by Dwayne Day
Studies of a recoverable film payload and ways to protect it from the searing heat of atmospheric reentry that began in 1956 continued at RAND throughout the year. See J. H. Huntzicker and H. A. Lieske, “Physical Recovery of Satellite Payloads—A Preliminary Investigation,” RAND RM-1811, June 26, 1956. The authors estimated that a payload of 50 pounds of film could be recovered from a satellite weighing about 225 pounds.
71. Merton E. Davies, telephone interview by R. Cargill Hall, July 2, 1996. Davies eventually received a U.S. patent for his “spin-pan camera.”
72. Ibid., 86–87; and M. E. Davies and A. H. Katz et al., “A Family of Recoverable Reconnaissance Satellites,” RAND RM-2012, November 12, 1957.
73. With the declassification of many Eisenhower administration records, the covert IGY satellite policy, first surmised by Walter MacDougall and Stephen Ambrose, is absolutely confirmed. (See chapter 5.) The recommendations for it outlined in James Killian’s TCP report of February 1955 are contained in NSC 5522, “Comments on the Report to the President.” See, for instance, those sections submitted by the CIA and Departments of State and Defense. The NSC 5522 report is in White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–1961, NSC Policy Papers, Box 16, Folder NSC 5522 Technological Capabilities Panel, DDE. See also Hall, “Eisenhower Administration and the Cold War,” 59–72; and Dwayne A. Day, “A Strategy for Space: Donald Quarles, the CIA and the US Scientific Satellite Programme,” Spaceflight 38 (September 1996): 308–12.
74. Greer, “CORONA,” 4–5.
75. Ibid., 5. According to Greer, no records of this briefing were kept and the outcome is surmised from subsequent decisions.
76. Davies and Katz, “Family of Recoverable Reconnaissance Satellites.”
77. Col. F. C. E. Oder, WS-117L Director, memorandum to Maj. Gen. B. A. Schriever, Commander, AFBMD, no subject, August 27, 1957; and Lockheed Missiles and Space Division, WS-117L Development Plan for Program Acceleration, LMSD-2832, January 6, 1958.
78. Richard E. Horner, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (R&D), memorandum to Neil McElroy, Secretary of Defense, Subject: “Outer Space Vehicles,” November 12, 1957.
79. Col. F. C. E. Oder, WS-117L director, memorandum to Maj. Gen. B. A. Schriever, no subject, December 7, 1957. After the meeting in Washington, Schriever returned to the West Coast and met with Air Force program participants on December 5. They included Robert Gross and Willis Hawkins of Lockheed, as well as Colonel Oder and General Schriever from AFBMD. They agreed on a configuration of the film-recovery satellite that used a Thor booster and Lockheed Agena upper stage equipped with horizon sensors and stabilized in space in a position horizontal to the earth. The Fairchild camera was to be mounted in a reentry capsule fixed to the Agena’s forward end. Mounted on a drive shaft, the capsule was to be spun up and released from the Agena after the ensemble had stabilized on orbit. This approach appears in Lockheed’s development plan released a few weeks later. WS-117L Development Plan for Program Acceleration, LMSD-2832, January 6, 1958. Both Oder and Hawkins have affirmed that by January 1958 the AFBMD and Lockheed participants intended to abandon this separable spinning payload and fix a variant of the Fairchild camera directly to the attitude-stabilized Agena. Though doubtless true, this latter plan does not appear in any contemporary documents thus far located. It was unquestionably adopted in February and March 1958, using another, different kind of camera. However, James Plummer has stated that the initial CORONA design he was told to pursue was Davies and Katz’s spinner with the Aerobee upper stage, not a vehicle using the Agena.
80. Brig. Gen. A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President,” (meeting in Oval Office on February 7 with Land, Killian, and Goodpaster), February 10, 1958, White House Office of Staff Secretary, Alpha Series, Box 14, Intelligence Matters, DDE.
81. Greer, “CORONA,” 6.
82. Ibid., 5.
83. Roy W. Johnson, Director, ARPA, memorandum to James H. Douglas Jr., Secretary of the Air Force, Subject: “Reconnaissance Satellites and Manned Space Exploration,” February 28, 1958.
