by Dwayne Day
109. According to Charlie Murphy, the issue was partly one of the Air Force not understanding why the CIA was even involved in satellites. The CIA was supposed to be about spies, not about expensive pieces of equipment. During the early years of CORONA most of the design and engineering work for the payload was conducted by contractors. Later, the CIA began to acquire its own in-house engineering capability (see chapter 6) and this mystified many in the Air Force, who had long experience with designing and procuring large technological systems. Murphy interview, December 5, 1996.
110. Buzard interview.
111. The person the CIA sent out was A. Roy Burks, who is seen in a number of the photographs throughout this book. Burks interview.
112. Lockheed apparently was offered money by both the CIA and the Air Force, but refused to accept it until the dispute was formally resolved. Murphy interview, December 5, 1996.
113. Leeper interview.
114. Murphy interview, December 5, 1996.
115. Greer, “CORONA,” 34.
116. With the KH-4B, Lockheed allowed an extra two pounds for the lens. This made lens production significantly easier since the lens elements could be made a little thicker and were less prone to bending during polishing and test. Element fabrication time was significantly reduced. Madden, “CORONA Camera System,” 20.
117. Greer, “CORONA,” 36. Frank Madden indicates that some ultrathin-base film was spliced to the end of a roll on an operational mission and flown, but the imagery was very variable. Transport problems emerged in the lab and negated its use. Madden letter.
118. Madden letter.
119. The resolution figures cited for the CORONA cameras represent the best figures obtained from orbit. This was usually determined from examining a resolution test target on the ground in Arizona, where the thin, clear air reduced distortion. In actual practice, resolution could vary considerably depending on a wide number of factors. The initial limitations were caused by imprecise orbits (especially when the cameras had fixed image motion compensation) and camera vibration. Later the problems were mostly the result of atmospheric conditions, such as pollution, haze, or different air temperatures (and thus density) at different altitudes.
120. Because of the extreme lighting conditions encountered during a mission (film could be overexposed under conditions of snow, ice, desert or near the equator and underexposed at far northern latitudes or low sun angles), the film had to be developed to different levels. In order to determine the amount of development needed, Eastman Kodak came up with an infrared inspection method that could be used to determine optimum exposure levels so that additional development could be applied before the image was fixed.
121. McDonald, “CORONA,” 707–8, and Report No. 9, KH-4B System Capability, “Appraisal of Geologic Value for Mineral Resources Exploration,” March 1971, contained in CORONA, ed. Ruffner, 321.
122. Greer, “CORONA,” 36–37.
123. “Appraisal of Geologic Value for Mineral Resources Exploration,” 321.
124. CORONA, ed. Ruffner, 356.
125. Linda Neuman Ezell, NASA Historical Data Book, vol. 3: Programs and Projects 1969–1978 (Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1988), 335–41.
126. Walter Levison, interview by Dwayne A. Day, November 16, 1995.
127. Albert Wheelon, comments at “Piercing the Curtain,” May 23, 1995.
128. Murphy interviews, March 7 and December 5, 1996.
129. Greer, “CORONA,” 39.
130. According to Frank Madden, the qualification models for the KH-3, KH-4, and KH-4A were all refurbished and flown. For the KH-4B qualification model, the government funded only one camera of the stereo pair and the central supporting structure. This is the model on display in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. A plywood model of the missing camera was added to complete the stereo configuration.
131. This number includes the 3 LANYARD, 12 ARGON, and 4 engineering (two radiometric, STARAD and one R&D) missions.
CHAPTER 4. POSTWAR STRATEGIC RECONNAISSANCE AND THE GENESIS OF CORONA
Note: I am indebted to numerous overhead reconnaissance pioneers who read and commented on the preliminary draft of this chapter and enriched it with their own recollections and documentary contributions. They are James Baker, James Coolbaugh, Merton Davies, Richard Garwin, William Hawkins, Jack Herther, William King, Richard Leghorn, Walter Levison, Frederic Oder, Bernard Schriever, Dow Smith, Robert Truax, William Troetschel, Paul Worthman, and Herbert York.
