Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

by Annie M. Jacobsen

  19. he would be even more enraged: Ibid.; Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising, 124-35.

  20. CIA men armed with machine guns: Interview with Hervey Stockman.

  21. Eisenhower’s cows: P. Taubman, Secret Empire, 167.

  22. Stockman approached Russia’s submarine city: Stockman also recalled in our interview, “This was good solid proof that what so many had thought to be over there, that there was this huge, dominant, strategic bomber force for the Soviet Union, [proved] not to be there.”

  23. Herbert Miller wrote a triumphant memo: Declassified in 2000, the memo is called Top Secret Memorandum for: Project Director, Subject: Suggestions re the Intelligence Value of Aquatone, July 17, 1956. Three more U-2 flights followed Hervey Stockman’s. On July 10, 1956, the Soviet Union filed a note of protest. Later that same day, Eisenhower ordered Bissell to stop all overflights until further notice. Miller’s memo summarizes the intelligence value of the U-2 flights for the president and argues that the danger of stopping them was far greater than of continuing them.

  24. Khrushchev told his son, Sergei: W. Taubman, Khrushchev, 443.

  25. “lost enthusiasm” for the CIA’s aerial espionage program: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 110. Further,

  the president noted that if Russia were to make these kinds of incursions over U.S. airspace, “The reaction would be drastic.” Also from Andrew J. Goodpaster, memorandum on the record, July 19, 1956. The president expressed concern that if the public found out about the overflights, they would be shocked. “Soviet protests would be one thing, any loss of confidence by our own people would be quite another.”

  26. he hired a team to analyze: Interview with Edward Lovick. 27. painting the U-2 was a bad idea: Ibid.

  28. Air Force transferred money over to the CIA: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 77.

  29. Among those selected: Interview with Tony Bevacqua.

  30. The next test was a freezing experiment: Interview with Bevacqua. Cold experiments were presented in the Nuremberg doctors’ trials as “The Effect of Freezing on Human Beings,” the purpose of which was for Nazi doctors to determine at what temperature a human subject dies from heart failure when being frozen.

  31. aviation medicine school at Wright-Patterson: Hunt, Secret Agenda, 10, 16, 19, 21. Hunt wrote that during the war, Lieutenant General Donald “Putt gathered the Germans together and, without approval from higher authorities in the War Department, promised them jobs at Wright Field,” sourcing her interview with Lieutenant General Putt; “Report on Events and Conditions Which Occurred During Procurement of Foreign Technical Men for Work in the U.S.A.,” September 25, 1945, Department of the Air Force, History of the AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, Appendix, May 1945-March 1947.

  32. previously worked at Nazi concentration camps: Bower, Paperclip Conspiracy, 214–323. Colonel Harry Armstrong, a surgeon with the U.S. Eighth Air Force, petitioned for the Nazi doctors to come to America after the war and “at the end of his distinguished career, in 1976, he would boast that the thirty-four German aviation doctors he

  brought to America had saved ‘a great many millions of dollars.’” Armstrong had obtained approval from Eisenhower for an operation to “exploit certain uncompleted German aviation medicine research projects.” Also see Staff Memo to Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, “Post-World War II Recruitment of German Scientists — Project Paperclip,” April 5, 1995 (as per President Clinton). The committee obliquely concludes: “Follow-up Research. The staff believes this trail should be followed with more research before conclusions can be drawn about the Paperclip scientists… It is possible that still-classified intelligence documents could shed further light on these connections.”

  33. conducting barbaric experiments: In Linda Hunt’s Secret Agenda, chapter 5, “Experiments in Death,” she chronicles several Nazi scientists who became Paperclips. Siegfried Ruff and Hermann Becker-Freyseng conducted death experiments on prisoners at Dachau, placing them in a pressure chamber that simulated high altitudes of up to 39,260 feet. “The U.S. military still viewed Ruff and Becker-Freyseng as valuable assets, despite their connection to these crimes. They were even employed under Paperclip [at the AAF Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg, Germany] to continue the same type of research that had resulted in the murder of Dachau prisoners,” Hunt wrote. Ruff and Becker-Freyseng never got permanent U.S. Paperclip jobs; both were eventually arrested and tried at Nuremberg. Ruff was acquitted, Becker-Freyseng was convicted and given a twenty-year prison sentence. Another notable case was that of Konrad Schaefer. In an effort to study if Luftwaffe pilots could survive on seawater, Schaefer forced prisoners to drink seawater until they went mad from thirst. He then punctured their livers in order to sample fluid and blood. Schaefer was tried at Nuremberg and acquitted, at which point the United States hired him as a Paperclip. “When he arrived at San Antonio in 1950,” wrote Hunt, “he was touted as ‘the leading German authority on thirst and desalinization of seawater.’”

