49. Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr.: Interviews with Jim Freedman.
50. Lyman Kirkpatrick contracted polio: Biography of Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Public Policy Papers. Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Papers, circa 1933–2000, Call Number MC209.
51. relegated to the role of second-tier bureaucrat: In his memoir, Bissell does not mince words. He calls Kirkpatrick “an ambitious man who, in spite of paralysis from polio, aspired to position of director of central intelligence. His illness necessitated a move from the exciting and challenging directorate of plans to the more mundane, bureaucratic position of inspector general, a shift he always resented.” Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 193.
Chapter Nine: The Base Builds Back Up
Interviews with Harry Martin, Jim Freedman, T. D. Barnes, Al O’Donnell, Peter Merlin, Millie Meierdierck
1. the man in charge of property control at Area 51: Interviews with Jim Freedman, T. D. Barnes, Al O’Donnell.
2. “The high and rugged northeast perimeter”: Interview with Peter Merlin, who obtained copies (largely redacted) of Kirkpatrick’s visit to Area 51 from the CIA’s online reading room (CIA.gov). These documents appear to have since been removed.
3. “Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets”: Absher, Mind-Sets and Missiles, 10.
4. Area 51 was a target: Interviews with Peter Merlin, Jim Freedman.
5. decided to make a hunting trip: Interview with Jim Freedman; Hank Meierdierck’s personal papers.
6. Richard Bissell resigned: Oral history interview with Richard M. Bissell Jr. by Theodore A. Wilson and Richard D. McKinzie, East Hartford, Connecticut, July 9, 1971 (Harry S. Truman Library and Museum), http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/bissellr.htm.
7. keep the CIA in the spy plane business: Welzenbach, “Science and Technology,” 23.
8. Richard Bissell alone, had gone rogue: Ibid., 22.
9. CIA might work in better partnership: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 58–60.
10. “Wayne Pendleton was the head of the radar group”: Interview with Wayne Pendleton.
11. “and ‘dirty tricks’ of Dick Bissell’s”: Welzenbach, “Science and
Technology,” 22. The full passage reads: “However, a note of discord crept into Bissell’s relations with Land and Killian… both Land and Killian looked upon science and technology almost as a religion, something sacred to be kept from contamination by those who would misuse it for unwholesome ends. Into this category fit the covert operations and dirty tricks of Dick Bissell’s Directorate of Plans.”
12. called Teak and Orange: Film footage viewed at the Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas.
13. which is exactly where the ozone layer lies: Hoerlin, “United States High-Altitude Test,” 43.
14. “The impetus for these tests”: Ibid., 47.
15. his rationale: Ground stations were supposed to measure acoustic waves that would happen as a result of the blast but Teak detonated seven miles laterally off course to the south and the communication systems were knocked out. Orange detonated four miles higher than it was supposed to and “the deviations affected data acquisitions.”
16. The animals’ heads had been locked in gadgets: Oral history interview with Air Force colonel John Pickering, 52. Film footage viewed at the Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas.
17. “Teak and Orange events would ‘burn a hole’ into the natural ozone layer”: Hoerlin, “United States High-Altitude Test,” 43.
18. Von Braun can be seen examining the Redstone rocket: Teak shot film footage viewed at the Atomic Testing Museum library, Las Vegas.
19. left the island before the second test: Interview with Al O’Donnell; Neufeld, Von Braun, 332.
20. to dash up to Hitler’s lair: Neufeld, Von Braun, 127.
21. project called Operation Argus commenced: Final Review of Argus Fact Sheet, 16 Apr. 82. “The tests were conducted in complete
secrecy and were not announced until the following year.”
22. Christofilos convinced Killian: Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower, 187.
23. “probably the most spectacular event ever conducted”: The White House Memorandum for the President, From J.R. Killian Jr., Subject: Preliminary Results of the ARGUS experiment, dated November 3, 1958, declassified 5/20/77.
24. Walter Sullivan hand-delivered a letter to Killian: The letter is marked “By Hand” and dated February 2, 1959, written on New York Times letterhead, and addressed to Dr. James R. Killian Jr. at the White House.
25. “Neither confirm nor deny such leaks”: Memorandum to Dr. James R. Killian, Jr. Subject: Release of Information on ARGUS. Dated January 20, 1959, signed Karl G. Harr, Jr. Special Assistant to the President. Among other things, it is interesting to note here that on White House stationery, Killian is referred to as “Dr. Killian.” He was not a doctor; he never received a PhD but rather a bachelor’s degree in management. This fact was confirmed for me by MIT library staffer Jennifer Hirsch. “Mr. Killian always went out of his way to remind people he was not a doctor,” I was told — apparently not so with the White House.
