LEO: Databehandling och operativ ledning inom försvaret, 1972-89 : Transkript av ett vittnesseminarium vid Högkvarteret i Stockholm den 15 januari 2008

The witness seminar ”LEO: Computing and Operational Command in the Swedish Armed Forces, 1972–89” was held at the Armed Forces Headquarter in Stockholm on 15 January 2008 and was led by Göran Tode. During the seminar, the development of the computerized command system LEO was discussed. After a major reorganisation of command structure in the late 1960s, the defence staff decided to develop a computerized command system to help central and regional headquarters conduct wartime operations. Each headquarter was to have one terminal system, with a number of work stations, containing information about all aspects of the battlefield. Information about friendly and enemy forces, fuel and ammunition supplies was to be stored in a central data base and a secure messaging system was to provide fast and reliable communications. Additional applications were developed to handle computations and simulations of transports and mobilization. Different aspects of this development were discussed at the seminar. Limitations in computer graphics and presentation technology was observed as a major technological problem in the early phase of the project. Other problems brought up concerned the considerable passive resistence from users and senior commanders, when new computer technology was introduced in old organizational structures. In addition to this, security started to emerge as a critical problem in the early 1980s when highly classified information about war plans, communications and intelligence were concentrated into a single computer system. Measures to control access of information in the system and to guarantee electronic security were discussed and debated. Moreover, the decision in 1979 to purchase mainframe computers from Norsk Data was covered at the seminar. The development of tools and methodology for COBOL programming was mentioned. Finally, the implementation of the system in central and regional staff headquarters in the late 1980s was also discussed.
QC 20130422