by Dwayne Day
By 1957 U-2 missions were providing U.S. intelligence analysts with a wealth of information about Soviet missile, technological, and scientific activities. Known as Project SOFT TOUCH, these flights ranged over such prime Soviet targets as the missile-test facilities at Tyuratam and Sary Shagan and the nuclear refining installations at Tomsk.
ORIGINS OF THE NRO: PROJECT CORONA
In late 1954, at the same time the CIA was developing the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and beginning to exploit overhead photography, Air Force officials called for continuous surveillance of denied areas of the world to determine a potential enemy’s war-making capability. This rekindled the Air Force’s interest in satellite development. On April 2, 1956, the WS-117L System Program Office (known as an SPO) of the Air Force published the first complete U.S. development plan for a reconnaissance satellite. The plan proposed a full operational system by late 1963 at a cost of nearly $115 million. The Air Force made Lockheed the prime contractor for this multifaceted space-system concept. A major component of the plan was a satellite observation system.
The Air Force envisioned a 92-satellite program divided into seven phases. The first phase would be a direct readout reconnaissance satellite that would process film aboard the satellite and transmit the images to a ground station. It was not to become operational, however, until 1960. The final phase, a large signals intelligence satellite, would be operational by 1963. The original price tag for the entire project rapidly escalated to $600 million. Little came of these efforts, however, as the Department of Defense struggled to eliminate noncritical defense expenditures during the mid-1950s and the Eisenhower administration stressed a “space for peace” theme. In addition, many civilian and military leaders doubted the reliability of such advanced concepts.
The launching of Sputniks I and II in the fall of 1957, however, changed the prospects of the reconnaissance satellite program. Although the new President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities (PBCFIA), chaired by James Killian, assured the president that U.S. missile development was on track and on a par with or ahead of Soviet efforts, it urged greater federal support for the various programs and a major review of all reconnaissance systems with a view toward replacing the increasingly vulnerable U-2.
When Eisenhower asked Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles about the prospects for a U.S. satellite reconnaissance vehicle that could take pictures from space and beam them back to Earth, Quarles replied that the Air Force had a major research program in the area that was progressing nicely. Killian and another PBCFIA member, Edwin “Din” Land, disagreed. Killian considered the satellite program peripheral. He believed that if Project RAINBOW, designed to make the U-2 invisible to radar, proved successful, it would diminish the importance of satellites altogether.6 Moreover, Killian was supported by James Baker, a Harvard University astronomer, head of the Air Force Intelligence Panel and, like Killian and Land, a member of the 1955 Technological Capabilities Panel that had recommended the development of the U-2. They were also joined by Philip G. Strong from the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence. These men believed that the major part of the Air Force’s WS-117L project, the direct readout satellite, could not return the scale of imagery needed to answer the president’s questions concerning Soviet missile developments.
Despite such concerns, Killian, Land, Baker, and their colleagues believed that U.S. scientists and engineers, given sufficient funds and the freedom to innovate, could solve the problems and get a film-return photoreconnaissance satellite in orbit. They also urged the president to start work on a replacement for the U-2 as soon as possible.
After listening to his advisers, on October 28, 1957, Eisenhower ordered the Air Force and the CIA to provide him with details of their efforts to date concerning advanced reconnaissance systems. For the CIA, this meant the supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, the OXCART or A-12 (the Air Force version was known as the SR-71 or Blackbird); for the Air Force, it meant the various satellites of the WS-117L project.
Discussions among the president, his civilian advisers, and CIA and Air Force officials continued into December. All agreed that there was little prospect that either the A-12 or WS-117L could be deployed soon. Nevertheless, the scientists, led by Killian and Land, urged the president to pursue both an advanced aircraft and the satellite projects. This investment in competing reconnaissance platforms corresponded with Eisenhower’s belief that the nation would have to use a “Manhattan Project” approach in order to make rapid progress in the missile and satellite areas. Killian and Land also believed that a small element of the WS-117L program, a satellite with a returnable film capsule, could be quickly developed. They recommended that this program be taken from the larger Air Force project and given to the same team that had built the U-2: the CIA’s Richard Bissell and the Air Force’s Brigadier General Osmond Ritland. The civilian scientists believed such a move would take the pressure off the larger Air Force effort and serve as an interim reconnaissance system until the problems of the WS-117L could be worked out.
Under the covert plan approved by Eisenhower, the CIA would procure the satellite cameras and reentry vehicles, while the Air Force provided the host spacecraft and the booster missiles. At the same time, the CIA retained responsibility for developing a follow-on plane for the U-2 with the assistance of the Air Force.
The satellite program, Project CORONA, was to be a stop-gap effort until the much larger and more complex Air Force WS-117L was developed and deployed its satellites. Little did anyone realize the extent of the problems U.S. scientists would encounter in both programs, or that CORONA would become the pioneering program for unmanned space flight, or that it would still be launching satellites 14 years later.
