by Dwayne Day
23. E. V. Murphree, Special Assistant for Guided Missiles, memorandum for Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Use of the JUPITER Re-entry Test Vehicle as a Satellite,” July 5, 1956, WHO-DDE (emphasis added).
24. In another one-page memorandum from C. C. Furnas to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, dated July 10, 1956, and stamped “Secret,” Furnas mentioned the meeting that he and Murphree had with Robertson on July 9. Furnas used this memorandum as a cover letter to forward the previous report to him by Homer Stewart’s Advisory Group on Special Capabilities. He concluded by saying, “I trust that this will serve your purpose in reporting your evaluation of the suggestion that a Redstone vehicle will be used.” C. C. Furnas, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Development, memorandum for Deputy Secretary of Defense, July 10, 1956, WHO-DDE.
25. William Ewald, Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951–1960 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981), 284.
26. Alan T. Waterman, National Science Foundation, memorandum to Mr. Percival Brundage, Bureau of the Budget, “Funding of Earth Satellite Program, International Geophysical Year,” April 7, 1956, Box 86, “NSC 5520—US Scientific Satellite Program (Memoranda),” General Records.
27. Lay, memorandum for the National Security Council, “U.S. Scientific Satellite Program,” November 9, 1956, with attached: “Draft Report on NSC 5520, U.S. Scientific Satellite Program Background.”
28. The subject was also mentioned in a number of RAND documents dating as early as the late 1940s.
29. Goodpaster interview.
30. David Z. Beckler, Executive Officer, Science Advisory Committee, memorandum for General Goodpaster, Special Briefing, September 19, 1957, OSS-SS, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 23, “Science Advisory Committee (2) Sept.-Oct. 1957,” DDE.
31. Brig. Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, memorandum of Conference with the President, October 7, 1957, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 6, “Missiles and Satellites,” DDE.
32. Brig. Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, memorandum of Conference with the President (following McElroy swearing in), October 9, 1957, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 6, “Missiles and Satellites,” DDE.
33. Waterman to Quarles, May 13, 1955.
34. Percival Brundage, Director, Bureau of the Budget, memorandum for the President, “Project VANGUARD,” April 30, 1957, WHO-DDE.
35. Former CIA Deputy Director of Science and Technology Albert “Bud” Wheelon has speculated in conversations with the author that the money probably came from DCI Allen Dulles’s substantial discretionary budget.
36. Goodpaster interview.
37. Eisenhower’s comments on this subject appear in numerous documents. For instance, in October 1957 Goodpaster reported, “The President went on to say he sometimes wondered whether there should not be a fourth service established to handle the whole missiles activity.” Brig. Gen. A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President, 11 October 1957, 8:30 A.M.,” October 11, 1957, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, Box 67, “Oct. 57 Staff Notes (2),” DDE. In January 1958 Goodpaster reported, “In the course of the discussion the President indicated strongly that he thinks future missiles should be brought into a central organization.” Brig. Gen. A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President, 21 January 1958,” January 22, 1958, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 6, “Missiles and Satellites, Vol. 2 (1) [January-February 1958],” DDE. In February 1958, Goodpaster reported, “The President said that he has come to regret deeply that the missile program was not set up in OSD rather than in any of the services.” Brig. Gen. A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President, 4 February 1958 (following Legislative Leaders meeting),” February 6, 1958, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 6, “Missiles and Satellites, Vol. 2 (1) [January-February 1958],” DDE.
38. See n. 37.
39. Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989), 1:589. The comments on Quarles’s partisanship come from the interview by Goodpaster.
40. U.S. House of Representatives, Organization and Management of Missile Programs, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959), 133.
41. Ibid.
42. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 182–83.
43. Gordon Gray, Special Assistant to the President, to Brig. Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, February 16, 1959, with attached: James R. Killian Jr., to Gordon Gray, Special Assistant to the President, February 13, 1959; James R. Killian Jr., to Dr. T. Keith Glennan, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, February 13, 1959; Lloyd V. Berkner, Chairman, Space Science Board, National Academy of Sciences, to Dr. James R. Killian Jr., Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, January 28, 1959; O. G. Villard Jr., Space Science Board, to Dr. L. V. Berkner, President, Associated Universities, Inc., January 22, 1959, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 15, “Space [January–June 1959],” DDE.
44. Richard S. Leghorn, Political Action and Satellite Reconnaissance (Draft), April 24, 1959, OSS-SS, Department of Defense Subseries, Box 15, “Space [January–June 1959],” DDE.
45. The U-2 also raised once again the issue of where airspace ended and space began. At the Eleventh International Astronautical Federation Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, Spencer M. Beresford presented a paper that connected the U-2 and violations of international airspace with the possibility of future flights by military MIDAS and SAMOS spacecraft. A State Department official obtained a copy of Beresford’s paper before his presentation and notified the U.S. Information Service in Stockholm that the paper raised a number of highly sensitive topics about which the U.S. government should not comment. W. E. Gathright, to USIS-Stockholm, TOUSI II, Joint State USIA Message, August 12, 1960, with attached: Remarks of Spencer M. Beresford, United States of America, at the Eleventh Annual Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Stockholm, Sweden, August 16, 1960, General Records of the Department of State, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of Soviet Union Affairs, Subject Files, 1957–1963, Box 6, 12 Satellite and Missile Programs, RG 59, NARA.