84. Herbert F. York, letter to R. Cargill Hall, August 24, 1996. York said, “Thereafter, I frequently testified before the Congress and gave press statements about how Discoverer was a great engineering program for the development of space maneuver, recovery, life support, etc.… I had to face the wrath of RAND … (Katz, Buchheim, etc.) and explain how we and others had reviewed their recoverable satellite ideas and decided to place our bets on the [Air Force] ‘readout’ system instead.” Also York, letter to Hall, September 13, 1996. Quarles, York added, “was very influential, but he was also very low key and soft-spoken, so history largely ignores him. He was widely thought to be conservative and unimaginative. He was conservative in approach, but he was smart and much more knowledgeable about technical issues than anyone else in the Pentagon before the changes wrought by Sputnik. In brief, he quickly understood whatever was brought to his attention and he was decisive.”
To be sure, not everyone perceived space reconnaissance favorably. Late in February or early March 1958, Robert Truax recalled, ARPA director Roy Johnson briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and mentioned the Air Force WS-117L, which he described as “ ‘the most important weapon system under development in the country.’ I got a hurry-up call to go brief ‘21 knot’ [Admiral Arleigh] Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, who didn’t know what WS-117L was. After my briefing he snorted: ‘Why, it is nothing but a reconnaissance system! If it doesn’t hit the other guy with something hard, it can’t be important.’ ” Robert C. Truax, letter to R. Cargill Hall, September 12, 1996.
85. Wienberg interview. For Bissell and Ritland, Katz’s public reaction made credible for the knowledgeable world at large that the film-recovery project had indeed ended, when in fact it had not. A year or so later, however, as long-time comrades ceased speaking with them about space reconnaissance, Davies and Katz realized that the project had continued and that they would not be asked to contribute. The bitter aftertaste of that knowledge would remain with them for many years.
86. No minutes were taken and years later attendees produced two accounts of the naming. In the first version, when Bissell looked around the room and asked, “What shall we call this project?” a participant reportedly removed the paper ring from his cigar and said, “Why not CORONA?” In the second version, a participant pointed to a typewriter on a desk nearby and said, “Why not CORONA?” Whichever version is correct, the name stuck.
87. Leghorn, interview by Welzenbach and Hall, December 13, 1995.
88. Levison interview, and Richard W. Philbrick, interview by R. Cargill Hall, May 10, 1996; Amrom Katz, letters to Walter Levison, March 14, 1957, and January 3, 1958. A description and diagram of the HYAC camera appears in Davies and Harris, RAND’s Role, 78–85.
89. Davies and Harris, RAND’s Role, 29–30; When Duncan Macdonald became graduate dean, F. Dow Smith succeeded him as chairman of the BU Physics Department, as well as director of the BU Physical Research Laboratories. Smith encouraged Case to dispose of the BUPRL as a unit, and not to break the organization into pieces, as some alternate scenarios had proposed. F. Dow Smith, interview by R. Cargill Hall, April 22, 1996.
90. No records of this meeting have been located and accounts of surviving participants differ on the location. One source recalled the CORONA evaluators met in Cambridge, Mass., for the briefings. Jack Herther, who presented the Itek briefing with Duncan Macdonald, is certain it was held in the Old Executive Office Building because he remembers purchasing the airline tickets for the flight from Boston to Washington, the names of many of those present at the briefing, and that there was no contact with competitors (other contractors) because of the physical separation of the briefing teams. The results of this meeting set the stage for the subsequent decision to make Itek’s HYAC the primary instead of the backup camera.
91. For an authoritative description of Itek’s HYAC camera scaled for space flig
ht, see F. Dow Smith, “The Eyes of CORONA: The World’s First Satellite Reconnaissance Program,” Optics and Photonics News 6, no. 10 (October 1995): 34–39. To improve resolution at the earth’s surface, Itek eventually combined a faster high-resolution Petzval lens and fine-grain film in place of focal length. That design tradeoff belied George Goddard’s maxim for close-up photography: “There is no substitute for focal length.” Or, as rephrased by Amrom Katz: “If you want close-up pictures, get close up!”
