The Wizards of Langley (58 page)

21
. Albert D. Wheelon, Deputy Director (Science and Technology), Memorandum for: DCI, DDCI, Subject: Dissolution of CORONA Project Office, March 13, 1964, NRO CAL Records 1/C/0070.

22
. Cyrus Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense, to Lt. Gen. Marshall S. Carter, DDCI, August 28, 1964, NRO CAL Records 1/A/0063.

23
. Cyrus R. Vance to John McCone, October 15, 1964, NRO CAL Records; [Deleted] to Albert Wheelon, October 22, 1964, NRO CAL Records, 1/C/0064.

24
. Brig. Gen. Jack Ledford, USAF Assistant Director, Special Activities, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Unsolved Management and Relationship, November 9, 1964, NRO CAL Records, 1/C/0087.

25
. John A. McCone, Memorandum for: Honorable Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Subject: CIA Program B Participation in CORONA, November 17, 1964, NRO CAL Records, 1/A/0079.

26
. Lt. Gen. Marshall S. Carter, Deputy Director, to Dr. Brockway McMillan, Director, National Reconnaissance Office, November 17, 1964, NRO CAL Records, 1/A/0080.

27
. Directorate of Science and Technology, CIA,
CORONA Program History, Volume II: Governmental
Activities
, May 19, 1976, pp. 1–19, in NRO CAL Records, 2/A/0089.

28
. Brockway McMillan to [Deleted], June 14, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 1/A/0010.

29
. “Examples of the Air Force Impacts on the CORONA Program,” March 31, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 1/C/0010.

30
. Marshall S. Carter, Lt. Gen. USA, Deputy Director, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Meeting with Mr. Vance and Dr. McMillan, on Thursday, 25 March, March 26, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 1/A/0096.

31
. Ibid.; Jackson D. Maxey, Chief, Special Projects Staff, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Fact Sheet Regarding the Allegation That Since August 1964 CIA Has Been Withholding Payload Data from the Air Force in the CORONA Program, March 25, 1965, in NRO CAL Records, 1/C/0099.

32
. Carter, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Meeting Mr. Vance and Dr. McMillan.

33
. Ibid.

34
. “Robert Harry Mathams—Hands-on Intelligence Analyst,” n.d.

35
. Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998.

36
. Ibid.

37
. Interview with Roy Burks, North Potomac, Maryland, May 10, 1999; Sayre Stevens, “The Soviet BMD Program,” in Ashton B. Carter and David N. Schwartz (eds.),
Ballistic Missile Defense
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1984), pp. 182–220 at 192.

38
.
United States of America, Plaintiff v. William Peter Kampiles, Defendant,
United States District Court, Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division, Testimony of Leslie Dirks, November 13, 1978, p. 4.

39
. Burks interview; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998.

40
. Public Affairs Staff, “Biographical Information on William J. Perry,” April 15, 1999; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998; CIA Public Affairs Staff, “DCI Tenet Presents Dr. William J. Perry with Prestigious R. V. Jones Intelligence Award,” April 15, 1999. In presenting him with the award, DCI George Tenet noted Perry’s “leadership in promoting, modifying, and upgrading our national SIGINT capabilities are legendary.” (CIA Public Affairs Staff, “DCI Tenet Presents Dr. William J. Perry with Prestigious R. V. Jones Intelligence Award,” April 15, 1999.)

41
. Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998; Desmond Ball,
Pine Gap: Australia and the U.S.
Geostationary SIGINT Satellite Program
(Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988), p. 13; Desmond Ball,
A
Suitable Piece of Real Estate: American Installations in Australia
(Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1980), p. 73; Philip Klass, “U.S. Monitoring Capability Impaired,”
Aviation Week and Space Technology
, May 14, 1979, p. 18; telephone conversation with Albert Wheelon, February 8, 2000. Wheelon later recalled how some subordinates told him they were going to establish a committee to pick a code name for the project. Wheelon told them that by the time the name was chosen, the system would be built. Wheelon later noted that he was “impatient, intolerant” with regard to such ”traditional time wasters.” (Albert Wheelon, Washington, D.C., April 9, 1997.)

42
. Wheelon interview, June 14, 1999.

43
. McMillan interview; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998, Christopher Anson Pike, “CANYON, RHYOLITE, and AQUACADE: U.S. Signals Intelligence Satellites in the 1970s,”
Spaceflight
37, 11 (November 1995): 381–383; Wheelon telephone interview, April 2, 1997; interview with John McMahon, Los Altos, California, November 17, 1998; Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, Subject: Comments on NRO and NRP, September 30, 1965, pp. 8–9. Both CANYON and RHYOLITE satellites were to orbit the earth once every twenty-four hours—which is what made them geosynchronous. RHYOLITE, but not CANYON, was geostation-ary because with virtually a zero-degree inclination, it essentially hovered over a single point at an altitude of 22,300 miles, whereas CANYONs traced a figure eight—drifting from about ten degrees below the equator to ten degrees above. In addition, the perigee and apogee of the orbit were approximately 19,000 and 24,000 miles.

44
. Buzard interview.

45
. Desmond Ball,
Pine Gap
, p. 55; interview with a former CIA official.

46
. Desmond Ball,
Pine Gap
, p. 56.

47
. Wheelon interview, April 9, 1997; telephone conversation with Albert Wheelon, October 12, 1999.

48
. President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Memorandum for the President, Subject: National Reconnaissance Program, May 2, 1964, p.2, NRO CAL Records, 6/B/0044.

49
. Ibid., p. 2.

50
. Ibid., p. 3.

51
. Cyrus Vance, Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy, Subject: Memorandum for the President, by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, re National Reconnaissance Program, June 2, 1964, LBJ Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, NRO, Box 9.

