Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
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planes and will be supported by German specialists. The construction series of the so called Horten 13 (Model with 2-TL (SIC) Power Unit) should not be developed beyond the initial stages by the Russians.” At the end of the memo, the writer concluded, “to begin work, we ask for exact orders for the U.S. Army, for example timber work style, how many power units, operating radius, additional load, crew size, weapons layout, etc,” 196-97, 202-4.
72. “Walter Horten has admitted his contacts with the Russians”: Memo from European Command Message Control Secret Priority, Ref S-3773, To: United States Forces in Austria, for Director of Intelligence, 20 May 1948, 231; extracts from Horten, Walter, From D154654, “Walter HORTEN points out that the possibility of the glider of parabolic design flown by a Russian pilot in 1925–1926 at the Rhaen competitive race may have been developed into a flying saucer. In the event the Russians further developed this glider, or, after the war, installed into it jet units of the Junkers or BMW type, the result may be the flying saucer,” 232-33.
73. stay at Wright-Patterson for approximately four years: Interview with EG&G engineer.
Chapter Three: The Secret Base
Interviews: Colonel Leghorn, T. D. Barnes, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Andersen, Millie Meierdierck, Bob Murphy, Ray Goudey, Edward Lovick
1. was sitting in his parlor: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior,
68.
2. paramour of Princess Caradja: Thomas, The Very Best Men, 103.
3. As for the mysterious office called OPC: CIA History Staff, “Office of Policy Coordination 1948–1952,” 57 pages. Approved for release March 1997.
4. “funds generated by the Marshall Plan”: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 68.
5. Leghorn went back to Washington: Interview with Colonel Leghorn.
6. as part of Operation Lusty: Samuel, American Raiders. Operation Lusty (Luftwaffe Secret Technology) was the U.S. Army Air Forces’ effort to capture and evaluate German aeronautical technology beginning at the end of World War II.
7. Putt listened: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 35.
8. Whereas Putt was uninterested: P. Taubman, Secret Empire, 105.
9. Killian and Land reasoned: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 27–37.
10. “impression of World War I as a cataclysm”: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 4.
11. James Killian, who recruited Bissell: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 16. Bissell joined the Agency in late January 1954; however, his first association with the Agency came in 1953 when he worked as a contractor. On July 26, 1954, Eisenhower authorized Killian to recruit a panel of experts to study what a U-2-type aircraft might accomplish. The group was called the Technological Capabilities Panel. In August, the idea was formally presented to Bissell. Ibid., 30.
12. a secret CIA test facility: There are several accounts of who went to Groom Lake with Bissell on that historic first trip. I compile mine from Bissell’s memoir and my interviews with Lockheed test pilot Ray Goudey.
13. Goudey had shuttled atomic scientists: Interview with Ray Goudey.
14. “I recommended to Eisenhower”: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 102-3.
15. the tents would blow away: Interview with Ray Goudey. 16. to defend against rattlesnakes: Interview with Edward Lovick. 17. The same variable occurred: Interview with Tony Bevacqua. 18. a lot of time in a recliner: Interview with Ray Goudey.
19. Bob Murphy’s job: Interviews with Bob Murphy. The U-2 engine was a P-37 specially designed by Connecticut engine maker Pratt and Whitney.
20. Mr. B., as he was known to the men: Interview with Edward Lovick.
21. Hank Meierdierck: The stories of Hank Meierdierck, the man who trained the U-2 pilots at Area 51, were relayed to me by his friends from the old days at the Ranch as well as from his personal papers, which were made available to me by his wife, Millie Meierdierck.
22. “unconventional way”: Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower, 82. Killian wrote, “Eisenhower approved the development of the U-2 system, but he stipulated that it should be handled in an unconditional way so that it would not become entangled in the bureaucracy of the Defense Department or troubled by rivalries among the services.” Also see Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 95.
23. hidden from Congress: Top Secret Memorandum of Conference with the President 0810, 24 November 1954. “Authorization was sought from the President to go ahead on a program to produce thirty, special high performance aircraft at a cost of about $35 million. The President approved this action. Mr. Allen Dulles indicated that his organization could not finance this whole sum without drawing attention to it, and it was agreed that Defense would seek to carry a substantial part of the financing.” From the Eisenhower Archives, DDE’s Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, Box 3, ACW Diary, November 1954.
