"Cool line" for "hot line" times: establishing the World Weather Link

During the height of the cold war, the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration decided to take part in the development of World Weather Watch—a proposed effort to share global meteorological information. Although the sharing of weather information was of vital importance to the meteorological community, it was also important to Johnson's foreign policy efforts to pull non-aligned countries into the United States' sphere of influence. One item crucial to its success, however, was the World Weather Link—dubbed the “cool line”—to link data centers in the US and the USSR. While sharing weather data may seem routine now, this project involved classified cables, high level diplomatic efforts, and discussions about who would gain more from the shared data—the US or the USSR. The creation of this “cool line” in the “hot line” times of the 1960s was not guaranteed. This paper will explore the diplomatic and foreign policy desires behind a seemingly straightforward scientific endeavor.