52
. J. Patrick Coyne, Memorandum for Mr. Bundy, Subject: National Reconnaissance Program, June 15, 1964, LBJ Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, “NRO,” Box 9.

53
. Spurgeon M. Keeny Jr., Memorandum for Mr. Bundy, July 2, 1964, LBJ Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, “NRO,” Box 9; telephone interview with Spurgeon Keeny, July 10, 2000; Peter Jessup, “Some Borborygmous Rumblings from the Innards of the NRO,” n.d., LBJ Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, “NRO,” Box 9. Jessup also noted that the CIA-appointed NRO deputy director, Eugene Kiefer, “is even excluded from the NRO communications routing. When the Air Force has wind that McCone will issue a blast at a USIB meeting, McMillan absents himself and sends Kiefer. The tragicomedy then ensues of McCone blasting his own man.”

54
. McGeorge Bundy, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: National Reconnaissance Program, n. d., LBJ Library, Intelligence File, NRO, Box 9.

55
. John A. McCone, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Discussion at the NRO Executive Meeting, Attended by McCone, Vance, Fubini, and McMillan, August 12, 1964, NRO CAL Records, 1/A/0062.

56
. Directorate of Science and Technology,
CORONA Program History, Volume II: Governmental
Activities
, p. 1–18; NRO,
Program Directors of the NRO: ABC&D
(Chantilly, Va.: NRO, 1999), n.p.; Wheelon interview, April 2, 1997. Wheelon recalled that he established the SPS in fall 1963, shortly after he became Deputy Director for Science and Technology. A CIA listing of DS&T staff and office heads gives July 1964 as the official beginning of the staff. The
CORONA Program History
cites September 1 as when the existence of SPS became official.

57
. Albert D. Wheelon, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, Memorandum for: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: Establishment of a Satellite Office Within the Science and Technology Directorate, February 26, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 2/A/0078.

58
. Ibid.

59
. Ibid.

60
.
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume One, Chapters I-II
(Washington, D.C.: CIA, 1973), p. 116.

61
. Ibid., p. 118.

62
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, pp. 186–187.

63
. Ibid., p. 187.

64
. Ibid., p. 188.

65
. Ibid.

66
. Ibid., p. 189.

67
. Ibid., pp. 174–175, 189.

68
. Wheelon letter.

69
. John Ranelagh,
The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA, from Wild Bill Donovan to
William Casey
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), pp. 413n, 730–731;
Office of Special Projects,
1965–1970, Volume One, Chapters I-II
, p. 120.

70
.
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume One, Chapters I-II
, p. 6.

71
. Albert D. Wheelon, “A Summary of the National Reconnaissance Problem,” May 13, 1965, p. 5, NRO CAL Records, 1/D/0008.

72
. Ibid., pp. 5–6.

73
. Ibid., p. 6.

74
. Ibid., pp. 7–10.

75
. Ibid., pp. 19–21.

76
. Ibid., p. 21.

77
. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

78
. Ibid., pp. 22–23.

79
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 195; W. F. Raborn, Director, to Honorable Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense, August 13, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 2/A/0078.

80
. Cyrus Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and William F. Raborn, Director of Central Intelligence (signatories), “Agreement for Reorganization of the National Reconnaissance Program,” August 13, 1965.

81
. Ibid.

82
. Ibid.; W. F. Raborn, Director of Central Intelligence, to Honorable Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense, August 13, 1965, NRO CAL Records, 2/A/0078.

83
. Raborn to Vance, August 13, 1965.

84
. Ibid.

85
. Ibid.;
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume One, Chapters I-II
, p. 122.

86
. McMillan interview; telephone interview with Albert Wheelon, May 19, 1997; letter from Frank Buzard to author, January 16, 1997; Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, Subject: Comments on NRO and NRP, pp. 4–5.

87
. Directorate of Science and Technology,
CORONA Program History, Volume II, Governmental
Activities
, p. 1–20; Frederic C.E. Oder, James C. Fitzpatrick, and Paul E. Worthman,
The CORONA
Story
(Washington, D.C.: NRO, November 1987), p. 108; Burks interview.

88
. Oder, Fitzpatrick, and Worthman,
The CORONA Story
, pp. 103, 105; Ludwell Lee Montague,
General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), pp. 168–169; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998. Sheldon died in 1987 as part of a suicide pact with his wife Alice, a prominent science fiction writer who used the pseudonym James Triptree Jr. He was bedridden and blind at the time. (Patricia Davis, “Bullets End 2 ‘Fragile’ Lives,”
Washington Post
, May 20, 1987, pp. A1, A14.)

89
. McDowell, “Launch Listings,” p. 238; “Appendix A,” in Day, Logsdon, and Latell (eds.),
Eye
in the Sky
, pp. 231–233 at p. 233.

90
. Oder, Fitzpatrick, and Worthman,
The CORONA Story
, p. 109; “Appendix A,” in Day, Logs-don, and Latell (eds.),
Eye in the Sky
, p. 233.

91
. Buzard letter to author.

92
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 106; “Actions Under Way Responsive to Purcell Panel Report Recommendations,” attachment to Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for the Director, CIA, Subject: Implementation of the Purcell Panel Recommendations, September 11, 1963; Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for the Director, CIA, Subject: Implementation of the Purcell Panel Recommendations, September 11, 1963.

93
. John N. McMahon, Memorandum for [Deleted], Subject: References to the Purcell Panel, December 14, 1964; Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 106; “Actions Under Way Responsive to Purcell Panel Report Recommendations,” attachment to Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for the Director, CIA, Subject: Implementation of the Purcell Panel Recommendations, September 11, 1963.

94
. Purcell Panel Report, p. 3.

95
. Interview with a former CIA official;
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume One,
Chapters I-II
, p. 2.

96
. Wheelon interview, April 9, 1997; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998.