The Wizards of Langley (59 page)

97
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, pp. 130–131; Albert D. Wheelon, Deputy Director (Science and Technology), to Dr. Brockway McMillan, Director, National Recon
naissance Office, November 5, 1963; telephone conversation with Albert Wheelon, December 26, 1999.

98
. Wheelon to McMillan, November 5, 1963; Brockway McMillan, Director, National Reconnaissance Office, to Dr. Albert D. Wheelon, Deputy Director (Science and Technology), November 18, 1963. The picture of this episode as described in an NRO history is significantly different from that indicated by the memos described here. The history claims that by late November, McMillan had become aware of and annoyed about the Drell group’s activities, and his reaction was a barbed comment that he would appreciate receiving more advance notice of such activities affecting NRO’s mission. Further, he objected to several of Wheelon’s concepts as well as the scope of the group’s task and therefore would provide no funds for the project. (Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance,
Volume 5
, pp. 131, 206 n.77.)

99
. Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998; Wheelon interview, April 9, 1997.

100
. Ibid.; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998.

101
. Wheelon letter.

102
. Ibid.;
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume I, Chapters I-II
, pp. 2–3; interview with John McMahon, Los Altos, California, November 17, 1998.

103
.
Office of Special Projects, 1965–1970, Volume One, Chapters I-II
, pp. 2–3; McMahon interview.

104
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, pp. 156, 159.

105
. Ibid., pp. 159–160.

106
. Ibid., p. 160.

107
. Ibid., p. 161.

108
. Ibid.

109
. Ibid., pp. 162, 176; Wheelon letter.

110
. John N. McMahon, Memorandum for: [Deleted], Subject: References to the Purcell Panel, December 14, 1964. Not everyone in the CIA involved in CORONA believed it was necessary to build a new search system. Roy Burks, the field technical director for CORONA at the time, questioned whether it would be possible to replace both the CORONA and GAMBIT systems with a single high-resolution search system. Technical intelligence analysts would not be satisfied, and the difference in going from a resolution of four feet to three feet was hundreds of millions of dollars. If the intelligence community was going to retain the high-resolution system in any event, he believed it made sense to keep down the cost of the search system by extending the focal length of CORONA and staying with the Thor booster. He feared that two very expensive systems would not be affordable. (Interview with Roy Burks, North Potomac, Maryland, May 10, 1999.)

111
. Telephone interview with Walter Levison, September 17, 1999; McMillan interview; Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 177. McMillan later recalled that MATCHBOX was proposed by someone from IBM. The promise of attaining high resolution with a smaller optical system would permit smaller and less expensive boosters—which greatly appealed to the Pentagon’s Office of Systems Analysis. However, according to McMillan, the physics was “crazy.” (Interview with Brockway McMillan, September 15, 1999.)

112
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, pp. 176, 180; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998.

113
. Levison interview.

114
. Interview with a former CIA official; Levison interview; telephone interview with Frank Madden, November 3, 2000.

115
. Col. Paul Worthman, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Telephone Conversation with Representatives of the Itek Corporation, February 24, 1965.

116
. Col. Paul E. Worthman, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Itek Discussions with Dr. McMillan and Mr. Land, February 25, 1965.

117
. McMahon interview; Burks interview; Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998; Perry,
A
History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 179; McMillan interview, Levison interview; interview with a former CIA official; Brockway McMillan, Memorandum for Mr. Vance, February 25, 1965.

118
. McMahon interview.

119
. Telephone conversation with Albert Wheelon, April 13, 2000.

120
. Wheelon interview, November 11–12, 1998; telephone conversation with Albert Wheelon, February 8, 2000; McMillan interview; Wheelon telephone conversation, April 13, 2000.

121
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5
, p. 195.

122
. Ibid., pp. 196–197.

123
. Ibid., p. 198.

124
. Ibid., p. 194.

125
. McMahon interview; John N. McMahon, Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Meeting with Mr. Reber [Deleted] re NRO Problems and Issues, Subject: Participation by [Deleted] and [Deleted], 13 September 1965, 1/E/0045.

126
. Burks interview.

127
. Perry,
A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 1: CORONA
(Washington, D.C.: NRO, 1969), p. 162. A former CIA official believes AQUILINE was the initial code name, but it was replaced when officials discovered it had been assigned to another project.

128
. Albert Wheelon to Richard Helms, August 2, 1966, CIA 2000 Release.

129
. Interview with a former CIA official.

1
. Central Intelligence Agency, The R. V. Jones Intelligence Award Ceremony honoring Dr. Albert D. Wheelon, December 13, 1994.

2
. Information provided by CIA Public Affairs Staff.

3
. Telephone interview with Albert Wheelon, October 12, 1999.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Telephone interview with Dino Brugioni, May 21, 1996.

6
. Telephone interview with Robert Kohler, July 6, 1999.

7
. Interview with Robert Singel, Great Falls, Virginia, February 25, 1999.

8
. Interview with a former CIA official.

