The Wizards of Langley

by Jeffrey T Richelson

  From the time the Shah left, Iran became a priority U.S. intelligence target. Among the resources used to gather information were the KEYHOLE satellites. Targets included all of Tehran, Iranian military facilities, and the TACKSMAN sites.90 Photography of the intelligence facilities could tell the United States whether they had been discovered by the new regime.

  The CIA apparently had a plan for airlifting equipment and personnel out of the TACKSMAN II site using C-130 aircraft but never got the chance to implement it. Soon the CIA’s prize telemetry intercept sites were in the hands of the ayatollahs. Kabkan was besieged by militiamen, and twenty-two U.S. technicians were captured. Subsequently, they were returned to the United States.91 (The facility’s chief, Richard A. Krueger, later in the year became chief of another CIA SIGINT facility also located in a remote area. However, although Pine Gap’s location in the Australian outback was physically remote, his new assignment was in a considerably less hazardous and friendlier political environment.)92

  On January 31, the U.S. technicians at Beshahr abandoned the facility, leaving the equipment running—perhaps because its intercepts were being remotely transmitted to a satellite. Ambassador William Sullivan engaged in negotiations with the authorities in Tehran, which apparently included payment of ransom, to get the CIA employees out of the country safely.93

  Although losing the stations was a serious blow, U.S. officials hoped to avoid compounding the disaster by loss of the equipment to hostile powers. One reason the Iranians did not shut off the electricity when they took over was fear of damaging the equipment and therefore their ability to sell it. An Iranian logistics supervisor at the facility stated, “We don’t know who will get the equipment. Maybe Iran will sell it to someone. Maybe we will use it. It might hurt the machinery if we turned off the electricity.” Thus, the U.S. ambassador to Iran was informed on February 12 that “preventing sensitive military and intelligence equipment from falling into unfriendly hands” was one of two immediate U.S. concerns. In May, a visit by two newspaper correspondents found the Beshahr post “intact and whirring.” The bungalows that had housed U.S. personnel had been sealed, but station employees still mowed the lawns occasionally.94

  The loss of the stations was damaging in both an intelligence and a political sense. The Iranian sites had unique capabilities. In 1979, a worst-case view was given by one official:

  Kabkan is not replaceable. No tricks are going to overcome that in the short run, and the short run could be three or four years. It is going to affect our capability on verification. I don’t think people realize how important that base was, not just for SALT, but generally for keeping up with the Soviet missile program. It provided basic information on Soviet missile testing and development. You’re talking about a pretty big loss. It’s serious.95

  In addition, coming as it did on the heels of public exposure of Boyce’s sale of RHYOLITE data, the loss further exacerbated concern over U.S. ability to verify the new SALT II Treaty. Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State at the time, noted: “The loss of the collection stations in Iran . . . was a serious setback, both in the sense of temporarily impairing our ability to check Soviet compliance with certain SALT limitations and in its impact on key senators, such as John Glenn, who had become the Senate’s leading expert on verification.”96

  Also left behind in Kabkan was a system designated LAZY CAT, which had been only recently installed in reaction to concern expressed by intelligence directorate analysts that the Soviets might be testing an antisatellite laser weapon at Sary Shagan. But neither signals intelligence nor imagery was conclusive. In an attempt to provide answers, the Office of SIGINT Operations installed a system similar to the TEAL AMBER space surveillance telescope at Malabar, Florida.97 The expectation was that if the Soviets were conducting such tests, the laser signal would “scatter stuff our way” after hitting the target, according to one CIA officer knowledgeable about the project.98

  That same official, William “Al” Nance, was dubious about whether the project would have provided any intelligence of value—even assuming the Soviets were conducting such tests and not simply using the laser for tracking. Potential problems included the need for the LAZY CAT system to be looking in the right direction as well as the need for clear air and an absence of cloud cover. Nance assessed the probability of success as “near zero.”99

  By the time the Shah was heading off into exile, a replacement for the TACKSMAN sites was in sight. During his secret trip to Beijing in July 1971, national security adviser Henry Kissinger offered Zhou Enlai communications intelligence and high-resolution satellite imagery concerning Soviet forces on China’s border. Zhou accepted. Additional offers were made in October 1971 during another Kissinger trip, in December 1971 at a CIA safehouse in Manhattan, and again in Beijing in November 1973.100

  Originally, the visits to China in the early 1970s by Kissinger, and then Nixon, struck the CIA not so much as an opportunity to share intelligence as to collect it. During that time, the Office of ELINT received a query from Richard Helms’s office about what opportunities the trips afforded for SIGINT collection. The office’s Clandestine ELINT Team examined the possibility of placing concealed eavesdropping equipment on the aircraft as well as in luggage, but ultimately Kissinger decided he wanted no part of such covert collection schemes, and the entire idea was dropped.101