24. stand-alone organization: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 105. Bissell wrote, “To preserve the secrecy and expeditiousness that Eisenhower and Allen Dulles insisted on, I argued for removing the U-2 project from the agency’s organizational chart and setting it up as a stand-alone organization. As a result, the entire project became the most compartmented and self-contained activity within the agency.”
25. five-page brief: Eisenhower was uniquely invested in Area 51 because the success of the U-2 program, which came to be during his administration, was critical to the nation’s security.
26. the Air Force was almost entirely left out: As recalled by General Leo Geary, Bissell’s Air Force deputy, in an interview with Jonathan Lewis, tape recording, Chevy Chase, MD, 11 February 1994; Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 100.
27. LeMay was, understandably, enraged: “Eventually President Eisenhower settled the dispute.” Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 60; Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 109.
28. the president’s decision: “I want this whole thing to be a civilian operation,” the president wrote. “If uniformed personnel of the armed services of the United States fly over Russia, it is an act of war — legally — and I don’t want any part of it.’” From Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 60.
29. Bob Murphy would often chat with George Pappas: Interview with Bob Murphy.
30. Had Pappas been just thirty feet higher: From Hank Meierdierck’s personal papers; Meierdierck located the crash remains from a U-2 he took out on a search mission.
31. the CIA acknowledged the plane crash in 2002: As part of a tribute given by the U.S. Forest Service. The CIA did not, however, acknowledge that the aircraft was traveling to Area 51; also see Kyril Plaskon, Silent Heroes.
32. security systems for Air Force One: EG&G, a Division of URS, Albuquerque Operations Web site. “EG&G has provided security systems for U.S. Government facilities: Department of Energy Headquarters, U.S. Bureau of Engraving, Presidential AF-1 Hangar Complex, Rocky Flats [nuclear weapons production facility in Colorado], Tooele [Utah, Army Depot for WMD].”
Chapter Four: The Seeds of a Conspiracy
Interviews: Lieutenant Colonel Tony Bevacqua, Edward Lovick, Ray Goudey, Al O’Donnell, Jim Freedman, Wayne Pendleton, T. D. Barnes
1. Area 51, reports of UFO sightings: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 73.
2. U-2 look like a fiery flying cross: Interview with Tony Bevacqua; the wingspan is 103 feet and the fuselage is 63 feet.
3. the crash at Roswell occurred: Hereafter, when I refer to the “crash at Roswell,” I am referring to an aircraft, not a balloon, as has also been written. While there was a balloon-borne radar-reflector project going on at White Sands in the summer of 1947, this is not what crashed at Roswell. To learn about that project and the balloon theory put forth by one of its participants, Charles B. Moore, see Saler, Ziegler, and Moore, UFO Crash at Roswell.
4. Project Sign: U.S. Air Force Air Materiel Command, “Unidentified Aerial Objects; Project SIGN”; Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 68.
5. Project
Grudge: U.S. Air Force, Project Grudge and Blue Book, Reports 1-12. Since the declassification of Projects Saucer, Sign, Grudge, Twinkle, and Blue Book, which began incrementally in the 1970s, the collection is housed in the National Archives; see http://www.archives.gov/foia/ufos.html.
6. disliked technology in general: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 17, “High altitude reconnaissance of the Soviet Union did not fit well into Allen Dulles’s perception of the proper role of an intelligence agency. He tended to favor the classical form of espionage, which relied on agents rather than technology.” Allen Dulles’s predilection to work with former Nazis has become more obvious and more troubling as time goes by and Paperclip files are slowly declassified. The last line in Dulles’s three-page CIA biography, “Secret Security Information: Subject Allen W. Dulles 7/2-127,” reads:
“At any rate, the American policy in the postwar period as regards [to] Germany has been directly and deeply influenced by MR. DULLES. He has a greater trust in the Germans than he has, for instance, in the French and the Italians.”