  34. six hundred million still-classified: Pauline Jelinek, “U.S. Releases Nazi Papers,” Associated Press, November 2, 1999. But in reality, this number is just a guess, since documents can be hidden

  inside agencies that are still classified (as the National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, was from 1961–1992); Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records, April 2007. In 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which “required the U.S. Government to locate, declassify, and release in their entirety, with few exceptions, remaining classified records about war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its allies.” An interagency working group was created to oversee this work. Steven Garfinkel, acting chair of this five-year effort, wrote: “the IWG has ensured that the public finally has access to the entirety of the operational files of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), totaling 1.2 million pages; over 114,200 pages of CIA materials; over 435,000 pages from FBI files; 20,000 pages from Army Counterintelligence Corps files; and over 7 million additional pages of records.” Garfinkel makes no mention of any Atomic Energy Commission files or the files of private contractors inside the Atomic Energy Commission, such as EG&G, who control documents classified as Restricted Data (RD).

  35. U-2 was as radical and as unorthodox: Interview with Tony Bevacqua.

  36. Edgerton’s famous stop-motion photographs: Available for viewing at the Edgerton Center at MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 4-405, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as online at Edgerton.org; Grundberg, “H.E. Edgerton, 86, Dies, Invented Electronic Flash,” New York Times, January 5, 1990.

  37. Kenneth J. Germeshausen: Joan Cook, “Kenneth Germeshausen, 83, Dies; Was Nuclear and Radar Pioneer,” New York Times, August 21, 1990. Information on Germeshausen also comes from the Kenneth J. Germeshausen Center for the Law of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Franklin Pierce Law Center; MIT archives; author interviews with Al O’Donnell, Jim Freedman.

  38. the most highly classified engineering jobs: Interviews with former EG&G employees Al O’Donnell, Jim Freedman, Wayne Pendleton, T. D. Barnes, and others.

  39. EG&G agreed to set up a radar range: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 130. It is also interesting to note that in the footnotes in this CIA monograph, the source for information regarding the location of EG&G’s radar range is redacted, only that they are from Office of Special Activity (OSA) records. Written requests to the CIA were denied.

  40. Lockheed test pilot Robert Sieker: Among pilots living at Area 51, a debate ensued about the cause of Sieker’s crash. U-2 pilots Tony Bevacqua and Ray Goudey told me they believe pilot error caused Sieker’s crash. According to them, he was known to open up his faceplate and take bites of candy bars during flight. Bevacqua himself flew a U-2 dirty bird and lived to tell the tale. Many of these mission flights were made over Asia. Lovick maintains it was the Boston Group’s paint that caused the aircraft to overheat.

  41. “A
s it beeped in the sky”: Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower, 7.

  42. Killian and Bissell found themselves: Welzenbach, “Science and Technology,” 18. “Killian had confidence in Bissell. A special relationship existed between Killian and Bissell going back to 1942.”

  43. formidable top secret billion-dollar spy plane: Top Secret Memorandum of Conference with the President, July 20, 1959. “It will have a radar cross section so low that the probability of hostile detection and successful tracking would be very low. It would have a 4000-mile range at mach 4, with 90,000 feet altitude.” Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 15, Intelligence Matters.

  44. Advancing science and technology for military purposes: The Advanced Research Projects Agency was Eisenhower’s response to Sputnik, “a high-level defense organization to formulate and execute R&D projects that would expand the frontiers of technology beyond the immediate and specific requirements of the Military Services and their laboratories.” In 1972, ARPA became DARPA. The D denotes Defense.

  Chapter Six: Atomic Accidents

  Interviews with Richard Mingus, Al O’Donnell, Jim Freedman, Dr. Wheelon, Troy Wade, Darwin Morgan, Stephen M. Younger

  1. involved thirty consecutive nuclear explosions: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, fact sheet, Operation Plumbbob: “Operation Plumbbob, the sixth series of atmospheric nuclear tests conducted within the continental United States, consisted of 24 nuclear detonations and six safety tests. The Plumbbob series lasted from April 24 to Oct. 7, 1957, and involved about 14,000 Department of Defense (DoD) personnel.”

