The Wizards of Langley (18 page)

Even before OXCART was given a go-ahead, the CIA was examining two possible successors. Project ISINGLASS envisioned a plane capable of speeds between Mach 4 and Mach 5 flying at 100,000 feet. A feasibility study by General Dynamics was completed in fall 1964, but OSA took no further action because the proposed aircraft would still be vulnerable to Soviet countermeasures.
¹⁴⁸

An even more radical proposal came in 1965 from McDonnell Aircraft under the designation Project RHEINBERRY (although some of the work apparently also fell initially under the ISINGLASS designation). The RHEINBERRY aircraft would be rocket-powered, launched from a B-52,
and ultimately reach speeds as high as Mach 20 and altitudes of up to 200,000 feet.
¹⁴⁹

Favoring the proposal was General Bernard Schriever, who wanted to see ramjet technology developed but who was unsure the NRO would approve such an effort. He suggested to Wheelon that OSA might begin work on it, and the Air Force Systems Command would support the work. Wheelon raised the issue with Raborn, who raised it with McNamara, who told the DCI to forget it. Wheelon was not convinced it was needed, and the plane would be quite inflexible—capable of only one turn around the earth.
¹⁵⁰

Nor would it have produced much in the way of intelligence. After much effort, designers concluded that it was impossible to eliminate the shock wave created when the plane skipped along the atmosphere and impossible to photograph targets through the shock wave. The plane might have provided an exciting ride for the pilot but would have done nothing for intelligence analysts on the ground.
¹⁵¹

*As noted earlier, at the time each CIA directorate was known as the “Deputy Directorate for.” In July 1965, each became the “Directorate of.” That change occurred during Wheelon’s tenure, and therefore the new titles are used from this point forward.

*There was also a land-based component to Briar Patch. Gene Poteat concluded that given the size of the radar and its probable high power, it should be possible to pick up its signal out to several hundred miles, regardless of where the signal was pointed. The signal would be scattered forward and over the horizon via a phenomenon known as tropospheric scatter. Based on intelligence that a Hen House was under construction a couple of hundred miles inland from Riga, Poteat located an island in the Baltic that appeared to be the right distance from the Hen House to install a tropospheric-scatter receiver that could intercept and continuously monitor the radar.

After extensive negotiations to gain access, OEL installed dual antennae, about fifty wavelengths apart, to reduce the expected atmospheric fading, and the receiver was put on automatic pilot. The Briar Patch system finally picked up the transmission from the targeted Hen House and every subsequent transmission. From monitoring the radar, the CIA learned that it traced U.S. satellites from the first orbit. It appeared that the Soviets had an “incredibly effective espionage network to tip off the Hen House when a U.S. intelligence satellite was about to be launched.” According to Poteat, when there was a lengthy hold of an impending launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, the Hen House would switch off and come back on the air the instant the satellite lifted off from Vandenberg. (Gene Poteat, “Stealth, Countermeasures, and ELINT, 1960–1975,”
Studies in Intelligence
42, 1 [Spring 1998]: 51–59.)

Bud Wheelon’s greatest and most lasting impact on the revitalized Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) and the CIA was in the area of space reconnaissance. During the fourteen months Herbert Scoville served as Deputy Director for Research, the conflict between the CIA and NRO over space reconnaissance had escalated from border skirmishes to war. That war would intensify dramatically between August 1963, when Wheelon assumed the helm at DS&T, and October 1965, when Brockway McMillan would depart the scene.

A variety of factors would fuel the conflict, including the relationship between the men as well as their personalities. There were also disputes relating to CORONA. But the most significant problem was the differing conceptions Wheelon, McMillan, and their organizations had of the roles of the CIA and NRO in the development and operation of space reconnaissance systems. The incompatibility of those views helped to intensify the bitter conflict over the development of new photographic and signals intelligence satellites as well as the authority of the NRO and its director.

The bureaucratic bloodshed would be hard on the psyches and careers of several of those involved—including Wheelon and McMillan. But out of the chaos, order emerged in Washington—in the form of a new, and durable, agreement governing the CIA-NRO relationship. In addition, plans to develop two revolutionary reconnaissance systems would also safely survive the CIA-NRO wars, and the groundwork would be laid for a third revolutionary system. Years after the battles were over, if not forgotten, those systems would be producing valuable intelligence.