The CORONA experience, like the U-2 program, also demonstrated to later NRO officials the advantages of a flexible government-business partnership arrangement. It essentially established the fundamental management and acquisition principles that the NRO followed for the next 20 years. Bissell later described the process:
The program was started in a marvelously informal manner. Ritland and I worked out the division of labor between the two organizations as we went along. Decisions were made jointly. There were so few people involved and their relations were so close that decisions could be and were made quickly and cleanly. We did not have problems of having to make compromises or of endless delays awaiting agreement. After we got fully organized and the contracts had been let, we began a system of management through monthly suppliers meetings—as we had done with the U-2. Ritland and I sat at the end of the table, and I acted as chairman. The group included two or three people from each of the suppliers. We heard reports of progress and ventilated problems, especially those involving interfaces among contractors. The program was handled in an extraordinarily cooperative manner between the Air Force and the CIA. Almost all of the people involved on the Government side were more interested in getting the job done than in claiming credit or gaining control.
The CORONA program, like the U-2, used a tight-knit government-industry team approach. It provided maximum latitude to the engineers to grapple with technical problems and issues.
THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE (NRO)
Prior to the establishment of the NRO in 1961, the CORONA program operated under a loose, unstructured arrangement by which the CIA and the Air Force jointly ran the effort. The CIA handled the funds for the covert projects, acquired the CORONA cameras and the satellite recovery vehicles (SRVs), and provided much of the program’s security procedures. The Air Force built the spacecraft, launched the rockets, and retrieved the payloads. For a time, the relationship worked well. CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) Richard Bissell and Undersecretary of the Air Force Joseph Charyk formed a close, high-level, informal working partnership.
According to Bissell, the program, despite some shortcomings, worked reasonably well. “Although I didn’t like the situation,” he remarked later, “I was perfectly well
aware that it could not be any other way. The Agency could not get into the business of launching large missiles at that stage of the game.”7
By the early 1960s, however, many in the Air Force concluded that their role should be preeminent, and tried to assert control over the entire project. From the Air Force’s point of view, the service was doing 90 percent of the work. Hundreds of Air Force personnel were working on CORONA, while the CIA had only two officers stationed in California on the program—both Air Force lieutenant colonels on loan to the agency. For its part, the CIA wanted to maintain an independent capability for the design and development of satellite systems. Much of the early 1960s saw a struggle for control of U.S. reconnaissance satellites between CIA and the Air Force and attempts to work out some type of compromise agreement regarding the NRO.
PROBLEMS BEGIN
The conflict first surfaced over the introduction of the CORONA KH-3 (C‴) camera in mid-1961. When President Kennedy’s science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, expressed reservations about the advanced camera, Colonel Lee Battle, the Air Force officer in charge of the launch facilities in California, arbitrarily canceled the first KH-3 launch scheduled for July 1961. Bissell’s special assistant for technical analysis, Eugene P. Kiefer, criticized the cancellation. For Kiefer, the Air Force was intervening in areas in which it had no authority. He appealed to Bissell to have the launch reinstated. Bissell turned to his friend Charyk, who succeeded in rescheduling the KH-3 launch. The incident, however, caused both the CIA and the Air Force to rethink the management structure for the CORONA program.
Upset by the carping and complaining over the cancellation of the KH-3 launch, Killian and Land (who still served as intelligence advisors despite the change in administrations) suggested to DCI Allen Dulles and Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric that the lines of responsibility in the CORONA program needed straightening.8
Neither Bissell nor Charyk was enthusiastic about signing a formal agreement. They believed that their informal collaboration over the past five years had provided them with needed flexibility and had avoided excessive bureaucracy. Nevertheless, Charyk asked an aide to draft a formal agreement. Unfortunately, the aide, Colonel John Martin, had never been actively involved in the CORONA program and knew little of the informal working relationship between Bissell and Charyk. His draft agreement carefully described the existing relationship in great detail, but still failed to capture the sense of informal cooperation that had made the relationship work. Bissell and Charyk both read the draft and made few changes. Both assumed they would continue to operate under their informal agreements.
Joseph Charyk, the first director of the National Reconnaissance Office. (Photo courtesy of the National Reconnaissance Office)
After some discussion between Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) Charles P. Cabell and Gilpatric, on September 6, 1961, the CIA and the Air Force officially signed a charter establishing a National Reconnaissance Program (NRP). Under the agreement, a covert National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) would finance and control all overhead reconnaissance projects. The NRO was to be managed by a joint directorship of the CIA and the Air Force reporting to the Secretary of Defense. It would obtain intelligence requirements through the United States Intelligence Board (USIB).9 Budget appropriations for the central administrative office of NRO, made up of a small number of CIA, Air Force, and Navy personnel, came through the Air Force. Furthermore, the Air Force provided the missiles, bases, and recovery capability for the reconnaissance systems. The CIA, in turn, conducted research and development, contracting, and security. The agreement also left the CIA in control of the data collection program.
