by Dwayne Day
National leaders needed a great deal of information about almost every part of the USSR. The Soviet space program had embarrassed Eisenhower with Sputnik, and would soon embarrass Kennedy with human space flights. The Soviets had a vigorous missile program and ICBM silos were reportedly being built in many places. Missile production was widely scattered. The Soviet air defense system was vast and the Soviets were developing an ABM system to counter American long-range missiles. The Soviet nuclear weapons program was vigorous and the Soviets exploded a usable hydrogen bomb before the United States.19 An extensive chemical and biological weapons program was operating, a fact since confirmed. American intelligence could not monitor this vast enterprise with only agents on the ground. While important during the Second World War, communications intelligence was unable to identify and follow such activities. CORONA provided a unique solution to the problem.
The CIA’s National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) of Soviet strategic forces were surrounded by uncertainty and disagreement before CORONA. With very little hard data, it was possible for “hawks” to argue that the Soviet threat was enormous, while “doves” could maintain that it was trivial. This situation changed completely as satellite photography poured in. There now could be little debate about the number of Soviet bombers and missiles. Six months before the first successful CORONA mission, an NIE predicted that there would be 140–200 Soviet ICBMs deployed by 1961. One month after the first flight, that estimate dropped to 10–25.20 Satellite photography quickly reduced the range of debate and the uncertainty surrounding these judgments. Based on CORONA images, NIEs rapidly took on the air of authority.
Perhaps just as important was the fact that anyone could understand and evaluate the photographs. Analysts and presidents alike could see large facilities and make their own judgments. The skepticism that often clouded reports from covert agents was no longer relevant. Neither was the uncertainty that surrounded the decrypting of coded messages. CORONA data was user-friendly.
The photo-interpretation community was originally sized to cope with sporadic U-2 flights. When CORONA began providing monthly coverage, this community went into overload. The CIA moved quickly to expand the cadre of photo-interpreters and consolidated existing capabilities in a new National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, D.C. The CIA began developing automated pattern recognition machines that could help the photo-interpreters do their job. (It is a great satisfaction to me that these machines are now being used by the medical community to interpret mammograms.)
MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
The streamlined management approach that Bissell and Ritland adopted was essentially the same system they had used on the U-2. It was characterized at first by seamless cooperation among the CIA, the Air Force, and the industrial contractors: Lockheed, Itek, GE, Kodak, and Douglas Aircraft. Each team member did what it did best. The extraordinary security in which the program was wrapped meant that there was no likelihood that personal or corporate recognition could be expected. Indeed, it was not until 1995—35 years later—that the CORONA Pioneers received the thanks of a grateful nation.
CORONA also had a profound influence on the future direction of the national reconnaissance program. There was a period of management tension during the early 1960s.21 Those problems were celebrated in at least one popular book, although that account is quite confusing.22 It is probably important for the historical record to clarify the matter from the perspective of one who was centrally involved.
A Douglas-built Long Tank Thrust Augmented Thor (LTTAT) rocket used to launch KH-4A and KH-4B CORONA satellites. The three solid rocket motors added around the base significantly increased the power of this version of the Thor. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force)
It is significant that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) did not exist during the development and early operational phase of the CORONA program. Nor did it exist during the first five years of the U-2 program. It had not been created when the Mach 3 OXCART aircraft started development. In each case, the primary responsibility was given to the CIA, with strong support from the U.S. Air Force. This successful partnership caused Land and Killian to push for a permanent collaboration between the two organizations. They wanted to institutionalize the extraordinary partnership that had worked so well. The NRO was thus born. (This is explained in more detail in chapter 6.)
Richard Bissell was the acknowledged leader of reconnaissance activity as the NRO concept began to take shape. However, he had taken on other important new responsibilities at the CIA. In the early 1960s, Bissell was responsible for both the reconnaissance program and the clandestine services. In the second role, he was centrally involved in preparations for the invasion of Cuba by an exile force that President Dwight Eisenhower had authorized. With the full authority of President John Kennedy, the operation proceeded in early 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, with disastrous consequences for all parties. Richard Bissell, as well as Allen Dulles and his deputy, Air Force General Charles P. Cabell, were forced to leave government service soon thereafter.23 Herbert Scoville assumed Bissell’s responsibility for CORONA, the U-2, and OXCART at the CIA. Scoville did not—indeed, could not—enjoy the standing that Bissell had created through his remarkable accomplishments. A significant vacuum was thus created in the national reconnaissance program.
The Department of Defense (DoD) moved forcefully to fill this vacuum. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was working to consolidate all military space activities under the Air Force. Many people in the DoD viewed the unique relationship between the CIA and the Air Force as an anomaly. They wanted their own people to take the lead in overhead reconnaissance. Joseph Charyk was held over by the new Kennedy administration as Undersecretary of the Air Force. When Bissell left, the emerging NRO role was assigned to Charyk as a second responsibility. However, John McCone became Director of Central Intelligence in 1961, and his agreement was needed to move the center of gravity from the CIA to the DoD.
