The Wizards of Langley
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In an attempt to obtain more detailed images for the interpreters, Scov-ille approached Under Secretary of the Air Force Joseph V. Charyk, who agreed to pull SAMOS E-5 cameras out of storage and start a crash program to put them into orbit. During 1962, Bob Leeper and Bill Cottrell, Lockheed engineers who worked in the CORONA program, traveled to their company’s classified warehouse to examine the cameras. Finding them in good condition, they arranged their transport to Itek in Boston, where they were reconfigured, tested, and shipped back to California to the Lockheed Advanced Projects Facility, where they would become part of the payload. The E-5 camera was redesignated the KH-6, and the hope was for it to produce images with a resolution of 2 feet.70
On March 18, 1963, the first LANYARD blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base but failed to reach orbit. A May 18, 1963, launch did reach orbit and returned a capsule. Unfortunately, the payload had not been activated, and there were no photographs to settle the debate over Tallinn. Another LANYARD was launched in late July, by which time Scoville was no longer a CIA official.71
MEN IN BLUE
On April 25, 1963, Scoville submitted a letter of resignation to McCone, effective June 1 (subsequently extended to June 17). In that letter, he noted that his efforts to establish a viable scientific and technical directorate had resulted “in a continuous series of frustrations in which, with a few exceptions, the working components have resisted any transfer of their responsibilities.” He also observed that although McCone had always supported the basic concept of the Research directorate, other senior agency officials had made it clear they did not, and “no one is willing to face up to the problems of implementing it.” One indication of that lack of nerve was that a recent “apparent decision to transfer OSI [to the DDR] was dropped.”72
Scoville also noted that “during the past year a major part of my activities has also involved joint programs of the Agency and the Department of Defense.” However, “I have never been supported and placed in a position where it was possible to direct this program in the manner it deserves. As a consequence, I found myself continuously in the position of being held responsible for matters which I have had neither the authority nor the means to control.”73 The joint programs Scoville was referring to were conducted under the auspices of a secret three-letter organization—the NRO.
The “NRO” was the National Reconnaissance Office—established through a September 6, 1961, letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric to Allen Dulles and concurred in, on Dulles’s behalf, by Deputy DCI Charles P. Cabell. The letter was the initial result of the desire of Killian, Land, and officials in the new administration, particularly McNamara and Gilpatric, to formalize the management of the space reconnaissance program. Under its terms, the Air Force’s SAMOS and GAMBIT programs, along with CIA’s CORONA, MURAL, ST/POLLY, IDEALIST, and OXCART programs, would become part of a single National Reconnaissance Program (NRP), encompassing space reconnaissance as well as aerial overflight programs. The letter also stipulated joint management of the NRP—via the NRO—by the CIA Deputy Director for Plans (Richard Bissell) and the Under Secretary of the Air Force (Joseph V. Charyk).74
Neither the CIA nor the Air Force was forced to transfer its programs to the new organization, whose central headquarters had only a small staff. The CIA’s CORONA and other reconnaissance programs were still run by the Deputy Directorate for Plans, while SAMOS and GAMBIT were the responsibility of the Air Force Office of Special Projects, which had been established in August 1960 and reported directly to Charyk. The September 6 agreement allowed each organization to manage its reconnaissance projects as part of a single NRP, with a single security system, and each could be called on to assist the other’s programs in areas where it held special capabilities. Thus, in addition to whatever reconnaissance systems it developed or procured, the Air Force would provide launch, tracking, and recovery services. The CIA could be called on to assist with covert contracting and security for individual programs a well as for the NRP as a whole.