  2. airplane transporting an atomic bomb would crash: Atomic Energy Commission, Summary of Project 57, the First Safety Test of Operation Plumbbob, report to the General Manager by the Director, Division of Military Application, 24.

  3. the perfect place to do this was Area 51: Ref. Sym 5112-(127), Appendix A, Administrative Committee Report, J. D. Shreve Jr., Sandia Corporation (seven pages, no date). “B. Area Chosen (clockwise perimeter) (Groom Mine Map) Start at intersection of 89 with north NTS boundary; follow 89 north to 51 (off map); 90 east on 51 to 04, south on 04 to Watertown (north) boundary, thence west to 95, south to NTS line, and finally west along NTS line to 89. More simply, it is the rectangle of land (1) bounded north and south by grids 51 and an extension of the north NTS edge respectively, (2) bounded east and west by grids 04 and 89 respectively, (3) excluding all area assigned to Watertown,” 5.

  4. “relinquished for 20,000 years”: Operation Plumbbob, Summary Report, Test Group 57, Nevada Test Site, Extracted Version, MayOctober 1957, ITR-1515 (Extracted Version), 17.

  5. “no preexisting contamination”: Minutes, First General Meeting, the 57 Project, January 18, 1957, at Sandia Corporation, Red. Sym 5112-(127), declassified 8/9/83.

  6. “a safety test”: Memo dated April 2, 1957, LAV-57-33 Atomic Energy Commission, Las Vegas Branch, Office of the Branch Chief; also see Safety Experiments, November 1955-March 1958, Defense Nuclear Agency, United States Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests, Nuclear Test Personnel Review, Report Number DNA 6030.

  7. dispute was over eight dead cows: The University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, Knoxville, November 30, 1953, #404942, Stewart Brothers, Las Vegas, Nevada. Through courtesy of Joe Sanders of AEC, 1–5.

  8. The commission had paid the Stewarts: Memo to Dr. W. S. Johnson, Section Leader, Test Operations Section, University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, October 20, 1953, #4049641.

  9. aerial inspection of Groom Lake: Col. E. A. Blue, DMA/AEC; J. D. Shreve Jr., SC, W. Allaire (ALO), M. Cowan (SC) all inspected the area from the air on a special flight prior to January 18.

  10. “60 to 80 cattle who hadn’t gotten the word”: Minutes, First General Meeting, the 57 Project, January 18, 1957, at Sandia Corporation, Red. Sym 5112-(127), 3.

  11. excluded from official Nevada Test Site maps: Ref. Sym 5112(127) Appendix A, Administrative Committee Report, J. D. Shreve Jr., Sandia Corporation (seven pages, no date). “It remains undecided whether Area 13 is considered on-site or off-site so far as NTS is concerned… This is very important to rule on soon.” Ultimately, it was decided to exclude Area 13 from all maps and it remains this way on declassified maps today because Area 13 lies inside Area 51. Denoting it on a map would lead to questions that the Atomic Energy Commission does not want asked.

  12. nuclear warhead was flown: Ibid., 6. “It will be requested that weapon be flown to Yucca Lake air strip March 15, transferred to Building 11 for storage awaiting ready date for the shot. Checkout would be done in Building 10 and the unit moved from there to Area 13

  (requested designation for site) for firing.”

  13. Richard Mingus was tired: Interviews with Richard Mingus. 14. America’s first dirty bomb: Operation Plumbbob, Summary

  Report, Test Group 57, Nevada Test Site, Extracted Version, MayOctober 1957, ITR-1515 (Extracted Version), 85 pages.

  15. Pacific Proving Ground: General information comes from Buck, History of the Atomic Energy Commission; O’Keefe, Nuclear Hostages; Fehner and Gosling, Battlefield of the Cold War.

  16. made its zigzag course: Fehner and Gosling, Origins of the Nevada Test Site, 39.

  17. arguing for an atomic bombing range: Ibid., 46–47.

  18. Armed Forces Special Weapons Project: “History of the Air Force Special Weapons Center 1 January-30 June 1957.” Department of Defense, DNA 1. 950210.019, declassified with deletions 2/2/95.

  19. code-named Project Nutmeg: Bugher, Review of Project Nutmeg, #404131.

  20. “The optimum conditions”: Fehner and Gosling, Battlefield of the Cold War, 37.