26. “I would be protected from congressional inquisition”: Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower, 25.
27. “Are you still there?”: Admiral Parker of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project; Defense Technical Information Center Staff, Defense’s Nuclear Agency 1947–1997, 140; Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 2002.
Chapter Ten: Wizards of Science, Technology, and Diplomacy
Interviews: Harry Martin, Louise Schalk, Dr. Wheelon, Colonel Slater, Frank Murray, Roger Andersen, Ken Collins
1. Martin had been at Area 51 since the very first days: Interviews with Harry Martin.
2. The generals would inevitably show up: Classified Message, Secret 2135Z 14 May 62, To Director, Prity [sic] OXCART. “1. General Power, General Compton, Col Montoya and Col Geary [redacted], A12… During the flight the visitors were shown [redacted]… Kelly Johnson flew back to Las Vegas with the group… General Power seemed very impressed with the aircraft.” Declassified by CIA, August 2007.
3. “Lou, wake up!”: Interview with Louise Schalk.
4. “The aircraft began wobbling”: Johnson, History of the Oxcart Program, 12.
5. “What in Hell, Lou?”: Rich, Skunk Works, 219.
6. Martin thought for sure the airplane was going to crash: Interview with Harry Martin.
7. Rare film footage of the historic event: CIA footage, T. D. Barnes’s personal collection.
8. Bud Wheelon: Central Intelligence Agency, “Biographic Profile, Albert Dewell Wheelon,” May 10, 1966, NARA, MRB, RG 263.
9. Howard and Jane Roman: Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, 275. “When the CIA Counterintelligence Staff was established, Jim Angleton assumed responsibility for operational liaison with the FBI. Jane Roman, a veteran OSS X-2 officer, handled the daily meetings…”; interview with Dr. Wheelon.
10. hand-picked by President Kennedy’s science advisers: Central
Intelligence Agency, R. V. Jones Intelligence Award Ceremony Honoring Dr. Albert Wheelon, December 13, 1994.
11. “in this way, I became the new ‘Mayor of Area 51’”: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
12. Agency had been analyzing reports: McAuliffe, CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, 1-31.
13. including 1,700 Soviet military technicians: Ibid., 37. 14. jamming facilities against Cape Canaveral: Ibid.
15. McCone left for his honeymoon in Paris: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
16. Not another Gary Powers incident: This was a common theme among military planners all through the 1960s.
17. the CIA got presidential approval: Office of Special Activities DD/S&T Chronological History, 30 August 1966, Top Secret, Approved for release Jul 2001, 5. “5 October 1962, Last CIA Flight over Cuba (50 flown in all).”
18. pushing for preemptive strikes: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 265.
/> 19. Ledford had been asked by McCone: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
20. General LeMay encouraged him to take the CIA liaison job: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 53.
21. Ledford’s plane crash, involving heroics: Official Website of U.S. Air Force, biography of Brigadier General Jack C. Ledford, retired Oct. 1, 1970; died Nov. 16, 2007.
22. tried to treat Ledford with opiates: This story was legendary among the men who worked under Ledford at Area 51 and is sourced from multiple interviews including with Colonel Slater and Frank Murray. A version of it can be read at the Arlington National Cemetery
Web site. Ledford’s backseater, Sergeant Harry C. Miller, died of his original wounds several hours after Ledford and the medic helped him out of the plane.
23. The chances were one in six, Ledford said: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 53.
24. Kennedy felt that if a CIA spy plane: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
25. Air Force pilot flying an Agency U-2: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 54.
26. Photographs showing nuclear missiles: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, photographic inserts.
Chapter Eleven: What Airplane?
Interviews: Ken Collins, Don Donohue, Sam Pizzo, Frank Murray, Roger Andersen, Florence DeLuna, Frank Micalizzi, Harry Martin
1. Collins went by the code name Ken Colmar: Interviews with Ken Collins, who had never revealed his code name before.
2. She made it as far as Athens: Powers, Overflight, 59.
3. he flew deep into North Korea: Citation, First Lieutenant Kenneth S. Collins, SO. No. 221 Hq FEAP, APO925, 6 May 53, by Command of General Weyland.