Goddard, who urged greater focal length in terms of feet, not inches, likely would have disapproved of the Itek design compromise. Perhaps the greatest expression of his approach was the immense “Boston Camera” constructed at BU’s Optical Research Laboratory. It featured a James Baker-designed 240-inch focal length f/8 lens (with the forward lens, made of a single blank of Schott glass, 32 inches in diameter), and it produced pictures on an 18- by 36-inch film format, with a CR-39 plastic filter chemically designed to achieve a coating that duplicated Eastman Kodak’s Wratten 21. Completed and delivered to the Air Force in 1951, this camera was mounted in the largest available transport, the double-decker Boeing C-97, and used in the LOROP (long-range oblique photography) program that employed aircraft cameras to look across denied borders. Retired in the 1960s, the camera is now on display at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. F. Dow Smith, letter to R. Cargill Hall, September 3, 1996, and Baker, interview by Hall, May 9, 1996.
92. John C. Herther and Malcolm R. Malcomson, “A Transition Control System,” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the master of science degree at MIT, May 23, 1955; and John C. Herther, interview by R. Cargill Hall, July 27, 1996 (hereafter Herther interview).
93. Herther interview. To be sure, the Lockheed Missile and Space Division team directed by Jack Carter and James Plummer ultimately designed and fabricated Agena’s ascent guidance and on-orbit stabilization system. At Itek, Herther served as the system integration engineer and also directed the flight environmental qualification testing of the CORONA camera, including vibration, shock, and the extended simulated orbital vacuum operation for diagnosing film breakage that occurred in space operations. Ultimately, the only fix for the breakage problem was to have Eastman Kodak replace 6-mil acetate-based film with the 2-mil polyester-based film. That exchange yielded the extra benefit of three times more pictures per pound! Herther subsequently became the Itek project manager for LANYARD, a CIA/Air Force CORONA follow-on involving a 66-inch focal length f/5 panoramic camera that achieved 2-foot resolution at the earth’s surface on its single successful development flight in August 1963.
94. The unsolicited Itek camera proposal in February 1958 had referenced “unpublished correspondence” between Duncan Macdonald and Arthur Lundahl that correlated photo-interpretation experiments performed at BU and the CIA. These experiments confirmed that positive recognition of objects in photographs required a ground resolution size significantly smaller (by a factor of 3-to-5 depending on conditions) than the object size.
95. John C. Herther, letter to R. Cargill Hall, May 13, 1996.
96. Greer, “CORONA,” 7–9; Herther interview.
97. “Project CORONA Outline,” COR-0013, with cover letter from Richard M. Bissell Jr., to Col. Andrew Goodpaster, USA, COR-0014, both dated April 15, 1958.
98. No formal record of the April 16 meeting was kept. Beside a verbal approval, legend has it that Eisenhower scribbled “Okay, DDE,” on the proposal, or, variously, Cabell noted his approval on the back of an envelope. Whatever the case, this putative “written” authorization has not yet been located.
99. CORONA Statement of Work, April 25, 1958.
CHAPTER 5. A STRATEGY FOR RECONNAISSANCE
1. Several authors, working independently and mostly from unclassified sources, reached this conclusion in the mid-1980s. Due to recent declassifications at several U.S. archives (most of the documents cited here were only declassified in 1995–96), it can now be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the American government was pursuing a definite strategy in its plan to launch a scientific satellite vehicle as part of U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). See Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth (New York: Basic Books, 1985), and R. Cargill Hall, “Origins of U.S. Space Policy: Eisenhower, Open Skies, and Freedom of Space,” in Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, vol. 1, ed. John M. Logsdon et al., NASA SP-4407 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995). The author is indebted to their trail-blazing work.