  21. the goal of fostering competition: Interview with Dr. Bud Wheelon; also see Nevada Test Organization, Background Information on Nevada Nuclear Tests, Office of Test Information, July 15, 1957, #403243, 25.

  22. most ambitious series: Plumbbob Series 1957, Technical Report, Defense Nuclear Agency 6005F, DARE Tracking 48584, 6075.

  23. Delta, nothing more: Interview with Richard Mingus.

  24. scientists really had no clear idea: Safety Experiments, November 1955-March 1958, Defense Nuclear Agency, United

  States Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests, Nuclear Test Personnel Review, Report Number DNA 6030.

  25. Workers set up: Ref. Sym 5112-(127) Appendix B, Particle Physics Committee Report, M. Cowan, Sandia Corporation Presiding (nine pages, no date). This document refers to various objectives of the particle physics program, an “experimental approach” to fallout collection, “balloon born precipitators,” air samplers on the ground, collection of fallout trays. It described how “some small plywood shacks with open windows and doors will be constructed in the fallout array. Air and surface contamination levels will be measured within the structures and compared to readings on the outside.”

  26. “stocked with radiation equipment and protective clothing”: Plumbbob Series 1957, Technical Report, Defense Nuclear Agency 6005F, DARE Tracking 48584, 60–75, 316.

  27. Mother Nature’s emissary: Interviews with Richard Mingus and Al O’Donnell, who introduced me to Mueller’s widow.

  28. Project 57 balloons broke loose: Telex TWX 01A 2008242, From Reeves Attention Gen AD Starbird, 1957 Apr 20 AM 3:39; also see “Feasibility of Weapon Delivery By Free Balloons,” OSTI ID: 10150708; Legacy ID: DE98056381, 34 pages.

  29. hand-fired by an employee from EG&G: Operation Plumbbob, Summary Report, Test Group 57, Nevada Test Site, Extracted Version, May-October 1957, ITR-1515 (EX). Sandia Corporation, Albuquerque, NM, October 10, 1958. “At 0350 PST. April 24, a surface charge of 110 pounds of stick dynamite was fired 1,000 feet east of Zone C (as position 42–61) to verify predictions of cloud height. Timing and firing circuits were the ultimate in simplicity; the weapon was hand fired by EG&G at the Test Group Director’s instruction.”

  30. fallout was to the north: Ibid., 55 (6.1., Weather Observations). The weather was meticulously recorded, which is iro
nic given how “fast and loose” everything else was running out at the test site, as stated by an EG&G employee who also worked as a liaison to the Pentagon.

  “April 10, 1957. Hodographs during the period 2100 to 2330 PST showed that satisfactory conditions existed at 2100 PST, but a recommendation for cancellation was made after the wind shifted to northwest on the 2300 PST soundings. April 1F, [sic] 1957. Satisfactory wind conditions existed at 0441 PST, but the morning inversion broke more quickly than expected. By 0530 PST, winds were too strong and the shear had disappeared, forcing cancellation. April 20, 1957, Intermittent light showers began at 2330 PST on the 19th and continued through the remainder of the night and following morning. Hodographs indicated that satisfactory winds existed during this period, but moisture on the instrumentation forced cancellation. April 24, 1957. Scattered middle clouds were observed and a moderate dew formed during the night. The sequence of wind changes from 0415 to 0756 is shown by the hodographs. The shot was fired at 0627 PST.”

  31. The bomb was indeed dirty: In June of 1982, Sandia Corporation produced an extracted 102-page report on the results of its dirty bomb or plutonium-contamination effects study on Project 57 for the director of the Defense Nuclear Agency, in lieu of a proposed cleanup of Area 13 (see chapter 18). Information in this chapter comes from portions of that extracted study. The stated objectives of the project “were to estimate the immediate and long-term distribution of plutonium and gain an understanding of how this distribution comes about, to conduct a biomedical evaluation of plutonium-laden environments, to investigate relevant methods of decontamination, and to evaluate alpha field survey instruments and monitoring procedures.” And yet Area 13 soil decontamination was not even considered for twenty-five years.

  32. “extract” of the original report: The full, still-classified document, originally prepared by Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October of 1958, is called ITR-1515.

  33. “the alpha half-life of plutonium-239”: Ibid., 17 (“Motivation and Mission, 1.1 Historical Resume”). The text reads: “once in the stomach, their stay in the body is short, for they are excreted as an