic limited
“conflicts,” surrogate proxy-wars, and secret operations underscored that era and the building embodied such activity. A study of its subsequent tenure as a Reserve Center can articulate the establishment of the today’s standing professional military force.
Question#3: What can a study of Building 25 reveal about South Florida’s importance on a world military stage?
Hypothesis#3: This building connects modern military history to South Florida. Florida in
WWII was the base for large numbers of soldiers. Many returned to Florida after the war and make up our society today. With the Castro Revolution, the building was a center for clandestine activity, which South Florida has been embroiled in ever since. Study of this can shed light on our understanding of why South Florida is the way it is. As a museum it will interpret this largely undocumented history.
Structure and Methodology
The dissertation will use a chronological structure. The three distinct periods in which the building saw significant activity, World War II, the Cold War Era, and Desert Storm, will each form a chapter in chronological order. Following the documented history of the building, an epilogue will address the restoration process in public history.
1. Chapter One will overview the military geography of South Florida. It will examine the context of this region within that framework, and the larger processes, the changing strategic importance, and the integral role of aviation and maritime technology to our history.
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Proposal Atwood
2.
Chapter Two will document the history of the building during its service as a Navy
Airship station headquarters during World War II. A broader examination of Florida during this most crucial and formative period in modern history will form a background to the chapter.
3.
Chapter Three will document the history of Building 25 as a center of the Cold War.
An examination of the place of Florida during the Cold War, and the American response to the
Cuban Revolution will form the background to the chapter.
4.
Chapter Four will document the service of the building as an Army Reserve Center and
MASH site, and later, a Marine Corps Reserve Center during the 1970s and 1980s. Its penultimate military use was as the staging site in 1991 for local Reservists mobilized and sent to
Desert Storm, the first Persian Gulf War. Florida has been, and remains vital strategic ground of the United States and the activities of this site demonstrate that.
5.
Chapter Five will in address the intersection of public history and this old
Headquarters. The Chapter will examine the tools and techniques of historic preservation. It will document some of the technology for saving an historic wood frame neo-colonial vernacular historic resource, and explore the issues inherent in restoring the building to the public for historic, commemorative, and educative purposes.
There is a lively debate today in museum science, academia, and society regarding the interpretation of history when it is to be presented in the public context. The conclusion of the dissertation will engage this debate.
Line item #283 of the Building Better Communities bond fund initiative of Miami-Dade
County, FL, to restore the historic Headquarters Building #25 adjacent to the MetroZoo is an ongoing project of which the candidate is the Principal Investigator. The dissertation will establish the site’s historical record and connect it with an actual research and development project in the discipline’s cutting edge field of historic preservation.
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