The differences between McNamara and McCone were both substantive and bureaucratic. They differed profoundly on Vietnam: McNamara predicted success, while McCone was less sanguine. Then, as now, information was the coin of the realm in Washington, and McNamara wanted to control its flow. He told McCone bluntly that the CIA should confine itself to defining requirements, perhaps doing some advanced research, and being content to examine the film that Air Force satellites produced. During the Cuban missile crisis, McNamara’s deputy, Roswell Gilpatric, insisted that the long-running CIA U-2 missions be transferred to Air Force control. The responsibility for Cuban overflights reverted to the CIA soon after the crisis was over, but the first Pentagon challenge had been successfully mounted.
McCone and McNamara seemed unwilling to engage one another directly on the issue of overhead reconnaissance. McCone was personally close to Gilpatric. Gilpatric took on the job of convincing McCone that the leadership of reconnaissance should pass from CIA to the DoD. McCone agreed to transfer financial control of all CIA reconnaissance activities to the NRO. Charyk used this and other concessions to shift the CIA’s responsibilities progressively to his own staff.
Brockway MacMillan followed Charyk as director of the NRO and continued the policy of reducing the CIA role. In doing so, he enjoyed strong support from Eugene Fubini of the DoD staff. Their first priority was reducing the CIA’s role in CORONA. This was a particularly rich plum. CORONA was highly visible and successful within the national security community, in contrast to DoD space programs. Both the SAMOS reconnaissance program and the ADVENT military communications satellite program had been conspicuous failures, and were then in the process of being canceled by the DoD.
McCone had once served as Undersecretary of the Air Force and held its people in high regard. He was unsure whether he should support a continuing CIA role in reconnaissance. After a year of indecision and frustration, Herbert Scoville, McCone’s deputy for these activities, resigned in protest.
McCone asked me to take his place and to
carry on the work that Bissell had pioneered. I first came to the CIA in June 1962 to replace Scoville as director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, as he moved over to take Bissell’s role in reconnaissance. I was drawn into reconnaissance matters by McCone and Scoville because I had played a pioneering role in the Air Force ICBM and space programs. I had a high regard for both men, but noted that the objectives of DoD and CIA were no longer aligned. It seemed clear to me that the DoD saw no important role for the CIA in satellite activities. I told McCone quite bluntly: “There is no point in screwing another light bulb into a socket that is shorted out.” He asked me to analyze the situation and to make a recommendation.
I concluded that the nation needed CIA participation in these vital programs. If the previous partnership was no longer possible, the country needed the benefits of competition in strategic reconnaissance. I reminded McCone that while he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the country had made a similar decision when it established a second nuclear weapon design laboratory at Livermore at the Air Force’s insistence. I suggested that overhead reconnaissance was even more important than nuclear weapons design. I reminded him that the Pentagon had a sorry record in satellite reconnaissance. I argued that we could not depend on the Air Force to be the sole provider of the most important information that the country needed. I acknowledged the problems of competition among government agencies, but stated my firm belief that the overriding priority for the country was a vigorous and effective reconnaissance program.
John McCone considered this matter for several days and then decided that the CIA should again play a strong role in these programs. He pledged his full support to that objective. With his assurance and encouragement from Jerome Wiesner, Kennedy’s Science Advisor, and Din Land, I agreed to pick up where Scoville had left off. I immediately assumed responsibility for all overflight activities with the U-2 and for OXCART. I also became responsible for the CIA role in CORONA.
With Scoville’s resignation, McNamara’s people felt that the time had arrived to move rapidly to consolidate reconnaissance responsibility in the Air Force. Brockway MacMillan, who had succeeded Charyk, tried to implement this strategy. He notified me that he was transferring CIA responsibility for CORONA payload integration and testing at the Palo Alto facility to the Air Force. Using the fiscal control that McCone had granted his predecessor, MacMillan refused to provide the funds that we normally used to reimburse Lockheed for this vital work. McCone’s new policy was thus put to an early test. The CIA refused to transfer its responsibility, and the matter went unresolved for almost one year while we all debated it. During this period, Lockheed funded CORONA activity with its own corporate money rather than take sides in a bitter contest. The matter was finally resolved in the CIA’s favor. Lockheed was reimbursed for the costs it incurred, and the management of the CORONA program was returned to the previous arrangement. After a period of readjustment in Pentagon expectations, the partnership between the CIA and the Air Force resumed within the NRO and served the country well to the end of the program in 1972.
The debate between CIA and DoD then shifted to whether the CIA ought to pursue new reconnaissance systems. Gene Fubini, Assistant Director of Defense Research and Engineering, and Brockway MacMillan, the Undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the NRO, vigorously opposed each new system that the CIA started to develop. The debate continued until they both left government service in 1965 and Al Flax became director of the NRO. Strongly influenced by the Land Panel, he saw the CIA and the Air Force as valuable, complementary assets. This was fortunate for the country, because the systems then being developed at the CIA would become vital components of the overall National Reconnaissance Program.
PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENTS
The first two years of CORONA’s development were marked by great daring, repeated disappointment, and finally by extraordinary success. Having dared so much at the outset, the program settled into a pattern of gradual improvement. Performance of the Thor-Agena combination was steadily increased by extending the fuel tanks and adding strap-on solid rockets to the Thor. The larger payload capability was used to increase film load and to extend the time on-orbit from four to ten days. When the lifting capability of Thor and Agena was great enough, a second camera was added to provide stereoscopic coverage.
The camera itself was improved by going from a Tessar f/5 system to a Petzval f/3.5 lens design. The attitude control capability and vibration levels of the Agena improved with time. By these means, the resolution was gradually improved from 25 feet to 6 feet. Reference cameras were added to give the photo-interpreters very precise indications of vehicle orientation during camera operation. Color and infrared film were tried, but seemed not to increase the intelligence value when weighed against the accompanying loss in resolution and area coverage.
A KH-4A CORONA spacecraft at Lockheed’s Advanced Projects facility. The KH-4A was the most prolific and successful of the CORONA designs. The two dark patches on the satellite’s skin at the center of the photo are covers for the horizon sensors. This satellite was significantly larger than earlier versions because it included a second satellite recovery vehicle. (Photo courtesy of A. Roy Burks)
Recovery techniques were perfected, and it became a rare event when a film capsule was lost. The number of capsules was increased from one to two, so that one load of film could be returned and processed while the satellite continued taking pictures in orbit.
A major challenge to the program occurred in 1962. Some of the returned film was completely exposed—apparently by a bright light source. We judged that it was caused by static arcing within the satellite. Coincidentally, this electrical discharge is called “corona” by the physics community. I persuaded Professor Sidney Drell to take leave from Stanford in 1963 to lead a team of engineers and scientists in addressing this problem. In collaboration with Itek engineers, they traced the problem to the rubber rollers that were used to move film through the camera.24 This was the first time that a younger, second-generation group of scientists became deeply involved in reconnaissance activities. Scientists like Sid Drell, Richard Garwin, Bill Perry (later Secretary of Defense), Joe Shea, and Frank Lehan went on to make enormous contributions to all U.S. reconnaissance programs during the next three decades.
NEXT STEPS
As managers in the Intelligence Community became comfortable with CORONA operations, the CIA began to look ahead. It was apparent that photo-interpreters were having difficulty locating strategic and military facilities in the vast amount of 70-millimeter film that was arriving. They felt that much finer resolution was needed if we were to increase confidence and throughput. I asked the Drell group to examine this problem in 1963, and put two questions to them: What resolution do the photo-interpreters need to find and identify strategic installations in broad-area coverage? And, could CORONA be improved to provide that level of resolution, or must we begin a new system?
The Drell team approached this problem by preparing simulated photographs from very high-quality U-2 coverage. These scenes were degraded to various resolution levels and given to the photo-interpreters to see how recognition varied with resolution. The experiments showed that a substantial improvement in resolution was indeed needed. The Drell group judged it unlikely that the CORONA system could be pushed to that new level by product improvements. CORONA’s basic camera design had inherent limits—and they had been reached.
CORONA VULNERABILITY
I worried a great deal about the vulnerability of CORONA from my first days in government service. I recognized that it was an easy matter for the Soviets to identify CORONA missions and to predict their orbits. The United States was obliged by international agreement to notify the United Nations of each launch, although not of its purpose. The Agena spacecraft radiated four microwave signals on frequencies ranging from UHF band to S band. These signals carried telemetry data, but were also used by U.S. ground stations to track the spacecraft. It was clear that the Soviets c
ould track CORONA missions using the same signals and undoubtedly knew their orbits almost as well as the United States did.
It is a relatively easy matter to destroy satellites in low earth orbit if there is an incentive to do so.25 The United States established two antisatellite systems in 1963 and kept them in operation for almost a decade. One was based on the Nike-Zeus ABM system and was deployed on Kwajalein Island. The other used a Thor rocket on Johnston Island. The plan was to wait until a Soviet satellite passed reasonably close to these islands and then to launch with nuclear warheads to destroy it—if the command was given. The Soviets were deploying a nuclear-tipped ABM system at scores of sites around Moscow, and had several launchers at their development site near Sary Shagan. I knew that it would be a simple matter for these systems to eliminate CORONA. Had they done so, the United States would have had to conduct its affairs in almost total ignorance of Soviet activities, as we had done prior to 1960.
This image of the Pentagon, taken by a KH-4B satellite on September 25, 1967, represents some of the best CORONA imagery. The negative of this image, when viewed under a stereo microscope, would be considerably sharper than this picture. (Photo courtesy National Photographic Interpretation Center)
The destruction of a low-altitude satellite does not require nuclear weapons. Because it travels in earth orbit at speeds of approximately 17,000 miles per hour, it is only necessary to stand in the satellite’s path to destroy it. American apprehension was increased in 1967, when the Soviets began to test a co-orbital antisatellite system that could do just this.26