9
. Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold
Story of American Submarine Espionage
(New York: Public Affairs, 1998), p. 77; Robert P. Berman and John C. Baker,
Soviet Strategic Forces: Requirements and Responses
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1982), pp. 106–108; William J. Broad,
The Universe Below: Discovering the
Secrets of the Deep Sea
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 72; Roy Varner and Wayne Collier,
A Matter of Risk: The Incredible Inside Story of the CIA’s Hughes
Glomar Explorer
Mission to Raise
a Russian Submarine
(New York: Random House, 1978), pp. 11, 15–16; William J. Broad, “Russia Says U.S. Got Sub’s Atom Arms,”
New York Times
, June 20, 1993, p. 4; Clyde W. Burleson,
The Jennifer
Project
(College Station: Texas A&M, 1997), pp. 19–22.

10
. Broad,
The Universe Below
, pp. 72–73; Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, p. 75.

11
. Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, pp. 76–77, 79; Broad,
The Universe Below
, p. 73; “The Great Submarine Snatch,”
Time
, March 31, 1975, pp. 20–27; Burleson,
Jennifer Project
, p. 18.

12
. Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, p. 77.

13
. Ibid., pp. 52–53; Broad,
The Universe Below
, p. 63.

14
. Broad,
The Universe Below
, p. 74; Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, pp. 80–81.

15
. Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, p. 81; Broad,
The Universe Below
, p. 74.

16
. Burleson,
Jennifer Project
, p. 33; “The Great Submarine Snatch.”

17
. Burleson,
Jennifer Project
, p. 33; “The Great Submarine Snatch.”

18
. Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, p. 82.

19
. Ibid., p. 84; John Ranelagh,
The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 601.

20
. “The Great Submarine Snatch”; Seymour Hersh, “Human Error Is Cited in ’74 Glomar Failure,”
New York Times
, December 9, 1976, pp. 1, 55.

21
. Sontag and Drew,
Blind Man’s Bluff
, p. 83.

22
. United States Air Force, “Biography: Brigadier General Jack C. Ledford,” n.d.; United States Air Force, “Biography: Major General Paul N. Bacalis,” n.d.

23
. Telephone interview with Gen. Paul N. Bacalis, December 1, 1999.

24
. Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead
Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954–1974
(Washington, D.C.: CIA, 1992), pp. 251–253; Chris Pocock,
Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spyplane
(Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, 1989), p. 115.

25
. Memorandum for Record, Subject: Resume of C216C, December 12, 1966, 2000 CIA Release.

26
. Pocock,
Dragon Lady
, pp. 112–113.

27
. Translation of portion of Colonel Li-Liang,
Piercing the Bamboo Curtain from the Sky
, provided by Joe Donoghue.

28
. Pocock,
Dragon Lady
, p. 115; Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and
Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 253.

29
. Pocock,
Dragon Lady
, p. 115.

30
. Interview with John McLucas, Washington, D.C., May 25, 1995.

31
. Letter, David Packard to Richard M. Helms, December 9, 1969; David Packard, Memorandum for: Dr. McLucas, Subject: Consolidation of CIA and SAC U-2 Fleet (TS), December 8, 1969.

32
. Donald H. Ross to [deleted], December 25, 1969, 2000 CIA Release; Col. Charles P. Wilson,
Strategic and Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance in the Near East
(Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1999), p. 58.

33
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 256.

34
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 256; Wilson,
Strategic and Tactical Reconnaissance in the Near East
, p. 58.

35
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 256; Wilson,
Strategic and Tactical Reconnaissance in the Near East
, p. 58.

36
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 310; Thomas P. McIninch, “The OXCART Story,”
Studies in Intelligence
15, 1 (Winter 1971): 1–34 at 30; Brig. Gen. Jack C. Ledford, Director (Special Activities), Briefing Note for the Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: Bureau of the Budget Recommendations for the OXCART Program, November 16, 1965.

37
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 310; McIninch, “The OXCART Story,” p. 30; [Deleted] Assistant for Programs, Research and Development, Special Activities, Memorandum for: Director of Special Activities, Subject: Comments to W. R. Thomas III Memorandum to the Director, BOB, July 27, 1966, Draft, 2000 CIA Release.

38
. McIninch, “The OXCART Story,” p. 23.

39
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 310; McIninch, “The OXCART Story,” p. 31.

40
. McIninch, “The OXCART Story,” p. 31; Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence
Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 309.

41
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 309.

42
. Walter Rostow, Memorandum for the President, December 27, 1966; “OXCART/ SR-71 Background Papers,” Attachment to Col. Abbot C. Greenleaf, Memorandum for Dr. Foster, Dr. Enthoven, Dr. Flax, Gen. Carroll, Gen. Steakley, January 1968; Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The
Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 310; McIninch, “The OXCART Story,” p. 31.

43
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, pp. 302–303, 310.

44
. Ibid., pp. 302–303.

45
. Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 11-3-67,
Soviet Strategic Air and Missile Defenses
, November 9, 1967, pp. 1, 9, 20–21.

46
. Pedlow and Welzenbach,
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance
, p. 303.

47
. Ibid.