Although that arrangement was satisfactory to Dulles and McNamara, the National Security Council’s Special Group, which supervised all U.S. intelligence activities, would not ratify the agreement, believing that the national reconnaissance effort was too important to entrust to divided management. Under those circumstances, and with Bissell’s departure from the CIA apparently imminent as a result of the Bay of Pigs, Charyk and his staff moved toward concentrating greater authority in the hands of the NRO and its director. On November 22, the NRO staff completed a draft statement of “NRO Functions and Responsibilities,” which suggested the transfer of several, and possibly all, CIA reconnaissance programs to the Air Force. Not long afterward, Charyk went further, advocating the consolidation of all program functions in the NRO “without regard for previous arrangements.” The CIA, he now believed, should not be given responsibility for either research and development or technical management of NRP projects.75
The radical changes Charyk envisioned became the basis for the serial exchange of memos between the NRO and CIA. In the midst of those exchanges, Scoville assumed the role of DDR in February 1962. He certainly reviewed and approved the CIA’s April 19 memo, arguing that covert programs then operated by the CIA should remain the CIA’s responsibility and that others assigned to the CIA by the Secretary of Defense and DCI would be the complete responsibility of the CIA.76
On the evening of April 19, Scoville and Charyk met, a meeting Charyk recalled as “not all that pleasant.” In that meeting and in a subsequent memo, Scoville resisted Charyk’s suggestions that Scoville should serve as deputy director of the NRO, arguing that he should be designated the CIA representative to the NRO. The former position implied subservience of the director; the latter did not. The two men also had differences concerning whether the CIA should have a veto on planning of advanced projects.77
After some additional wrangling, agreement was reached in the form of the May 2, 1962, “Agreement Between the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence on Responsibilities of the National Reconnaissance Office,” signed by McCone and Gilpatric. The agreement, which covered a number of issues, provided for a single Director (the DNRO), a position Gilpatric named Charyk to the next day (which was formally confirmed in a June 14 DOD directive). In addition, the agreement assigned technical management responsibility for all NRP projects to the DNRO, who would be selected by, and be directly responsible to, the Secretary of Defense and the DCI. However, it also specified that, as the CIA had pressed for, the CIA would serve as executive agent for covert projects under its management and any additional projects assigned to it by the Secretary of Defense and DCI. In the view of an NRO historian, the agreement constituted “a relatively strong policy statement on NRO purposes,” but in other respects it “conceded to the CIA the key points at issue.”78 Round one had gone to Scoville, but it would be only a temporary victory.
In July, following a late May conference at Greenbrier, West Virginia, attended by key NRO and CIA officials—including Charyk and Scov-ille—Charyk issued a formal directive on NRO organization and functions. The memo outlined the NRO structure as consisting of a Director, an NRO Staff, and three program elements—A, B, and C. The NRO Staff, consisting largely of Air Force personnel, had an overt identity—the Office of Space Systems in the office of the Secretary of the Air Force. Program A also had an unclassified cover—the Air Force Office of Special Projects. Program B was the designation given to the CIA reconnaissance activities that were the responsibility of the Office of Special Activities. The Navy’s satellite reconnaissance effort, consisting of the GRAB ferret satellite, developed and operated by the Naval Research Laboratory, became Program C, with the Director of Naval Intelligence heading the program.79
There were some areas where the CIA (Scoville) and NRO (Charyk) were in agreement—among them that responsibility for developing SIGINT satellites belonged to NRO and not NSA. But both the May meeting and the July statement left se
veral important issues unresolved, and the door open for further conflict. In June, Charyk began urging that mission planning, on-orbit target programming, and approval of mission targeting options be centralized at the NRO. Charyk considered such functions to be natural responsibilities of the NRO Staff, but Scoville did not.80