7. The UFO division was placed: Office Memorandum, United States Government, To: Acting Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, From: Todos Odarenko, Chief, Physics and Electronics Division, SI, Subject, Current Status of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOB) Projects, 17 December 1953.
8. Walter Bedell Smith: Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 4, 87, 122, 131.
9. included the flying disc retrieved at Roswell: This is my defensible speculation based on interviews with the EG&G engineer and my understanding of Bedell Smith’s role, particularly with James Forrestal, secretary of the Navy during the war and the nation’s first secretary of defense, who committed suicide on May 22, 1949.
10. Bedell Smith was the ambassador to the Soviet Union: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, Directors and Deputy Directors of Central Intelligence, Walter Smith, General, U.S. Army.
11. Governors Island, New York: National Archives Records Administration, RG 338, Box 27, G-2 Section, Headquarters First Army, Governors Island, New York, 4, New York, Case Files.
12. summarily rejected the idea that UFOs: There are several CIA documents, declassified starting in 1996, that I base my interpretation of General Bedell Smith’s attitude toward UFOs on during his tenure at CIA. All quotes come from these documents: Central Intelligence Agency, Washington 25, D.C. Office of the Director, ER-3-2809, Memorandum to Director, Psychology Strategy Board, Subject Flying Saucers, 2 pages, signed Walter B. Smith Director, undated; Memorandum for file OSI, Meeting of OSI Advisory Group on UFO, January 14 through 17, 1953, 3 pages; Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects 14–17 January 1953, Evidence Presented, 2 pages; CIA Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects,
Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel, 19 pages; Minutes of Branch Chief’s Meeting of 11 August 1952, 3 pages; Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, From Deputy Director, Intelligence, Subject Flying Saucers, Dated September 7, 1952, 5 pages.
13. flying discs appeared in many different forms of art: http://www.crystalinks.com/ufohistory.html.
14. like the boy who cried wolf: Memo, CIA Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel, 10. “Potential related dangers. c. Subjectivity of public to mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare.”
15. “hysterical mass behavior”: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 72.
16. the publishers of Life magazine: H. B. Darrach and Robert Ginna, “Have We Visitors from Space?” Life magazine, April 7, 1952.
17. originally called Project Saucer: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 67–68.
18. Green Fireballs: Project Twinkle, Final Report, November 27, 1951.
19. curious members of Congress: Interview with Stanton Friedman.
20. Air Force concluded for the National Security Council: U.S. Air Force Air Materiel Command, “Unidentified Aerial Objects; Project SIGN.”
21. UFO convention in Los Angeles: “Minutes of the Meeting of Civilian Saucer Investigations.”
22. Dr. Riedel had been working on Hitler’s bacteria bomb: Neufeld, Von Braun, 206.
23. There were rumors of “problems”: Ibid., 216-22.
24. “going to execute a planned ‘hoax’”: CIA Office Memorandum to Assistant for Operations, OSI, From Chief Contact Division, CO,
Date: 9 February 1953, Subject California Committee for Saucer Investigations.
25. set off alarms in its upper echelons: Special National Intelligence Estimate 100-2-57, No. 19, “Soviet Capabilities for Deception,” Submitted by the Director of Central Intelligence, 16 pages. Based on recommendations made by the Technical Capabilities Panel, chaired by Dr. Killian, the recommendation read: “We need to examine intelligence data more broadly, or to invent some new technique, for the discovery of hoaxes.”
26. trailing a colleague of Riedel named George P. Sutton: Curiously, the CIA document referenced above names George Sutton as a Riedel colleague and ufologist. Was he a plant? Was he turned? Did he reform on his own? According to the Smithsonian Papers, National Air and Space Museum, Archives Division, MRC 322, Washington, DC, 20560, in the G. Paul Sutton collection: “George Paul Sutton (1920-) was an aerospace engineer and manager. He received degrees from Los Angeles City College (AA, 1940) and the California Institute of Technology (BS, 1942; MS [ME], 1943) before going to work as a development engineer for the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation. He remained at Rocketdyne into the late 1960s, while also sitting as Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT (1958-59) and serving as Chief Scientist, Advanced Research Projects Agency [ARPA] and Division Director, Institute of Defense Analysis for the Department of Defense (1959-60). Following his work at Rocketdyne he joined the technical staff at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.”
