The Imagineers of War

by Sharon Weinberger

  Stephen Lukasik, like Charles Herzfeld: One of the best explanations for the complex motives underlying the ARPANET’s creation can be found in Stephen Lukasik’s article “Why ARPANET Was Built,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, July–Sept. 2011, 4–21.

  “ARPA’s computing program continued”: Waldrop, Dream Machine, 278.

  “kill die factor”: University of Illinois Archives (RS41/66/969) from A Byte of History: Computing at the University of Illinois exhibit, March 1997.

  Concerned about the ability: Hafner and Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, 228–29.

  “What exotic studies”: U.S. House, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1972, 323.

  “Al, I understand what this is about”: Lukasik, interview with author.

  Believing the work: Ibid.

  “Friends and enemies alike”: Tim Weiner, “Sidney Gottlieb, 80, Dies; Took LSD to C.I.A.,” New York Times, March 10, 1999.

  Rockefeller Commission: Seymour Hersh, “Family Plans to Sue C.I.A. over Suicide in Drug Test,” New York Times, July 10, 1975.

  Church Committee: U.S. Cong., Select Committee on Intelligence, Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification: Joint Hearing Before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, U.S. Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., Aug. 3, 1977 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977).

  “They are, and I’ll say this”: Lukasik, interview with author.

  “Steve, let me show you”: Ibid.

  “Major impetus behind the Soviet drive”: Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 7.

  “quiet, low-profile classified investigation”: Hal Puthoff, correspondence with author.

  “I thought this was a lot”: Lukasik, interview with author.

  “Everyone pretty much felt”: Young, interview with author.

  Just as he was packing his bags: Lawrence, interview with author. Despite the seeming overlap in subject and time, Lawrence said he had no knowledge of Pandora when it was going on, even though his work at Walter Reed and then ARPA coincided with the dates of the program and he later became involved with some of the researchers, like Ross Adey, who were sponsored by Pandora. This claim is believable, however, because Pandora was top secret.

  “to such places”: “Request and Travel Authorization for TDY Travel of DoD Personnel,” July 3, 1975, George H. Lawrence personal collection.

  “The image of electronic equipment”: Donald Moss, ed., Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology: A Historical and Biographical Sourcebook (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1998), xix.

  Among the people he recruited: Fields to Lawrence, March 21, 1970, Lawrence personal collection.

  “Biofeedback offers much less powerful”: These were the conclusions made by Lawrence, based on the ARPA work and presented at the NATO conference Dimensions and Stress, June 29–July 3, 1975. George Lawrence, “Use of Biofeedback for Performance Enhancement in Stress Environments,” in Stress and Anxiety, vol. 3, ed. Irwin G. Sarason and Charles D. Spielberger (New York: Hemisphere/Wiley), 1976.

  On the flip side: Ibid.

  A cover of Time magazine: “Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier,” Time, March 4, 1974.

  He liked the witches: Lawrence, interview with author.

  According to Puthoff: Puthoff, correspondence with author.

  “At the time we were concerned”: Ibid.

  “He and Hyman and I made this trip”: Lawrence, interview with author.

  Lawrence was drinking heavily: Van de Castle, interview with author.

  “Okay, show me a fucking miracle”: Ibid.

  The Israeli performer dramatically covered: Many of the details of the trip are recounted in Hyman to Charles Anderson (president of SRI), April 5, 1973, Lawrence personal collection.

  Geller soon emerged triumphant: “The Magician and the Think Tank,” Time, March 12, 1973.

  “Targ and Puthoff, from the way”: Hyman to Charles Anderson, Lawrence personal collection.

  Puthoff countered that the experiments: Puthoff, correspondence with author.

  Lawrence, after stomping his foot: The visit is also recounted in John L. Wilhelm, Search for Superman (New York: Pocket Books, 1976).

  “Colonel Mitchell, what do you think”: Lawrence, interview with author.

  “the intelligent yarmulke”: Lukasik, interview with author.

  “Can these observable electrical brain signals”: Jacques Vidal, “Toward Direct Brain-Computer Communication,” Annual Review of Biophysics and Bioengineering 2 (June 1973): 157–80.

