The Wizards of Langley (34 page)

Dirks’s office envisioned three basic types of signals that the satellite should be able to receive. The most important were those from human assets, whether officers or agents, in the field. The system would also be used to receive signals from emplaced sensors, which might detect seismic waves from a nuclear blast or telemetry from
a missile test. In addition, the satellite system should be able to serve as a backup communications system to installations and facilities in the event that regular communications were knocked out or otherwise impaired.
¹²⁵

The CIA had a number of other requirements: The system should “provide maximum protection of the user against signal detection and direction finding leading to determination of user location.” Without the necessary security, the covert satellites would simply be mute witnesses as CIA intelligence assets were hauled away to a grim fate. The system also must minimize dependence on overseas ground stations. A third characteristic required was “multiple simultaneous access capability to users employing different types of traffic, data rates, modulation techniques, and radiated power levels.” And in contrast to BIRDBOOK, PYRAMIDER had to enable senders to transmit data at the time and place of their choosing. The system should also “provide protection against traffic analysis, which could imply numbers, types, purpose and location of users.”
¹²⁶

In attempting to satisfy such concerns, agency-contractor TRW considered a variety of approaches, both with respect to the satellite and the means of communicating with them. Transmission techniques examined included “spread spectrum,” burst, or concealed transmissions, as well as frequency-hopping. In the first case, the power level of the signal was reduced and thus harder to detect. In the second, the signal would be compressed and transmitted very rapidly—the expectation being that the extremely short transmission time would minimize the probability of detection. The contractor also examined the possibility of hiding the signal in existing radio or television signals. The apparently innocent signal when received in the United States would be stripped of its cover to reveal the secret signal. Encryption was also considered. Finally, TRW looked at frequency-hopping techniques, in which the frequency on which the signal was transmitted would repeatedly change over the course of the transmission. In its report, TRW noted that use of a frequency-hopping strategy would “reduce aircraft intercept radius in remote areas to twenty nautical miles.”
¹²⁷

It is not clear exactly what communications strategy TRW recommended. What is clear is that the proposed space segment would consist of three satellites in geosynchronous orbit—at 60, 180, and 300 degrees from CIA headquarters. The locations above which the satellites would “hover” would apparently be the Atlantic Ocean (about 10 degrees east),
the Indian Ocean (about 70 degrees east), and the Pacific Ocean (about 135 degrees west). Signals sent to the Atlantic and Pacific satellites would be relayed straight to the CIA; those from the Indian Ocean satellite would be relayed through another satellite or from a ground station, which for the purposes of the study was assumed to be on Guam.
¹²⁸

The spacecraft itself would be launched from Cape Canaveral and have a 100-foot-wide concave antenna. The PYRAMIDER study was completed in July 1973. That fall, the CIA realized Congress would not provide the funding required to transform PYRAMIDER from a study to a functioning system and shelved the project.
¹²⁹
But that would not be the end of DS&T’s work on covert communications satellites.

On November 4, 1972, the
Glomar Explorer
was launched, ostensibly to mine the ocean floor for metals, especially manganese, which is important for producing steel. Of its CIA-selected 170-man crew, 40 formed the mining staff and knew of the ship’s secret mission to retrieve parts of the Soviet Gulf submarine that had imploded in 1968. After its test run, the ship returned to Los Angeles, rendezvoused with the
HMB-1,
and on June 20, 1974, headed out to sea on the recovery mission. At that point, Project AZORIAN became Project JENNIFER.
¹³⁰

New York Times
investigative reporter Seymour Hersh had learned of the
Glomar Explorer
’s true mission but had agreed to withhold exposing it at the request of DCI William Colby, and the cover story had held. To those interested at all, the ship would be mining manganese nodules from the Pacific depths in a purely commercial enterprise. Although several foreign ships came near to watch the
Glomar
at work, they didn’t stay long and floated off, their captains apparently convinced that nothing more than the advertised mission was under way.
¹³¹