In late June, the PFIAB had advised President Kennedy that the NRO charter needed to be strengthened. After Kennedy endorsed the recommendation, McCone and Gilpatric sat down to discuss the matter, with Gilpatric suggesting that the only way to satisfy the PFIAB was to make the Secretary of Defense the executive agent for both DOD and the CIA aspects of the NRP, as had been proposed earlier in the year.81
However, while Gilpatric and Charyk were pushing in one direction, Scoville was pushing in the other. In late August and early September, Scoville announced or proposed two de facto alterations of the arrangements made earlier. He told Charyk that the CIA would continue to go directly to the Special Group on matters concerning ongoing projects, which amounted to a rejection of Charyk’s May 22 proclamation that he would be the NRO point of contact with the Special Group, a policy he had reiterated in a subsequent memo to Scoville. In addition, Scoville noted his opposition to Charyk’s decision to have the CIA award covert contracts for programs not under its exclusive control. He argued that it was inherently undesirable for the CIA to “assume the responsibility for covert procurement” for Air Force programs.82
In an August 29 memorandum, Scoville returned to the issue of his role in the NRO, arguing that instead of serving as head of Program B as specified in Charyk’s July 23 memo, the DDR should be officially designated as the Senior CIA Representative. Scoville had already transferred the title of Director, Program B, to OSA head Jack Ledford. Scoville also objected to Charyk’s claim that the DNRO was responsible for determining the assignment of operational control for reconnaissance systems, arguing that the May 2 agreement gave that authority to the Secretary of Defense and DCI.83
Added to disagreements on issues and personality differences was another complicating factor in Scoville’s relationship with Charyk and the NRO—DCI John McCone. Part of the problem was that McCone came to the agency without the conviction that the CIA should be involved in space or aerial reconnaissance. John McMahon recalled that one of Mc- Cone’s first comments was “What are you people doing in the airplane business?” In addition, the new DCI was a good friend of Gilpatric and wanted to avoid a fight with McNamara, at the time the proverbial eight-hundred- pound gorilla of the national security establishment.84
Nor did McCone and Scoville mesh personally. McCone was new money, Scoville old money. The DCI was also remote and austere. When Scoville called him “John,” McCone flinched. People just didn’t call him by his first name, McMahon recalled, observing that “I don’t think even his wife did.” Further, McCone was a staunch Republican, while Scoville was a liberal Democrat. Scoville was committed to nuclear disarmament and devoted some of his time to chairing an interagency committee on the issue. As a result, McCone felt Scoville was giving less than 100 percent to his job.85
Also, although McCone’s appearance and demeanor helped generate the appearance of a tough and decisive manager, he often wavered and reversed course. Scoville’s deputy Edward Giller recalled that McCone would make instant decisions and then do an about-face, leaving people irritated and requiring deputy DCI Marshall Carter to pick up the pieces. Albert Wheelon, Scoville’s successor as head of OSI and then as chief of the CIA science and technology effort, later wrote that McCone “was regarded as a great manager. . . . In truth, he was no manager at all. . . . He was reluctant to make and implement organizational decisions.”86
Thus, in a meeting with Charyk on October 1, McCone agreed that the CIA would assume responsibility for all covert contracting—a decision that came less than a month after Scoville had rejected the idea and after McCone had told Scoville of his support.87 Then, when Scoville proved unhelpful, in Charyk’s view, in providing CORONA-experienced personnel for an operational control facility in the Washington, D.C., area, Charyk turned to McCone, who again sided with him despite his initial support for Scoville. Such incidents led Scoville to question Charyk’s willingness to deal with him in good faith, whereas Charyk concluded that he was better off dealing with McCone.88 Those incidents, particularly when added to McCone’s failure to deliver OSI and TSD as promised, convinced Scoville that he could not rely on McCone.