  Within a few years: John Hebert, “Man/Machine Interface Utilizes Human Brain Waves,” Computerworld, June 28, 1976, S/2.

  “Soon, for example, a computer monitoring”: George Lawrence, “Biocybernetics: Program Plan,” Lawrence personal collection.

  “The discipline of biocybernetics”: George Lawrence, ARPA, Dec. 1975 program summary, Lawrence personal collection.

  “They certainly haven’t been”: Lawrence, interview with author.

  Geller’s advocates, who believed: The eventual project that emerged from the SRI work ended up with army intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency, rather than the CIA.

  “At the very least”: Lawrence, interview with author.

  “wandering off the territory”: Currie, interview with author.

  CHAPTER 14: INVISIBLE WAR

  “Oh my God, he’s dead”: Brown, interview with author.

  They named it Paradise Ranch: Johnson, Kelly, 122–23.

  “He was on a scaffold”: Allen Atkins, interview with author.

  “Oh, that was his gas mask”: Ibid. Alan Brown recalls the events in a similar way, though he said he was not privy to the official cover story or what precisely was told to the hospital staff. He agrees that staff did not believe what they were told. Brown, interview and personal correspondence with author.

  “General Delivery, Las Vegas”: UPI, “Crash of Plane Admitted, but Other Details Lacking,” Eugene Register-Guard, May 12, 1978, 16C. Press reports at the time erroneously reported the pilot’s last name as Parks.

  The Pentagon a week later: UPI, “Pentagon Plays Down Plane Crash,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 13, 1978, 2.

  he would reveal years later: UPI, “Chief Stealth Fighter Pilot Tells of Initial Test Flights,” Lodi News-Sentinel, Sept. 30, 1989, 5.

  “perform missions along”: The TR-1 and the high-altitude aircraft were likely the official cover story. UPI, “Did a Secret U.S. Spy Plane Crash?,” Montreal Gazette, May 13, 1978, 12.

  Flight International reported: “Stealth Airplane Lost in Nevada,” Flight International, May 27, 1978, 1591.

  “to disestablish DARPA”: Tegnelia, interview with author.

  The stealth aircraft’s journey: Robert Moore and Chuck Myers, correspondence with author. A minor discrepancy in their recollections is over whether the meeting took place at DARPA or in the Pentagon.

  “Walk Stealthily”: Myers, e-mail correspondence with author.

  Israel reportedly lost: The exact number—as well as the cause of the losses—is still disputed. But the principal reason for those losses is not typically contested. Simon Dunstan, The Yom Kippur War: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973 (Oxford: Osprey, 2007), 30.

  “Signature is the most important”: Myers, correspondence with author.

  He handed Moore: Moore and Myers, correspondence with author.

  “drastic operational techniques”: Moore, interview with author.

  The mini-drone was not invisible: Atkins, interview with author.

  “real world”: Ibid.

  Moore was intrigued: Based on author interviews with Moore and Atkins and correspondence with Myers.

  “the high stealth aircraft”: Moore says he adopted the term “stealth” after chats with a naval officer on DARPA’s staff. Myers had also used the word “st
ealth” in some of his own papers on Harvey. Moore, interview with author.

  five companies: Aronstein and Piccirillo, Have Blue and the F-117A, 26.

  “clicked”: Currie, interview with author. Lukasik, on hearing that he was about to be replaced, resigned at the beginning of 1975, and Heilmeier came in a few months later. Lukasik, interview with author.

  “He wanted more technology”: Heilmeier, interview with author.

  DARPA orders: “ARPA orders are not a good source of information—they are written by smart people to fool dumb people, meaning all the bureaucrats who have to sign off, or just not raise a question,” Lukasik insisted. “They are blatant sales pitches.” Lukasik, interview with author.

  Heilmeier, on the other hand: Heilmeier, interview with author.

  “That’s pure bullshit”: Heilmeier, interview with Aspray, Charles Babbage Institute.

  Licklider left DARPA: “I think that we are at a watershed in the history of ARPA-IPTO,” Licklider wrote, recapping his conversations with Heilmeier, shortly after the new director came over. J. C. R. Licklider to Allen Newell, e-mail, “Subject: Request for Advice,” April 1, 1975, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries Digital Collections.