By the middle of July, the
Glomar Explorer
reached the submarine site, and the crew set to work with the guidance of a computer and bottom-placed transducer so that the barge would stray no more than fifty feet from the mother ship. Pipe from the ship was attached to giant grappling
claws, which resembled a series of six interconnected ice tongs hanging from a long platform. The ship’s crew then began to feed length after length of pipe through the hole. By the time the claw reached the target portion of submarine (the bow and center structure) 16,000 feet below, the pipe itself weighed more than 40,000 pounds. Claw operators used television cameras equipped with strobe lights to see what they were doing.
¹³²

After fourteen-plus hours, the almost 200-foot-long target was about 5,000 feet off the ocean floor, with another 11,000 to go. But, according to accounts given by U.S. officials, two or three prongs of the claw had become entangled in the seabed. The claws were pulled through the seabed to encircle the submarine, but in the process some of the prongs were bent out of shape and thus were unable to fully support the submarine segment. Most of it fell back into the ocean, including the conning tower, three missiles, and the vessel’s code room (with the codebooks, decoding machines, and burst transmitters), and sank to the seabed. Only about a 38-foot section was retrieved. Among the items reportedly recovered were two nuclear torpedoes and the bodies of six Soviet seamen, including the submarine’s nuclear weapons officer. The journal he had kept of his training and assignments was also recovered, and it provided detailed information on Soviet naval nuclear systems operation and procedures. The
Glomar
returned on August 12, 1974.
¹³³

It was also discovered that the Soviets used wooden two-by-fours in the building of some of the sub’s compartments—an extremely crude method—and the exterior welding of the hull was uneven and pitted, with the hull itself an uneven thickness. Hatch covers and valves also were crudely constructed, compared with those on U.S. submarines. Two torpedoes recovered were determined to be powered by electric motors, and another two were steam-powered, which indicated that the submarine’s firing tubes were not interchangeable. Several books and journals were recovered, and some of the pages could be deciphered after chemical treatment. Apparently included was a partial description of Soviet ciphers in effect in 1968.
¹³⁴

The six Soviet seamen were buried at sea in a nighttime ceremony on September 4, 1974. Before the vault carrying their bodies was lowered into the ocean, the U.S. and Soviet national anthems were played, and a short address followed. The speaker noted that “the fact that our nations have had disagreements doesn’t lessen in any way our respect for [the seamen],” and that “as long as nations are suspicious of each other . . . brave men will die as these men have died in the service of their country.”
(The fifteen-minute ceremony was filmed by the CIA, and in 1992, DCI Robert Gates gave a tape of the ceremony to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.)
¹³⁵

The
Glomar Explorer
never got a second chance at the rest of the submarine, although the CIA wanted one. On February 7, 1975, a
Los
Angeles Times
story, “U.S. Reported After Russian Submarine/Sunken Ship Deal by CIA, Hughes Told,” revealed the project, although the story was pushed onto page eighteen at Colby’s request. Similarly, the
New York Times
buried the story on page thirty. But the CIA had to believe that even if KGB officials didn’t read newspapers beyond page one, they would not have missed Jack Anderson’s discussion of the project on national television. As a result, Colby later wrote, “There was not a chance that we could send the
Glomar
out again on an intelligence project without risking the lives of our crew and inciting a major international incident.”
¹³⁶

In early November 1975, just after getting off a plane at Washington’s National Airport, Colby was summoned to a Sunday morning meeting with President Gerald Ford. Ford told the DCI he was “going to do some reorganizing of the national-security structure.” Henry Kissinger would have to adjust to being merely Secretary of State; the position of national security adviser would be filled by his deputy, Brent Scowcroft. Colby’s predecessor as DCI, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, was also being fired—due to a lack of rapport with Ford and Kissinger. Colby was “offered” a new job—ambassador to NATO, which he would decline. Colby’s mistake was that he had been too willing to provide Frank Church’s select Senate committee, in the midst of its high-profile, public investigation of the CIA, with information that the White House and Kissinger would have preferred remain secret.
¹³⁷