1. Strategic reconnaissance, to be sure, is a practice as old as warfare. What made it truly different after World War II was the acceptance of peacetime overflight and the appearance of the technical innovations (cameras, lenses, films, aircraft, and spacecraft) that made overflight reconnaissance possible. This form of reconnaissance, of course, embraced all sources, that is, signals intelligence (electronic, telemetry, and communications traffic) as well as imaging intelligence (radar and photography). This study focuses on the latter category because it directly answered the most pressing Cold War questions: Were the Soviets massing bombers along its northern shores, and was the U.S. the victim of a bomber and missile gap?
2. Donald E. Welzenbach, “Strategic Overhead Reconnaissance,” unpublished draft manuscript, 1995, chapter 1.
3. George W. Goddard, “Photography Remains King in the Aerospace Age,” Photogrammetric Engineering (March 1962): 88–89.
4. In addition to the K-22, during the war Baker designed a 60-inch f/6 telephoto lens—a folded optical system using mirrors; a 36-inch f/8 telephoto lens; a 4-inch f/2.8, spherical rotating lens that exposed spherical “shell” plates; and a 36-inch f/8 fluorite lens utilizing one element of synthetic optical fluorite that yielded “a perfection of color correction not hitherto achieved.” At war’s end, he was completing work on the 60-inch f/5 sealed telephoto lens that covered a 9- by 18-inch negative area. Considering these wartime contributions, Col. George Goddard judged Baker to be “the most versatile optical designer known to this command.” Quotes from Col. George W. Goddard, Chief, Photographic Laboratory, Air Technical Service Command, letter to Gen. H. H. Arnold, Commanding General, Army Air Forces, July 17, 1945, as cited in Col. M. M. Irvine, War Dept Liaison Officer to National Defense Research Committee, letter to Office of Scientific Research and Development, Subject: “Transfer of Harvard University Records to Army Air Forces; Projects AC-29 and AC-88,” April 17, 1946. See also Summary Technical Report of Division 16, NDRC, Optical Instruments, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), which contains details of the Harvard program. Baker wrote or coauthored a number of the chapters in this work.
After World War II, James Baker worked as a consultant to Boston University’s Optical Research Laboratory, Perkin-Elmer, and Eastman Kodak, while volunteering his services to committees of the USAF, the CIA, and PSAC. All of his postwar efforts had enormous ramifications for national security. Among other contributions, he designed and calibrated the high-resolution lenses for the 240-inch focal length “Boston Camera” as well as the lenses for the U-2, SR-71, and Eastman Kodak satellite cameras. Because almost all of Baker’s government-related service involved classified projects, this modest man remained then, as he remains today, virtually unknown outside of the photogrammetry and intelligence communities.
5. “The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (European War),” September 30, 1945, as reprinted in U.S. Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War and Pacific War) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, October 1987), 39 (emphasis added), 41–42.
6. Welzenbach, “Strategic Overhead Reconnaissance,” chap. 3.
7. George W. Goddard with DeWitt S. Copp, Overview: A Lifelong Adventure in Aerial Photography (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969), 349–50.
8. Back at the Harvard Yard, an unsatisfied Harvard University President James B. Conant insisted that the school not profit in any way from wartime military research. Despite a government offer of the Harvard Optical Laboratory to the s
chool for the price of $1.00, Conant ordered the brand-new structure razed to the ground. The demolition, completed in June 1946, obliterated all signs of military optical research from campus, if not from memory.
9. Including representatives of Eastman Kodak, Polaroid, Bill Jack Optical, Fairchild Camera, Bausch & Lomb, Hycon, Perkin-Elmer, and Chicago Aerial.
10. Welzenbach, “Strategic Overhead Reconnaissance,” chap. 3; Goddard, Overview, 351.
11. Richard S. Leghorn, “Objectives for Research and Development in Military Aerial Reconnaissance” (December 1946 [unpublished]), 26–27 (emphasis added). Beside Macdonald and Leghorn, the speakers included Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and Col. George W. Goddard, among others.
12. International Convention for Aerial Navigation, 1919, Article 1, as reprinted in De Forest Billyou, Air Law, 2d ed. (New York: Ad Press, 1964), 17.