27. Agency should handle reports of UFOs: Odarenko, Office Memorandum, August 8, 1955.
28. Allen Dulles as an arrogant public servant: Letter from Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles to Congressman Gordon Scherer, October 4, 1955, ER-7-4372A.
Chapter Five: The Need-to-Know
Interviews: Colonel Slater, Hervey Stockman, Ken Collins, Frank Murray, Tony Bevacqua, Colonel Pizzo, Edward Lovick, Ray Goudey
1. protocols that are also top secret: Correspondence with Cargill Hall. The Federation of American Scientists provides a nonclassified Central Intelligence Directive from 1995 at
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/dcid1-19.
2. bemoaned the president’s science advisers: Welzenbach, “Science and Technology,” 16.
3. Sage Control: Interview with Colonel Slater.
4. “It was like something out of fiction”: Interview with Hervey Stockman. Also sourced in this section with Stockman are passages from his compelling oral history, a project that was spearheaded by his son Peter Stockman and the results of which are “Conversations with Colonel Hervey S. Stockman,” edited by Ann Paden and Earl Haney (not published).
5. The identities of the pilots were equally concealed: Interviews with Ken Collins, Frank Murray, Tony Bevacqua, and Hervey Stockman.
6. NII-88: Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising, 22–23, 26–30, 39–44, 98, 102; Harford, Korolev, 77–80, 93, 95, 117. Also called Scientific Research Institute-88, which included the former NII-1, per Stalin on May 13, 1946.
7. Stalin declared Sergei Korolev’s name a state secret: Harford, Korolev, 1.
8. multibillion-dollar espionage platforms: Ibid., 93. Harford quotes Gyorgi Vetrov, Korolev’s Russian biographer, as saying about NII-88’s radical transformation: “Hardly anyone suspected that the plant was destined to become a production base for such complicated and
demanding technologies as rockets and space vehicles for traveling to other plants.”
9. Russia’s version of America’s Paperclip scientists: Ibid., 75. In addition to the Army intelligence CIC memos that I cited earlier regarding Fritz Wendel, Harford wrote “perhaps a
s many as 5,000 skilled Germans… were literally kidnapped and shipped with their families, by trains, freight cars and trucks to workplaces outside of Moscow.”
10. Operation Dragon Return: Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear, 177.
11. “cannot cope with contingencies”: Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising, 81.
12. LeMay scrambled nearly a thousand B-47 bombers: Ibid., 25. The entirety of these Arctic overflights is still classified. Missions are written about in Burrows, By Any Means Necessary, 208-15, and in Bamford, Body of Secrets, 35–36. The National Security Agency cosponsored many of the ELINT missions. In Secret Empire, Philip Taubman wrote, “At least 252 air crewmen were shot down on spy flights between 1950 and 1970, most directed against the Soviet Union. It is certain that 90 of these men survived, for they were either rescued by American forces or their capture but the Soviet Union or another country was confirmed. But the fate of 138 men is unknown,” 47.
13. top secret missions as part of Operation Home Run: Interview with Colonel Sam Pizzo.
14. “Soviet leaders may have become convinced”: CIA Staff, “Analysis of the Soviet Union 1947–1999,” 27.
15. President Eisenhower was gravely concerned: Top Secret Memorandum of Conference with the President, July 8, 1959. With Dulles and Bissell present at the meeting, USAF Brigadier General A. J. Goodpaster observed, “There remains in the President’s mind the question of whether we were getting to the point where we must
decide if we are trying to prepare to fight a war, or trying to prevent one.” Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 15, Intelligence Matters.
16. Richard Bissell promised the president: Oral history interview with Richard M. Bissell Jr. by Theodore A. Wilson and Richard D. McKinzie, East Hartford, Connecticut, July 9, 1971.
17. Alexander Orlov related: Orlov, “The U-2 Program,” 5-14. 18. “We will shoot down uninvited guests”: Ibid., 7.