4. fired at by MiG fighter jets: Ibid.
5. Distinguished Flying Cross: Citation to Accompany the Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (First Oak Leaf Cluster) to Kenneth S. Collins. AO 2222924, United States Air Force.
6. coveted Silver Star for valor: Citation for Silver Star, First Lieutenant Kenneth S. Collins, by direction of the president.
7. a total of five Oxcarts being flight-tested at Area 51: Robarge, Archangel, 17.
8. Captain Donald Donohue would start out following Collins: Interview with Don Donohue.
9. Later, Jack Weeks: Interview with Ken Collins.
10. “Suddenly, the altimeter was rapidly unwinding”: Interview with Ken Collins.
11. Sam Pizzo had a monumental amount of work: Interview with Sam Pizzo.
12. took to the desert terrain on horseback: Interview with Ken Collins.
13. filled by Air Force brass: Interview with Colonel Slater.
14. Holbury had been given a commendation by General Patton: General Robert J. Holbury biography, Air Commander, Detachment 1 of the 1129th U.S. Air Force Special Activities Squadron at Groom Lake, Nevada; Roadrunners Internationale official Web site.
15. a pitot tube had in fact caused the crash: Interview with Collins; Parangosky, The Oxcart Story, 11.
16. monitoring phone conversations: Briefing Note for the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, 10 March 1964. Attachment 1 to BYE2015-64, “Project Oxcart Awareness Outside Cleared Community.” The Agency also had a system in place to monitor air traffic chatter during Oxcart test flights to see if any commercial or military pilots spotted the plane.
17. increasingly suspicious CIA: Col. Redmond White, Diary Notes, September 27, 1963, Secret. White was the CIA’s deputy director/support and his notes include a second reference to the disclosure to Aviation Week as well as a notation that CIA director John McCone said, “OXCART is going to blow sooner or later.”
18. the Air Force ordered not one but three variants: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 33.
19. letters stood for “Reconnaissance/Strike”: Memorandum, Secretary of the Air Force Eugene Zuckert to General Bernard Schriever, April 8, 1963, w/att: Procurement and Security Provisions for the R-12 Program, Top Secret.
20. eight hundred million dollars developing the B-70 bomber airplane: Marcelle Size Knaack, Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems, Post-World War II Bombers, 559. The XB-70A had its genesis in Boeing Aircraft Corporation’s Project MX2145. Also see Ball, Politics and Force Levels, 216-18.
21. the President was astonished: Rich, Skunk Works, 228. 22. “unnecessary and economically unjustifiable”: President
Kennedy, Special Message to the Congress of Urgent National Needs, delivered in person before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961.
23. Congress cut back its B-70 order even further: House Armed Services Committee, Authorizing Appropriations for Aircraft, Missiles and Naval Vessels for the Armed Forces (1961), 569, see FY 1962, 1564-65, 1577.
24. “Johnson, I want a promise out of you”: Rich, Skunk Works, 231.
25. LeMay promised to send Lockheed: Robarge, Archangel, 52. The Air Force initially envisioned a fleet of as many as a hundred YF12s, designed to intercept a Soviet supersonic bomber rumored to be in the works.
26. At the Ranch, it was business as usual: Interview with Colonel Slater.
27. finally delivered to the Ranch: Robarge, Archangel, 17. The J57 engine could reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a maximum height of 40,000 feet; interview with John Evans of Pratt and Whitney.
28. An X-ray showed the outline of a pen: Interview with Ed Lovick. 29. new set of challenges: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central
Intelligence Agency, 38.
30. F-101 chase plane had run off the airstrip: Interview with Don Donohue.
31. Lyndon Johnson would be briefed: CIA Memo, Meeting with the President, Secretary Rusk, Secretary McNamara, Mr. Bundy and DCI. Re: Surfacing the OXCART, 29 November, 1963, 1.
Chapter Twelve: Covering Up the Cover-Up
Interviews: Jim Freedman, Colonel Slater, T. D. Barnes, Stanton Friedman
1. “I heard it was in Area 22”: Interview with Jim Freedman. In contemporary maps of the test site, Area 22 is located down by Camp Mercury. In the 1950s and 1960s, many of the quadrants were numbered differently.
2. 354,200 feet — almost 67 miles up: Jenkins, Hypersonics Before the Shuttle, 119. The Kбrmбn line, commonly used to define the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, is at an altitude of approximately 328,000, or 62 miles above sea level. The U-2 flew at 70,000 feet, or approximately 13 miles; the A-12 flew at 90,000 feet, or approximately 17.5 miles.