13. Soviet aircraft from the Kola Peninsula could fly routes over the North Pole to attack the United States. By 1947, most American political and military leaders had come to view the atomic bomb as not just a larger, more destructive aerial bomb, but, if delivered in numbers, as a potentially decisive weapon. Gen. George C. Kenney, the first Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC), believed this and he directed the attention of the Strategic Air Command to the Arctic regions both “as a route of SAC bombers [and] as an avenue for a Soviet atomic strike upon the United States.” John T. Farquhar, “A Need to Know: The Role of Air Force Reconnaissance in War Planning, 1945–1953,” Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1991, 75, 101–2. For the next few years, the CIA’s strategic reconnaissance chief recalled, American leaders remained preoccupied with “the Soviet bomber force and the threat it posed to North America, as well as to Europe.” Richard M. Bissell Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Francis T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 92.
14. The National Security Act, signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947, created the National Military Establishment and separate military departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
15. Letter to Acting Chief of Eastern European Affairs, Department of State (Stevens), February 16, 1948, and AFOIR-CM to AAC/CC, Subject: “Violation of Soviet Frontier,” n.d. (ca. Jan.—Feb. 1948), entry 214, TS Control and Cables Section General Files (July 45-Dec. 54), folder 2-900/2-999 (Feb. 1948); memorandum, Executive to the USAF DCS/O (Donnelly) and Multiple Addressees, Subject: “DCS/O Meeting, 14 May 1948,” May 14, 1948, entry 214, TS Control and Cables Section General Files (July 45-Dec. 54), folder 2-1600/2-1699 (May 1948); memo for the Record, “To Brief Background Facts on Establishment of 40-Mile Limit on Reconnaissance Flights in the Pacific Area,” n.d., entry 214, folder 2-3300/2-3399; and SECAF (Symington), letter (unsigned carbon copy) to Secretary of State (Marshall), n.d., entry 214, folder 2-1500/2-1599 (May 1948), all in RG 341, NARA, St. Louis (hereafter referred to as NARA-SL).
16. For the story of the detection, see Charles A. Ziegler and David Jacobson, Spying without Spies: Origins of America’s Secret Nuclear Surveillance System (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995).
17. In his letter to the Air Force Chief of Staff, LeMay observed: “Assuming that as a democracy we are not prepared to wage preventive war, this course of action poses two most different requirements: (1) An intelligence system which can locate the vulnerable elements of the Soviet striking force and forewarn us when attack by that force is imminent, and (2) Agreement at top governmental level that when such information is received the Strategic Air Command will be directed to attack.” Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, letter to Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, December 12, 1949, as reprinted in Peter J. Roman, “Curtis LeMay and the Origins of NATO Atomic Targeting,” Journal of Strategic Studies 16 (March 1993): 49. Although the first requirement would be adopted as national policy, the second was not. LeMay nonetheless remained a proponent of preemption, and in the years that followed seemingly took a perverse delight in explaining the concept and how he would execute it to civilian “policy experts” who visited his office at SAC Headquarters.
18. This effort eventually included Project Lincoln at MIT and the creation of the Distant Early Warning system, a radar picket line across Northern Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. Eva C. Freeman, ed., MIT Lincoln Laboratory: Technology in the National Interest (Lexington, Mass.: MIT, 1995), 2–9; and George E. Valley Jr., “How the SAGE Development Began,” Annals of the History of Computing 7 (July 1985): 196–226.
19. This review by State and Defense resulted in NSC-68, “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” approved on September 30, 1950. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977), 1:236–92, 400–401. The first paragraph of the conclusion declared: “Within the next four or five years the Soviet Union will possess the military capability of delivering a surprise atomic attack of such weight that the United States must have substantially increased general air, ground, and sea strength, atomic capabilities, and air and civilian defenses to deter war and to provide reasonable assurance, in the event of war, that it could survive the initial blow and go on to the eventual attainment of its objectives” (287–88).
20. In a cable to JCS Commands (today called Specified Commands), General of the Army and JCS Chairman Omar Bradley warned them that “the current situation in Korea has greatly increased the possibility of a general war,” and directed that each “take such action as is feasible to increase readiness without creating atmosphere of alarm.” JCS, cable to Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and other JCS Commanders, December 6, 1950, Box B-196, Papers of Curtis E. LeMay, LC. Truman had phoned Eisenhower on December 18, 1950, and asked him to return to active duty as SACEUR. Eisenhower, who believed in collective security and the NATO concept, accepted, and at month’s end traveled to Washington to confer with government leaders. Afterward his son, John Eisenhower, recalled, “He expressed to me his disgust with the terrified atmosphere pervading all of Washington, from the President on down.” John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974), 156–57.