2. J. R. Killian Jr., to Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, September 2, 1954, Papers of Curtis LeMay, Box 205, Folder B-39356, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
3. Information on the classified annexes comes from an interview by Donald E. Welzenbach with James Killian and is referenced in Donald E. Welzenbach, “Science and Technology: Origins of a Directorate,” Studies in Intelligence 30 (Summer 1986), found in RG 263, NARA. Although the intelligence section of the TCP report remains classified and awaits declassification review, the index has been declassified. It includes the word “satellites,” but apparently in the context of satellite countries of the USSR. “The Report to the President by the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee,” February 14, 1955, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records of Paul T. Carroll, Andrew J. Goodpaster, L. Arthur Minnich, and Christopher H. Russell, 1952–61, Subject Series (hereafter OSS-SS), Alphabetical Subseries, Box 16, “Killian Report-Technological Capabilities Panel (2),” Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereafter DDE).
4. Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, interview by Dwayne A. Day, March 19, 1996 (hereafter Goodpaster interview). Goodpaster went to the White House in October 1954 as a colonel and was promoted to brigadier general while there. He eventually rose to the rank of general and assumed command of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1969.
5. Policy Planning Staff, Department of State, “Report to the President on the Threat of Surprise Attack,” March 14, 1955, Box 87, “NSC 5522 Memoranda,” General Records of the Department of State: Records Relating to State Department Participation in the Operations Coordinating Board and the National Security Council, 1947–1963, RG 59, NARA (hereafter General Records).
6. Robert R. Bowie, memorandum for Mr. Phleger, Policy Planning Staff, Department of State, March 28, 1955, Department of State Central Files, 711.5/3–2855.
7. Joseph Kaplan, Chairman, U.S. National Committee, International Geophysical Year 1957–58, National Academy of Sciences, to Dr. A. T. Waterman, Director, National Science Foundation, March 14, 1955.
8. Alan T. Waterman, Director, memorandum for Mr. Robert Murphy, Deputy Undersecretary of State, March 18, 1955.
9. Robert Murphy, memorandum for Dr. Alan T. Waterman, Director, National Science Foundation, April 27, 1955.
10. Alan T. Waterman, Director, to Donald A. Quarles, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research and Development), May 13, 1955.
11. The newly released part of the document is in italics. NSC 5520, May 20, 1955, Box 112, “NSC 5520,” General Records.
12. Ibid. This portion of the document remained classified until 1995.
13. James S. Lay Jr., Executive Secretary, National Security Council, Memorandum for the National Security Council, “U.S. Scientific Satellite Program,” November 9, 1956, Box 86, “NSC 5520—US Scientific Satellite Program (Memoranda),” General Records.
14. Memorandum, “Discussion at the 250th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, 26 May 1955,” May 27, 1955, Files of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, Ann Whitman File, NSC Series, Box 6, “250th Meeting of NSC, May 26, 1955,” DDE.
15. National Security Council, NSC 5522, June 8, 1955, Comments on the Report to the President by the Technological Capabilities Panel, p. S-5, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, NSC Policy Papers, Box 16, Folder NSC 5522 Technological Capabilities Panel, DDE.
16.
Ibid., A-55–6
17. Robert R. Bowie, Policy Planning Staff, Department of State, “Recommendations in the Report to the President by the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee, ODM (Killian Committee): Item 2—NSC Agenda 10/4/56,” Box 87, “NSC 5522 Memoranda,” General Records.
18. Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971), 34–56.
19. Ibid., vi. Green and Lomask added: “To these observations, I can add from my own experience that inter-service rivalry exerted strong influence; also, that any conclusion drawn would be incomplete without taking into account the antagonism still existing toward von Braun and his co-workers because of their service on the German side of World War II.”
20. Col. A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum for Record,” June 7, 1956, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records, 1952–1961, Box 6, “Missiles and Satellites,” DDE (hereafter WHO-DDE).
21. Homer J. Stewart, Chairman, Advisory Group on Special Capabilities, memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (R&D), “VANGUARD and REDSTONE,” June 22, 1956, WHO-DDE.
22. Stewart’s memorandum was stamped “SECRET.” There is some reason to believe it was actually written in May 1956 instead of June. It is rare for a report of a meeting to be written two months after the meeting. Furthermore, the memo also mentions the group’s upcoming meeting on June 19 and 20 concerning the propulsion systems for Vanguard and invites contractor representatives to attend this meeting, which would already have happened by the time the memo was written. The June 22 date may be a typographical error.