McCone’s indecisiveness manifested itself in a different way in summer and fall 1962. Charyk and Scoville had reached agreement on several issues, mostly minor, only to have the agreements nullified by McCone’s refusal to accept Scoville’s judgment. In each case, Scoville had to contact Charyk and announce his withdrawal from the agreement in question. Charyk, apparently unaware of McCone’s role, took Scoville’s withdrawals as a sign of capriciousness. Charyk believed Scoville to be insincere, and the tone of their exchanges sharpened. The situation was made worse by the shift of U-2 missions to the Air Force during the Cuban missile crisis. By late October, Scoville and Charyk were no longer talking. Written correspondence from one to the other, even of the most formal kind, stopped shortly afterward.89
Adding fuel to the fire was McCone’s mid-November proposal to McNa-mara that he sign a letter to the Director of the Budget recommending the direct release to CIA of all funds required for the conduct of covert satellite projects. Charyk responded by writing Gilpatric that “if the NRO is to function it must be responsible for continuous monitoring of financial and technical program status, must control the release of funds to programs and must be able to reallocate between NRP programs.” McCone’s proposal would have allowed the agency to shift funds among CIA programs and prevented the DNRO from shifting funds between CIA and Air Force programs. Charyk concluded that Scoville had originated the proposal, although it was composed and submitted without his knowledge.90
Although personal hostility may have helped embitter the relationship between Charyk and Scoville, as well as between the CIA and NRO, there were also fundamental institutional viewpoints involved that had nothing to do with personality issues or particular acts of the principals and their subordinates. In the view of an NRO historian, “Scoville was the embodiment of CIA esprit de corps in an organization which—with considerable justification—considered itself uniquely more efficient and effective than any other element of the government.” That view was fueled not only by the success of programs such as CORONA and the U-2 but also by the Air Force’s SAMOS failures and the problems experienced in development of the GAMBIT high-resolution satellite.91 Although the Air Force element of the NRO eventually would oversee the development of a number of valuable reconnaissance satellites, including GAMBIT, at the time success was elusive.
Scoville and others in the CIA equated the NRO with the Air Force and viewed the NRO as a means by which the Air Force was attempting to hijack a highly successful CIA program to substitute for the Air Force’s failed program. As Wheelon would write many years later: “After their initial mistakes in rejecting the U-2 and botching the SAMOS Program, the Air Force knew a good thing when it saw it.”92
Charyk and his staff had a drastically different viewpoint. It took a year and a half and over thirteen launches before CORONA experienced its first success. The overhauled SAMOS program had been in existence only slightly more than two years, and it had not yet had a chance to prove itself. Charyk and the Air Force were confident that it would succeed.93
Of greatest importance, they saw the NRO as “the embodiment of a new spirit in the national defense establishment”—similar to the creation of the National Security Agency a decade earlier and, more recently, a number of centralized defense agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency. Charyk and others in the NRO viewed their organization as a national instrument that only incidentally made use of Air Force resources, and they believed their conception of a national reconnaissance program was much more comprehensive in scope than that of the CI
A.94
Many in the CIA saw things differently. After all, the CIA was also a national organization—indeed, the national intelligence organization. Its components reported to the Director of Central Intelligence, who was charged by the NSC, via National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 5, with coordinating the collection of intelligence through clandestine means, which included covert reconnaissance.95 In addition, the DCI was responsible, largely through the CIA, for producing national intelligence for the president and other key decisionmakers—products for which reconnaissance data were essential. If the DCI and CIA agreed to abdicate a major role in directing the national reconnaissance effort, they would be endangering their ability to ensure that the required information was collected.
CIA officials were also not likely to accept the notion of an NRO whose use of Air Force assets was only “incidental”—no matter how strongly Charyk or other NRO officials embraced the idea, and even though there were Air Force officers assigned to the CIA who did not let their military affiliation compromise their work for the CIA. Nor did it matter if the regular Air Force distrusted NRO, or if Air Force officers serving with the NRO were treated as outcasts by the rest of the Air Force. To those in the CIA, blue suits were blue suits.96
In December, Charyk received an offer from the COMSAT Corporation, and by January people knew he would be leaving government shortly. But his imminent departure did not stop him from continuing to address the weaknesses he believed existed in NRO’s charter and to press for a new one.97 A new agreement, he argued in a parting analysis of the NRO situation, should state plainly that the NRO was an operating agency and that its director had full management responsibility for all projects. This meant, Charyk contended, that the NRO director should have authority over the reconnaissance activities of both the CIA and DOD. He should have complete authority in funding matters. And in a flashback to the time when he and Bissell worked together without discord, Charyk observed that appointments must be made so as to ensure that the responsible people “will function as an effective working team rather than as representatives of the DoD and CIA.”98