Colby stayed on at the CIA for a few months until his replacement, George Bush, returned from Beijing, where he had headed the U.S. liaison office. For Bush, the directorship would be another in a series of national security jobs on his way to the presidency. But by the end of his one year in office, the ten-year tenure of Carl Duckett as head of DS&T would be over. When Bush took over the agency, he was told that he had two alcoholics to deal with, including Duckett. Bush, according to Duckett’s deputy, Sayre Stevens, “treated Carl delicately, with genuine concern,” and “gave Carl every chance in the world.”
¹³⁸

But Duckett found it impossible to stop drinking. His alcoholism may have been fueled by family problems as well as his disappointment in not having been made either director or deputy director. He had expected that promotion when Richard Helms departed in 1973. Since Schlesinger’s appointment was clearly a short-term one, he held out hope that he would be next in line—only to find Colby grabbing the brass ring.
¹³⁹
Subsequently, he acknowledged that the reports of his drinking led to a discussion with Bush. He would claim that Bush’s unwillingness to promote him to deputy director was the true cause of his departure in June 1976.
¹⁴⁰

But the combination of his drinking and his tendency to be indiscreet proved to be a lethal combination for his career. On March 11, 1976, Duck-ett participated in an informal seminar in front of local members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The briefing was part of a campaign of increased CIA openness to offset the unfavorable publicity from press and congressional disclosures. One hundred and fifty individuals paid $6.50 for cocktails, a light buffet, and close to two hours of discussion with high-ranking CIA officials. Although the briefing was unclassified, they were asked not to take notes or quote the officials to the press.
¹⁴¹

Among the topics of discussion was the state of the Soviet space program, which was, according to the CIA representatives, in a “shambles” following a series of launch failures. When asked about Israel’s nuclear capability, Duckett didn’t hesitate but responded that the CIA estimated Israel had ten to twenty nuclear weapons available for use. If the disclosure of such secret information had stayed with members of the group, perhaps there would have been no repercussions.
¹⁴²

But in attendance were several reporters, including Arthur Kranish, editor of
Science Trends
, a Washington newsletter. On March 15, the
Washington
Post
published an article by Kranish titled “CIA: Israel Has 10–20 A-Weapons.” He did not name Duckett as the source, but there were plenty of witnesses.
¹⁴³

Bush issued a public statement accepting “full responsibility” for the disclosure of the highly classified information. It didn’t help the situation that Duckett was rumored to have been drinking at the time of his indiscretion. Not long afterward, his request for retirement, for reasons of health, was received and accepted by the DCI.
¹⁴⁴

*In a 1999 interview, Stevens said he would not assert that such phenomena were impossible, but that as a means of intelligence, they were “useless” and “absolute bullshit.” (Interview with Sayre Stevens, Springfield, Virginia, March 18, 1999.)

*In a 1996 article, Targ stated that “the psychic description that we and our viewer provided to our sponsor was so outstanding that it alone assured our funding for the next several years.” (Russell Targ, “Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s: A Memoir,”
Journal of Scientific Exploration
10, 1 [Spring 1996]: 77–88 at 77.)

* ORD’s efforts were terminated in 1977 by its new director, Philip Eckman, although he did allow Ken Kress to attend committee meetings dealing with the military-run psychic research program. The support of some influential congressmen for the program made it impossible, Eckman recalled, to just “put a thumb in their eye.” He commissioned a reputable experimental psychologist to do a year-and-a-half study reviewing experiments going back to J. B. Rhine. The psychologist concluded that whenever there were adequate controls, there were no positive results. Eckman also recalled that ORD personnel reviewed the remote-viewer notes and concluded they were gibberish—that a description one person could interpret as being of a house, another might believe to describe a bowling alley. (Interview with Philip K. Eckman, Alexandria, Virginia, May 17, 2000.)