One former CIA official described Wheelon as “the most acerbic . . . son of a bitch” he had ever met.
¹
Wheelon recalled being “pretty young . . .
pretty impatient,” “brash,” and “full of himself.” He was “not tactful” with the “committee sitters” at the CIA. As result of his self-imposed time limit at the agency and the “extraordinary pressure” emanating from the Pentagon with respect to the reconnaissance issue, “amenities fell by the wayside.”
²

Nor was McMillan a diplomat—particularly since his reading of the NRO charter convinced him he had been given full authority to manage the National Reconnaissance Program, subject only to the supervision of the Secretary of Defense. To complicate matters, there was already bad blood between the two men. Several years before, McMillan served as referee for a paper Wheelon had submitted to a prestigious technical journal. By the time the process was finished, each questioned the other’s intellectual honesty.
³

The differences between the organizations and their view of their roles that existed during Scoville’s tenure carried over to the Wheelon years. That the Air Force element of the NRO was not an intelligence-producing organization and had no direct connection to one, such as DIA, continued to be a problem in the CIA’s view. In a meeting with McMillan during the interval between Scoville’s resignation and Wheelon’s becoming Science and Technology Chief, Deputy DCI Marshall Carter suggested that McMillan authorize a symposium for all his program directors and their deputies “to make abundantly certain that the people running our programs know that their sole purpose is to develop intelligence and not just be shooting another rocket in the air.”
⁴

According to an NRO history, “NRO people generally lacked the CIA’s concern for processed intelligence as an end product. [Their viewpoint] was that film properly exposed and promptly recovered was their ‘product.’ The photographic content of the film was a secondary matter and one in which few had other than a secondary interest. In that characteristic lay the core of much of CIA’s professional antagonism.”
⁵
The differing perspectives also were manifested in disputes over launch schedules.

The CIA’s connection to the production of intelligence also influenced its approach to the development of new reconnaissance systems. General Lew Allen Jr. served in a variety of NRO posts beginning in 1965, including director of the NRO Staff and director of Program A, and went on to become director of the National Security Agency and then Air Force Chief of Staff. In Allen’s view, the engineers from Program A were “substantially more practical and realistic” than their counterparts at Langley. They placed a much higher value on accomplishing a task on time and within the allotted budget.
⁶

But the wizards at Langley had “a different approach to life,” according to Allen. They were “less concerned about cost and schedule” and “more concerned about bringing new capabilities into being.” They also “looked further ahead” and were substantially better in terms of new ideas and concepts. In his view, a key factor in the different approaches was the CIA’s connection with intelligence production.
⁷

New issues further exacerbated the relationship. But whereas Scoville found McCone’s support in such battles slippery, Wheelon found it far more reliable. He helped instill in McCone a conviction of the importance of a substantial CIA role in reconnaissance, a view McCone evidenced before the end of August 1963. In a meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering Eugene Fubini, Carter, and Wheelon, McCone expressed his belief that there had been a departure from the original concept of the NRO as an organization that would combine the reconnaissance operations of the Air Force and CIA under one roof but not assume direct control of them.
⁸

The battle was joined not long after Wheelon’s appointment as deputy director. In the view of CIA historians, McMillan “made a frontal attack with a request to McCone that CIA relinquish all responsibility in regard to CORONA.”
⁹
As Wheelon recalled, “The Pentagon observed . . . my appointment with satisfaction. They properly judged me to be quite junior . . . and bureaucratically inexperienced. They did not know of McCone’s conversion and so they moved quickly.”
¹⁰

At the time, the reconnaissance program was in turmoil. During the first five months of 1963, four of the six satellite reconnaissance missions failed. In one instance, a KH-4 launch on February 28 ended with the destruction of the Thor booster. Twice, the Agena wound up in the Pacific rather than outer space. Another time, during a KH-6/LANYARD mission in May, it failed in orbit. After three successful midair recoveries, a July KH-6 mission produced a limited success, since the camera failed before the scheduled end of the mission. In August, the second recovery capsule on a KH-4A failed to separate from the spacecraft.
¹¹

The impetus for McMillan’s action, in addition to his preferences, included a October 22 memo to him from McNamara, which followed discussions the Secretary had with his NRO director and Fubini. The memo
noted the roles of the CIA, the interagency Configuration Control Board, and Air Force in the procurement and operation of the CORONA spacecraft. The Secretary then told McMillan that he “consider[ed] the split of technical responsibilities . . . unsatisfactory, and the CORONA program will benefit in achievement of full operational potential by placing all functions under a single management system.” He instructed McMillan to establish “a single authoritative CORONA project director, to whom you can assign personal responsibility for successful and efficient technical management of the CORONA system.”
¹²

Five days later, a memo from McMillan to McCone noted the NRO director’s belief that it was necessary to establish “a single authoritative point of contact between the NRO and contractor.” McMillan also informed the DCI of his choice of the director of Program A to fill that role, as well as his expectation that the CIA would continue to supply security and film-courier support.
¹³

Rather than settling the issue, McMillan’s memo served as the catalyst for more bureaucratic battles. In Wheelon’s view, the memo “had the beneficial effect of clarifying their objectives, which had been carefully nuanced by Charyk. With the gauntlet down, we faced an early test of Mc- Cone’s resolve.”
¹⁴

McCone did not disappoint those who most fervently sought to resist any reduction in the CIA’s role in CORONA. In late September 1963, McCone wrote to Deputy DCI Carter and Wheelon, noting that he had received “continual complaints that D/NRO is directing NRO activities so that all satellite reconnaissance is an Air Force mission and the CIA capabilities in this field are being ignored.” The DCI stated that CIA capabilities in the area should be maintained and “we should consider whether we wish to recapture activities recently pre-empted by the Air Force.”
¹⁵