  “First what are you trying to do”: Heilmeier, interview with author. The Heilmeier catechism has several different wordings, though it is always constructed from some version of these seven questions. This version is verbatim from the author’s interview with Heilmeier.

  “Why don’t you try”: Heilmeier, interview with Williams/Gerard.

  “He went through all my programs”: Moore, correspondence with author.

  Moore’s idea for the high stealth aircraft: Moore, interview with author. The confusion over the stealth concept persisted even in the name. Though some accounts reference that initial study as “Harvey,” the name does not appear to have ever been formally used by DARPA. Myers believed the DARPA study was going to explore Harvey, while DARPA from the outset was going in a different direction.

  “We needed to penetrate”: Currie, interview with author.

  Daniel reported back to Ben Rich: Stevenson, $5 Billion Misunderstanding, 19.

  “Ben, we are getting the shaft”: Rich and Janos, Skunk Works, 23. There are some factual errors in Rich’s chronology of the early days of the stealth competition, so it is difficult to know who first alerted him to the stealth competition. The DARPA study program at that point was not classified, so it is likely word was getting out from multiple sources.

  “This was exactly the kind of project”: Ibid.

  Heilmeier warned Rich: Ibid., 24.

  Perko agreed to the offer: Atkins, interview with author. Rich, in his book, Skunk Works, says the $1 offer came from George Heilmeier, and he actually turned it down. There is likely some truth in all the accounts. Heilmeier would surely not have offered Lockheed a contract without consulting Perko, who was in charge of the program. Likewise, Perko would not have allowed Lockheed’s unorthodox entry into the program without Heilmeier’s approval.

  “I will support your lightweight fighter”: Currie, interview with author. The offer to Jones was something of a bluff. Currie said he would have supported the F-16 regardless, because it was the defense secretary’s favored project.

  “The air force ought to support”: This conversation is reconstructed from interviews and correspondence with Heilmeier, Moore, Currie, and Myers. The “motherhood” quotation is taken from Myers’s account published in Stevenson, $5 Billion Misunderstanding, 21.

  “You have to admire a man”: Heilmeier, interview with author.

  “The difference for the Soviet guys”: Brown, interview with author.

  As Kelly Johnson: Quoted in Aronstein and Piccirillo, Have Blue and the F-117A, 9.

  “It wasn’t like the Russians”: Brown, interview with author. The debate over how much Ufimtsev contributed to stealth continues today. Overholser has said that Ufimtsev’s theories were incorporated into the Echo computer program after the initial Have Blue design was completed. Aronstein and Piccirillo, Have Blue and the F-117A, 72. But it is clear that Ufimtsev’s theory was at least informing Overholser’s thinking as early as 1974 or 1975. Also see Stevenson, $5 Billion Misunderstanding, 17.

  “Well, that’s stupid”: Brown, interview with author.

  “Grown men cried that day”: Stevenson, $5 Billion Misunderstanding, 22.

  As the aircraft lifted off: Heilmeier, interview with author.

  “It’s an empty bottle”: Ibid.

  “No self-respecting”: Brown, interview with author.

  “I’m still convinced”: Myers, interview with author.

  “I am announcing today”: Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, “Statement on Stealth Technology,” Defense Department News Conference, Washington, D.C., Aug. 22, 1980.

  “can’t afford to fail”: Tegnelia, interview with author.

  CHAPTER 15: TOP SECRET FLYING MACHINES

  “already in an arms race”: Ronald Reagan’s Speech at the VFW Convention, Chicago, Aug. 18, 1980.

  “Sure, Dick, yeah”: Cooper, interview with Alex Roland.

  “give an enema”: Ibid.

  “Cap, I’ve heard that song”: Ibid.

  “The solution is well”: Ronald Reagan’s televised address announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative on March 23, 1983.

  “What other President”: FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 15.

  Eighth Card: Beason, E-Bomb, 97.