21. As late as October 5, 1950, the USAF Director of Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Charles P. Cabell, saw no hope of securing permission for overflights of the Soviet Union from the Departments of State, Defense, and the JCS. Responding to a SAC Headquarters request that the Air Force seek authorization to overfly the Kola Peninsula and the Chukotskiy Peninsula to determine “Soviet capabilities for delivering atomic bombs to targets within the United States,” Cabell declined, adding, “If SAC wants formally to request it anyhow, I would recommend against it, and unless SAC specifically requests otherwise, I would not forward it.” He concluded, however, “[I am] looking forward to a day when it becomes either more essential or less objectionable.” Communist Chinese intervention in Korea and positioning of Soviet forces in Eastern Europe a few weeks later clearly made these missions “more essential and less objectionable.” Maj. Gen. Charles P. Cabell to Col. William A. Adams, SAC Director of Intelligence, October 5, 1950, TS Control and Cables Section General Files (July 45-Dec. 54), DCS/Operations, Director of Intelligence, entry 15621, RG 341, NARA-SL.
22. Farquhar, “A Need to Know,” 142. For a listing of American aircraft lost to Soviet attacks, see Charles Maechling Jr., “Intrusions, Overflights, and Shootdowns,” Air Power History 36 (Summer 1989): 6–15.
23. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, interview by John T. Mason Jr., August 17, 1967, in Arlington, Va. (third of four interviews), “Eisenhower Administration Project,” 130–32, Oral History Research Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University; and Brig. Gen. Richard C. Neeley, USAF (Ret.), telephone interview by R. Cargill Hall, August 1, 1995. (Neeley was the pilot that SAC selected to fly this reconnaissance mission.) In his interview, Twining asserted that the Joint Chiefs wanted to use a new B-47 for this purpose and that President Truman signed papers approving the first overflights. Such papers, among the most closely held of the Cold War, have not yet been located. P
resident Eisenhower later approved overflights verbally, but initialed the flight plans “DDE.”
24. Maj. Gen. Carl A. Brandt, USAF Director of Requirements, DCS/Development, memorandum to Directorate of Intelligence, DCS/Operations, Subject: “Intelligence Requirement for B-47s for Special Reconnaissance Missions,” January 4, 1951, with enclosure, “Memorandum for Record,” DCS/O—Directorate Intelligence, TS Control and Cables Section General Files (July 45—Dec. 54), Box 2-17300 (1950) to 2-18299 (1951), folder 1-17300/2-17399, RG 341, NARA-SL. The memorandum identifies B-47B 49-2645 by tail number as the vehicle to be delivered on April 25, 1951, modified with special compass and autopilot equipment, and a high-latitude directional gyro system. For this first mission, identified in a classified addendum as “Project WIRAC,” a special bomb-bay capsule had to be designed and fabricated to contain the cameras and associated equipment.
25. Neeley interview.
26. Records containing the terms and conditions of the British-American agreement have not been located and doubtless remain classified. Descriptions of the training and the missions flown have appeared in the memoirs and published recollections of RAF crew members. See, for instance, Squadron Leader John Crampton, RAF (Ret.) “The Royal Air Force RB-45C Special Duty Flight, 1951–1954,” an address to the RAF Historical Society at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell, March 22, 1996, and Rex Saunders, letter to R. Cargill Hall, July 9, 1996.
27. Dino A. Brugioni, telephone interview by R. Cargill Hall, November 1, 1995. The tension and profound concern is evident in contemporary National Security Council deliberations publicly released. A 1952 national military evaluation determined that the United States would face “unavoidable defeat” if “a certain number of targets in the U.S. were destroyed.” Moreover, “the Soviet Union is capable of producing the requisite number of atomic, or thermonuclear, bombs to destroy those targets and is capable of producing the means of delivering the bombs.” In August 1952 the CIA estimated that the USSR possessed a stockpile of thirty to fifty atomic weapons with an energy yield between thirty and seventy kilotons. The intelligence agency projected that the number of weapons would increase to 100 in mid-1953, 190 in mid-1954, and to 300 in mid-1955. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, vol. 2: National Security Affairs, pt. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984), 14, 105, and 232, respectively.