McMillan’s October memo was followed by a November 27 meeting between him and McCone and a December 10 memo to McCone noting McMillan’s submission of a revised directive. The revision still emphasized the need for a single point of contact and assigned the Program A director “full responsibility for the successful conduct of the CORONA project.”
¹⁶

Sometime on December 10, McCone and McMillan met, although whether McCone had yet read the revised directive is not clear. McCone spoke first, charging that McMillan wanted “to take the whole project over,” and according to McMillan, warned that “he would not stand for submersion of the project into the bureaucracy of the Air Force and that
he would liquidate the NRO if necessary to prevent this.” After McMillan presented his views, the DCI agreed to consider the matter further.
¹⁷

That response came three days later, in the form of a memo, and shortly before McCone was due to travel to Saigon. He noted that in several recent discussions with McMillan, he had emphasized that both CIA and Air Force resources related to overhead reconnaissance should be preserved, including the “unique contractor capabilities which have been developed at the insistence of the CIA.” He complained that, according to several sources, “major contractors no longer feel free to meet with CIA officials and discuss problems . . . without first securing Air Force permission.” Such a limitation, McCone charged, would violate the basic tenet of the NRO agreement providing for full utilization of CIA and Air Force resources. He therefore requested that in the following week, McMillan make it “abundantly clear” to the NRO and Program A staffs that “any remark which carried the above policy implications should be corrected forthwith.”
¹⁸

As a means of obtaining the CIA’s agreement to transfer responsibility for CORONA to the Air Force, Fubini proposed a deal—in exchange for acquiescing to the transfer, the CIA would be assigned responsibility for development of the next-generation search system. But McMillan disliked the idea, characterizing it as “the trade of a major development responsibility for the job of cleaning up a stinking mess (i.e. CORONA).” McMillan would not agree until “he was satisfied CIA has the development capabilities,” and he expressed his fear that “CIA lack of responsiveness to DNRO on such a program is a serious possibility.”
¹⁹

In February, McMillan, in responding to the 1963 CORONA problems, which continued with a launch failure in November, tried again. In another memo to McCone, he stated that “the Government’s management of this project is a significant factor contributing to the unsatisfactory record of recent performance.” He informed the DCI that he had issued a directive requiring “all proposed changes and all significant engineering efforts to be referred to me prior to implementation.” The procedures were to be interim ones.
²⁰

The following month, in a memo to McCone, Wheelon noted two requests from McMillan that the CIA concur in the transfer of the element of the Space Systems Division (of the Air Force Systems Command), which handled CORONA matters, to Program A. Wheelon informed his boss that new information indicated the unit was about to be dissolved and its responsibilities re-created under Program A and that the “program is being transferred to [Program A] without our concurrence.”
²¹

Five months later, the issue was still an irritant. On August 28, Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance assured Deputy DCI Marshall Carter that a portion of a McMillan memo regarding a meeting earlier that month was not taken as concurrence in transferring the contracting responsibility for the CORONA payload from the CIA to the Air Force. “Quite to the contrary,” Vance wrote, “it was read to show that there was no agreement on this subject as between Mr. McCone and me.”
²²

Less pleasing to some CIA officials was a letter from Vance to McCone on October 15 in which Vance noted their agreement earlier that month that “there will be a single authoritative representative of the Government for technical direction on the entire CORONA system.” That representative, Vance noted, would be the head of Program A. Wheelon received a memo characterizing Vance’s note as “a real beaut . . . a classic example of de facto negotiation.” The key point of contention was, still, which agency was responsible for the CORONA payload and issuing technical directives to the contractors on the subject.
²³

The following month, Jack Ledford, head of the Office of Special Activities, noted: “In two years, the payload responsibility and direction of the CORONA Program has not been resolved. While the NRO and Director, Program A are of the view that they are directing the entire CORONA Program, the Agency still maintains its view that the Agency is responsible for payload management. There have been no formal decisions clarifying this difference of opinion.”
²⁴

On November 17, McCone wrote Vance that at the September 1 NRO Executive Committee meeting (consisting of McCone, Vance, Fubini, and McMillan) “it was agreed that CIA would continue its present responsibility in contracting for all elements of the CORONA payload.”
²⁵
That same day a draft of a letter from Carter to McMillan noted areas where the CIA and NRO appeared to be in “complete agreement.” Those areas included the need for a “single authoritative program manager for CORONA,” who would exercise “over-all technical direction of the program and be responsible to the DNRO for its successful prosecution, who is in turn responsible to Mr. McCone and Mr. Vance.” In addition, Carter believed they had agreed that the CIA would continue, under the auspices of the NRO, to handle the Advanced Projects facility at Palo Alto, the camera programming function, and the systems integration contract with Lockheed. Also, the CIA would serve as project manager for the CORONA payload.
²⁶