46. Khrushchev was referring to the U.S. Tiros weather satellite launched in August.
47. Foy D. Kohler, Bureau of European Affairs, to Phillip J. Farley, SAMOS, July 18, 1960, General Records of the Department of State, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of Soviet Union Affairs, Subject Files 1957–63, Box 6, 12 Satellite and Missile Programs, RG 59, NARA.
CHAPTER 6. THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE
1. This essay is based primarily on classified records maintained by the NRO, CIA, and Air Force, as well as a number of classified interviews of the major participants. It was not possible to have these records reviewed and declassified or sanitized for inclusion in this essay. All unclassified and secondary sources are clearly identified. Where still-classified sources are used, the phrase “Contained in classified document” is placed in the note to indicate the citation of a classified source. The story of the origins and early years of the NRO in this essay remains valid, even with these limitations.
2. Unlike the National Security Agency (NSA), the NRO does not analyze its own intelligence “take.” Analysis is done by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Department of State, and the Central Imagery Office (CIO). The military services also individually have the capability to exploit overhead reconnaissance. The U.S. overhead reconnaissance systems also viewed other denied areas, such as the People’s Republic of China.
3. Under Public Law 110, June 20, 1949, Congress gave the Director of Central Intelligence the authority to use federal money without the use of vouchers. No other government agency had this authority.
4. This unique arrangement set the precedent for the NRO’s later focus on system performance goals rather than technical specifications in its contract negotiat
ions regarding reconnaissance satellites.
5. Peter Gross, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 469–70. See also Christopher M. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 221–24.
6. With Killian’s support, the CIA funded a study for the design of a high-speed aircraft with a small radar cross-section. This eventually led to Project OXCART (the predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird), the design and development of the world’s fastest and highest flying aircraft.
7. Contained in classified document.
8. Bissell, as early as November 1955, had suggested that some type of formal agreement was needed to define the responsibilities of the CIA and the Air Force. Since the U-2 program had run so smoothly without a formal agreement, nothing more was done. Contained in classified document.
9. In 1958 President Eisenhower had merged the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) with the U.S. Communications Intelligence Board (USCIB) to form the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB). Contained in classified document.
10. See William M. Leary, The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984), 86–87, for a review of the issues.
11. Prior to this reorganization, the CIA’s scientific and technical intelligence operations were scattered among several offices. The reconnaissance program, under the Development Projects Division, was in the Directorate of Plans (DP); the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) which conducted basic research, was in the Directorate for Intelligence (DI); the Technical Services Division (TSD), which engaged in research and development to provide operational support for clandestine operations, was also part of the DP; Staff D, which ran electronic intercept operations, resided in the DP as well. The new DDR, Dr. Herbert Scoville Jr., had little authority over the overall program, as the Directorate of Intelligence refused to relinquish OSI, and the Directorate of Plans would not give up its TSD. Contained in classified document.
12. The Air Force Space Systems Division became involved in both Air Force satellite and missile programs. Today it is Air Force Space and Missile Systems.
13. Charyk held the post of Director, National Reconnaissance Office (DNRO), for more than a year until he resigned to head the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) in early 1963.
14. The NRO was staffed by people from the CIA, Air Force, and Navy. In addition, the NRO had a number of people from the Army, Defense Intelligence Agency, and increasingly from NSA. Contained in classified document.
15. Wheelon was determined to enlarge the CIA’s role in overhead reconnaissance. He established a Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center (FMSAC) and hired Carl E. Duckett of the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal to head it. Wheelon also enlarged the Directorate of Research and renamed it the Directorate for Science and Technology. Contained in classified document.
16. The Air Force had successfully pressed for, and finally obtained, responsibility for the U-2 overflight program just prior to the Cuban missile crisis and was demanding a fighter version of the supersonic OXCART. See Leary, Central Intelligence Agency, 87. Contained in classified document.
17. In addition to personal differences, McMillan and the Air Force saw Wheelon as a major threat to their reconnaissance program. Wheelon was building a technological empire at DS&T and moving into developmental engineering—an area in which the Air Force believed it had exclusive control. Wheelon further alarmed Air Force officials when he persuaded McCone to establish a separate engineering pay scale that enabled the agency to hire top engineers from private industry. The Air Force simply could not compete. Contained in classified document.
18. McCone established NIPE in 1963 to assist him in running the Intelligence Community.
19. Leary, Central Intelligence Agency, 87.
20. The satellites also made possible the monitoring and verification provisions of the Soviet-U.S. arms limitations and nuclear test-ban treaties. Contained in classified document.
21. From its beginning, the NRO also offered support to U.S. military forces by providing targeting and mapping information needed to plan and execute strategic war plans.