3. “on 30 April, A-12 was in air”: Priority Secret Classified Message to Director from—2219Z Classified Message Secret 15 May 62, ZE19C “Oxcart Secure Ops.”
4. commercial pilots would report sightings: Interview with Colonel Slater; Annie Jacobsen, “The Road to Area 51,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 5, 2009, 26–28, 77.
5. Walter Cronkite hosted a CBS news special report: The report can be viewed online, “From the Vault,” CBS Reports.
6. Dr. Robertson appeared on a CBS Reports: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 74.
7. House Armed Services Committee held hearings on UFOs: “Congress Reassured on Space Visits,” New York Times, April 6, 1966.
8. Air Force laying blame for the cover-up on the CIA: Walter L. Mackey, executive officer, memorandum for DCI, “Air Force Request to Declassify CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO),”
September 1, 1966.
9. According to CIA historian Gerald Haines: Haines, “CIA’s Role.” 10. journalist named John Lear: Lear, “The Disputed CIA
Document on UFO’s,” Saturday Review, September 3, 1966.
11. One of the more enigmatic figures: Hillenkoetter took over amid negotiations on May 1, 1947, of what would be the National Security Act of 1947, so when the CIA came into being on September 18, 1947, he was already DCI, per the Central Intelligence Agency Library, Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter, Rear Admiral, US Navy, CIA.gov.
12. served on the board of governors: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 74.
13. Hillenkoetter testified to Congress: “Air Force Order on ‘Saucers’ Cited; Pamphlet by the Inspector General Called Objects a ‘Serious Business,’
” New York Times, February 28, 1960.
14. he mysteriously resigned: NICAP Web site, “The Who Was Series,” Hillenkoetter, Vice-Admiral Roscoe,
http://www.nicap.org/photobio.htm; in my interview with Stan Friedman, Friedman said there was nothing mysterious about Hillenkoetter’s resigning, “he just resigned.” Nor does Friedman believe that Hillenkoetter was planted at NICAP to gather information.
15. Bryan’s true role with the ufologists: Ibid. In the official NICAP bio for Hillenkoetter, it is written, “He resigned from NICAP in Feb 1962 and was replaced on the NICAP Board by a former covert CIA high official, Joseph Bryan III, the CIA’s first Chief of Political & Psychological Warfare (Bryan never disclosed his CIA background to NICAP or Keyhoe).”
16. the CIA had maintained three lines of thought on UFOs: 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.
The CIA party line on UFOs had been firmly established by General Bedell Smith during his tenure and was maintained until sometime around 1966, when this new thinking emerged.
17. This new postulation came from the Agency’s monitoring: CIA Memo, Translation, Vitolniyek, R. (Director) Flying phenomena, Sovetsknya Latviya, no. 287, 10 Dec. 67; CIA Memo, 10 Aug. 67, “Report on Conversations with Soviet Scientists on Subject of Unidentified Flying Objects in the USSR”; CIA Memo, Translation of Memo from Konsomol’skaya pravda, no. 13, 20 January 68, author Zigel, 3.
18. Villen Lyustiberg: CIA Memo, Translation, Lyustiberg V. (Science commentator for [illegible]), “Are Flying Saucers a Myth?” Pravda, Ukrainy, no. 40, 17 Feb. 68.
19. “the U.S. publicizes them to divert people from its failures and aggressions”: CIA Memo, Translation, “Nothing But the Facts on UFOs or Which Novosti Writer Do You Read?” 9 April 1968, 12 pages.
20. Zigel, had come to believe: The CIA followed Zigel closely. In the Agency’s author biography on him, it states: “Zigel, F. Yu., Dr of Technical Science, writes under auspices of Moscow Aviation Institute, Associate Professor there as of 1969.” CIA analysts discovered that Zigel’s interest in UFOs began with his interest in astronomy and mathematics in 1936, after he participated in an expedition to Kazakhstan to observe a solar eclipse. Zigel had also visited the Tunguska crater in Siberia, where a comet likely exploded, in 1908. The blast knocked over approximately 80 million trees and flattened 830 square miles of Siberian forest. In the early 1960s Zigel stunned his colleagues by suggesting that the Tunguska crater could have been created by an outer space vehicle that crashed there.
Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base Page 48