  The Eighth Card study: Hans Mark, “The Airborne Laser from Theory to Reality: An Insider’s Account,” Defense Horizons, April 2002, 2.

  By the time Reagan announced: The Teller plan was one of several pitches Reagan had received in the weeks and months leading up to his announcement. FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 206.

  Everybody including DeLauer and myself: Cooper, interview with Roland.

  “Although we appreciate”: FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 142–43.

  “I spent the following ten days”: Cooper, interview with Roland.

  “When the President made his announcement”: Cooper, interview with Williams/Gerard.

  “He was not a happy camper”: Kahn, interview with author.

  Officials in DARPA’s Directed Energy Office: To explain the view of officials in the Directed Energy Office, Kahn cited the parable of the “chicken and the pig” discussing a breakfast of ham and eggs. “The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed,” Kahn explained. “The Directed Energy Office was committed. They were going to be involved no matter what because it was their technology. They were the pig.” Ibid.

  In the end, Cooper decided: In all likelihood, the retreat to West Virginia was more of Cooper’s attempt to gather information. “If office directors thought there was democracy in the agency, that was a result of lots of discussion but never management by vote,” said Larry Lynn, Cooper’s deputy and later a director of DARPA. Lynn, correspondence with author.

  “We were spending money”: Cooper, interview with Williams/Gerard.

  Cost estimates for Aquila: General Accounting Office, Aquila Remotely Piloted Vehicle: Recent Developments and Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 1986).

  Compared with the United States: Figures from Israeli Air Force website: http://www.iaf.org.il/4968-33518-en/IAF.aspx.

  “Karem wasn’t really pushing”: Atkins, interview with author.

  Teal Rain: Van Atta and Lippitz, Transformation and Transition, vol. 2. DARPA officials still will not discuss some of the specific aircraft developed under Teal Rain, but two officials did indicate the goal was to eventually replace aircraft like the U-2 and the SR-71.

  Even thirty years later: Like the manned aircraft programs, some unclassified projects were really covers for classified ones. For example, DARPA was openly funding development of a massive Boeing-built drone called Condor, a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft whose two-hundred-foot wingspan matched that of a Boeing 747. But only one prototype was
built, and the aircraft appears to have been a cover for a classified military mission, which was canceled.

  “Gentlemen, everything I see”: Richard Whittle, “The Man Who Invented the Predator,” Air & Space Magazine, April 2013.

  As an initial step: Ibid.

  When that design proved successful: Chuck Heber, interview with author.

  “The navy was in it”: Atkins, interview with author.

  “changed the world”: Whittle, Predator, 310.

  “Looking at it from the side”: Atkins, interview with author.

  “Most people didn’t know”: Ibid.

  “We built some full-scale models”: Ibid.

  The “black” program involved: Ibid.

  Those shifts are difficult to mask: According to Atkins, one lesson was the importance of using stiff blades, because slapping blades were a dead giveaway. Ibid.

  “If you could ever get beyond”: Ibid.

  “No, that’s too ugly”: Ibid. A Russian version of a forward-swept wing, the Sukhoi S-37, similarly failed to make it beyond the prototype stage.

  “swallowing the agency’s budget”: Tegnelia, interview with author.

  “I had one program that lost”: Atkins, interview with author.

  “It was Ambrose facing me”: Ibid.

  Ambrose was known as a fierce protector: John Cushman Jr., “In Budget War, Some Fall Amid Din and Others Go in Silence,” New York Times, Feb. 24, 1988.

  “There are over half a dozen”: Ibid. Atkins, interview with author.

  “Well, Jim, we’re going to do the program”: Ibid.

  “This is something DARPA”: Tony duPont, interview with author.

  The route duPont took: Heppenheimer, Facing the Heat Barrier, 215.

  Tether, a science fiction fan: Ibid.

  Space planes were an ambition: Back in 1958, the Maneuverable Recoverable Space Vehicle, or MRS-V, never got beyond the concept stage before DARPA lost its space programs. An air force effort from the same time period, called the X-20 Dyna-Soar, was also eventually canceled.

  “not unlike keeping a candle lit”: David Schneider, “A Burning Question,” American Scientist, Nov.–Dec. 2002.