CHAPTER 7. ZENIT
Note: This chapter is based on a research paper first presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the Society for Military History (SMH), Arlington, Virginia, on April 19, 1996, and at the Annual Convention of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS), Baltimore, Maryland, on April 22, 1996.
1. Anatoliy Shiriaev and Valeriy Baberdin, “Before the First Leap into Space,” Krasnaya Zvezda, April 27, 1996, 5 (in Russian).
2. Asif Siddiqi, “The Road to Object D: Early Satellite Studies in the Soviet Union, 1947–1957,” report at the 28th National Convention of American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, November 14–17, 1996, 4.
3. Boris Rauschenbach et al., Materials on the History of Vostok Spaceship (Moscow: Nauka, 1991), 209 (in Russian).
4. S. P. Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, S. P. Korolev Space Corporation Energiya: To 50th Anniversary (Moscow: RKK Energiya, 1996), 86, 105 (in Russian).
5. Shiriaev and Baberdin, “Before the First Leap into Space,” 5.
6. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 87.
7. Mstislav Keldysh, ed., Creative Legacy of Academician Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 373 (in Russian).
8. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya; Yuri Frumkin, “The First Reconnaissance Satellite,” Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, no. 3 (1993): 41 (in Russian).
9. Keldysh, ed., Creative Legacy of Korolev, 90.
10. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 99.
11. Ibid., 98, 108.
12. Keldysh, Creative Legacy of Korolev, 373.
13. Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 108.
14. Yuri Frumkin, “Development of the First Soviet Photo-Reconnaissance Satellite Zenit,” Priroda, no. 4 (1993): 41 (in Russian).
15. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 99.
16. Boris Rauschenbach, “The History of the First Stage of Spacecraft Control Systems Development in the USSR,” report at the 44th International Astronautical Federation Congress, Graz, Austria, October 16–22, 1993, IAA.2.2-93-67, p. 2.
17. Frumkin, “Development of Zenit,” 18.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya; V. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” Novosti Kosmonavtiki 6, no. 10/125 (1996): 66 (in Russian).
21. Dmitriy Kozlov, ed., Development of Automated Spacecraft (Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1996), 218 (in Russian).
22. Frumkin, “Development of Zenit,” 16.
23. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 101; Frumkin, “Development of Zenit,” 17.
24. Nikolay Dolgopolov, “From Above, We Can See a Ball on a Field in Arizona: An Interview with Victor Nekrasov,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, July 3, 1993, 4 (in Russian).
25. Kozlov, Development of Automated Spacecraft, 17.
26. Maxim Tarasenko, Military Aspects of the Soviet Cosmonautics (Moscow: Nikol Press, 1992), 51 (in Russian).
27. Kozlov, ed., Development of Automated Spacecraft, 14.
28. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” 66.
29. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 100.
30. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” 67.
31. Ibid., 76.
32. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 100.
33. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” 42.
34. Korolev Space Corp., Korolev Space Corporation Energiya, 101.
35. “Beginning of the Space Era,” in Roads to Space, vol. 3 (Moscow: RNITsKD, 1994), 264 (in Russian).
36. Ibid., 265
37. Ibid
., 272.
38. Igor Sergeiev, ed., Chronicle of the Main Events in the History of the Strategic Rocket Forces (Moscow: TsIPK, 1994), 17 (in Russian).
39. Frumkin, “The First Reconnaissance Satellite,” 15.
40. Nicholas Johnson and David Rodvold, Europe and Asia in Space, 1993–1994 (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1995), 339.
41. Tarasenko, Military Aspects of the Soviet Cosmonautics, 126.
42. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” 77.
43. Kozlov, Development of Automated Spacecraft, 17.
44. Rocket/Space Industry of Russia, catalog of enterprises, Russian Space Agency, 1996, 178.
45. Joseph Heyman, Spacecraft Tables, 1957–1990 (San Diego: Univelt, 1991), 109.
46. Agapov, “Launches of Zenit-2 Spacecraft,” 69–77.
CHAPTER 8. CORONA AND THE U.S. PRESIDENTS
1. General Goodpaster has served in a number of military and government positions including Commander-in-Chief of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. Goodpaster was also responsible for helping President Nixon organize his foreign policy and international security affairs staffs. After retiring in 1974, Goodpaster became a Senior Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution and an Assistant to Vice-President Rockefeller on the Commission for the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. In 1977, he returned to active duty as the 51st Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy. Currently, General Goodpaster is serving as the chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States.
2. General Smith joined the Kennedy White House in July 1961. In all, Smith served 35 years in the U.S. Air Force from 1948 through 1983. His last two Air Force assignments were as Chief of Staff of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) and as Deputy Commander of the U.S.-European Command. Smith also served as military assistant to two secretaries of the Air Force and as assistant to three chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When Smith retired from military service in 1983, he accepted an appointment as a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution. He then became president of the Institute for Defense Analysis, a government-funded research and development center. He retired from that position in 1991, but continues to serve as president emeritus.