What the agreement did not address were the fundamental disagreements between the CIA and the Air Force over the entire satellite reconnaissance program and the very different objectives each had for this program. The Air Force, especially, was unwilling to relinquish control of what it viewed as one of its primary missions. By the 1960s, the reconnaissance program had assumed major importance for the Air Force. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the manned bomber had lost its primacy in strategic planning. In addition, with the creation of the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space program in 1958, the Air Force lost its potential direction of the overall U.S. space effort. The Air Force was, therefore, reluctant to see overhead reconnaissance permanently snatched away as well.
Further complicating the situation was the very nature of the reconnaissance program itself. The Air Force was more interested in tactical intelligence, while the CIA paid more attention to procuring strategic or national intelligence. Also at issue were questions over requirements, who determined targets, and the frequency of coverage. If the Air Force assumed major responsibility, its decisions would reflect its tactical orientation; if the CIA decided, however, national intelligence requirements would have precedence.10
THE CIA-AIR FORCE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL
The shake-up in CIA management which followed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 made the situation even worse. By February 1962, Dulles, Cabell, and Bissell had all resigned or retired. The new DCI, John McCone, convinced of the importance of technical collection programs and under some pressure from President Kennedy’s new Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB, which had replaced the PBCFIA, but was still headed by Killian) to consolidate management of CIA’s technological development efforts, created a new Directorate for Research in 1962 and appointed Dr. Herbert “Pete” Scoville Jr. as its director.11
Added to the internal CIA turmoil over reorganization was the fact that the NRP agreement was quickly coming apart. With the departure of Bissell, the CIA had no real representation at the NRO meetings. Scoville, unaware of the close personal involvement of Bissell with Charyk in the overhead reconnaissance arena, detached himself from the effort. Instead he sent his deputy, Colonel Stanley W. Beerli, and, after his departure, Colonel Jack Ledford, to represent the agency at NRO meetings. They had little authority to act and were no match for the Undersecretary of the Air Force. Both, in fact, were junior to Colonel John Martin, now Chief of Staff of the new Air Force Space Systems Division.12
The cooperation that had so exemplified the U-2, OXCART, and early CORONA efforts vanished. Charyk soon complained to Gilpatric and McCone about the lack of cooperation. He believed CIA people were relying more on what the NRP agreement said than on getting the job done. Getting information on overhead reconnaissance from CIA officials was, Charyk told Gilpatric, “like pulling teeth.” In discussions with Gilpatric and McCone in September 1961, Charyk indicated that the NRP agreement, signed only a few weeks before, needed clarification.
In May 1962, just 10 weeks after Bissell’s departure, McCone and Gilpatric signed a second NRP agreement that enumerated more clearly the responsibilities of the NRO for conducting the National Reconnaissance Program. The new agreement gave the NRO control over all reconnaissance spending, including funds that were part of the CIA’s budget. The agreement also established a single director of the NRO who would be jointly appointed by the Secretary of Defense and the DCI. McCone readily accepted the concept of appointing Charyk the first director of the NRO (DNRO), but was not enthusiastic about his successors coming from the Defense Department. In return for accepting the Undersecretary of the Air Force as the single director of the NRO, McCone demanded assurances on continued CIA control over research and development, contracting, and targeting.
The new agreement made no mention of a deputy director, however. Charyk, convinced that a deputy would lead to yet another layer of bureaucracy and that there was not enough work for two people, opposed the creation of a deputy slot. Although McCone did not object to Charyk’s position, the lack of a deputy soon caused additional problems and friction.
As expected, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and McCone named Charyk DNRO.13 Charyk’s first directive attempted to deal with the deep divisions within his organization by creating separate program
s. He established a Program A (USAF satellite assets), Program B (CIA assets), Program C (U.S. Navy assets), and Program D (USAF aircraft assets).14 While Charyk hoped this would stop the bickering, it did not.
The CIA saw its role in satellite reconnaissance eroding. Many in the CIA looked upon the NRO as a thinly disguised extension of the Air Force. DCI McCone was unwilling to concede all reconnaissance programs to the Air Force. In addition, he did not want defense requirements to overwhelm national intelligence requirements. For McCone, the NRO was a national asset, not simply a tool for the military. Urged on by Albert Wheelon, who had replaced Scoville as DDR, McCone began to challenge the Air Force and the NRO and to question their ability to run the satellite programs effectively.15 He pointed out that the Air Force was responsible for most launch failures in the program to date and accused McNamara and Gilpatric of spending too much time defending the TFX fighter plane proposal before Congress rather than concerning themselves with the complex problems of overhead intelligence collection.
For its part, the Air Force now moved to secure control over the entire reconnaissance effort. For example, in 1962 Dr. Brockway McMillan, Charyk’s successor as DNRO, supported the Air Force position when he recommended that the entire photoreconnaissance satellite program be turned over to the Air Force in order to streamline command relationships and achieve greater success. For McMillan, the NRO was primarily an Air Force activity and the CIA was being irrational and obstructionist when it came to working on satellite reconnaissance. The rivalry between the Air Force and the CIA intensified.16
Ironically, DNRO McMillan was not a strong supporter of the Air Force when it came to satellite reconnaissance capabilities. McMillan trusted neither the Air Force nor the CIA. Given the recent agreement, he believed the NRO should control the satellite programs. It was that simple.