  A substitute plan was the concept of working jointly with the Chinese to spy on the mutual enemy—the Soviet Union. According to William Nance, the CIA had been looking for an intercept site in the Far East that would be a counterpart to the sites in Turkey and Iran. He examined possible sites in China, their field of view, how far the horizon extended, and what part of a missile test could be monitored. Of particular interest were possible sites in Xinjiang province where intercept antennae could eavesdrop through the gaps in the mountains. Nance took the work to Jim Hirsch, at the time deputy director of OEL.102

  Not until September 1975 was the possibility raised with the Chinese government. As Henry Kissinger and Qiao Guanhua, the Chinese Foreign Minister, rode in from the Beijing airport, Kissinger told Qiao that he had a particularly sensitive intelligence-sharing proposal he wanted to propose to Deng Xiaoping. Kissinger explained that in light of U.S. concern over activities at Semipalatinsk, the home of URDF-3, the United States would be interested in establishing a joint seismic and electronic intelligence base in the western mountains of China. Undoubtedly, activities at Tyuratam and Sary Shagan also motivated Kissinger. But Deng’s first order of business when they met the following day was to reject the idea.103

  In January 1979, with the Shah’s regime in ruins, Deng Xiaoping arrived in Washington to begin his U.S. tour. Before he departed to see the rest of the country, he held a final private meeting with the President and national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski noted that the United States had been cooperating with the Shah to monitor Soviet missile tests and other developments. A joint U.S.-Chinese intelligence facility, Brzezinski argued, would be a valuable act of cooperation in opposing the Soviet menace.104

  In an April 1979 meeting with a visiting U.S. Senate delegation, Deng indicated that China was willing to use U.S. equipment to “monitor Soviet compliance with a proposed new arms limitation treaty”—although Deng was certainly more concerned with intelligence about Soviet actions that might directly affect China. Deng also indicated that the monitoring stations would have to be run by the Chinese and the data would have to be shared with the PRC.105

  There is some disagreement as to when a final agreement was concluded and when operations began. According to one account, when Vice-President Walter Mondale visited China during August 1979, Deng told him that China accepted the proposal and that “we would have given you an answer earlier, but we had some problems on our side. Now they are resolved.” According to this same account, from August 1979 to December 1979, C-141 Starlifters ferried equipment to China.106

  But according to a CIA official, China agreed to the pro
ject in November 1979, leading to the project’s initial designation—“7911.”107 However, in his memoirs, former DCI Robert Gates recalled that “negotiations culminated at the very end of December 1980–early January 1981” with a secret trip to China by DCI Stansfield Turner and Gates. They left Andrews Air Force Base on December 27 and returned on January 7, with Turner having grown a mustache to help disguise his identity.108

  Whatever the exact timing, by the fall of 1981, if not before, the two stations at Qitai and Korla in Xinjiang province were in operation. To teach the Chinese technicians how to operate the equipment and change the rolls of magnetic tape that recorded the intercepted signals, the CIA set up a school in Beijing.109

  The stations, which were code-named CHESTNUT, could monitor military communications from central Asia to the Far East, air traffic, radar signals from Soviet air defenses, KGB communications, and the alert status of Soviet nuclear forces. Of particular interest to the CIA was CHESTNUT’s ability to monitor the telemetry from the beginning of missile tests and space shots from Tyuratam, and to follow missiles through their flight over Siberia and the dispersion of warheads. Also in view of the eavesdropping equipment was the Sary Shagan ABM test site.110

  ESCAPE

  The CIA’s loss of its TACKSMAN sites did not halt its effort to use Iran as a base for monitoring Soviet missile testing. But without the cooperation of the new government, the project had to be covert. The CIA’s Tehran station assigned an agent to purchase a hunting lodge in the El-burz Mountains, with the expectation that an antenna and other ELINT equipment placed in the attic and around the premises would enable the agency to continue intercepting Soviet missile telemetry. But on November 4, 1979, only days after the agent was given approximately $250,000 to make the purchase, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy, taking its occupants hostage.111

  The embassy takeover ended the ELINT project and shifted the CIA’s focus to gathering information on the status of the U.S. hostages and supporting the Carter administration’s efforts to obtain their release. Those efforts, both military and diplomatic, would prove futile.

  In addition to supporting efforts to gain the release of the hostages, the CIA also sought to prevent another six Americans from becoming captives. In the midst of the takeover, aided by a rainstorm, five Americans who were working in the consular section building at the rear of the embassy compound were able to escape. Included were the consul general and his wife, the consul and his wife, and a second vice-consul. The agricultural attaché, who had been working in a nearby office, also avoided capture.112

  Refuge for the consul and his wife was provided by the Canadian ambassador, Kenneth Taylor, at his official residence in the suburbs—a white two-story masonry building set well back from the eight-foot wall that surrounded it. The other four Americans were hidden in a nearby villa where the Canadian chief immigration officer, John Sheardown, and his wife lived. The six were kept out of view of prowling Revolutionary Guards and Iranian security forces. But if the Iranians realized that six potential hostages were missing, they would start searching for them, possibly without restraint. In any case, the sooner the Americans could escape the country, the better off for them and their hosts—particularly since the New York Times had already learned of the Canadians’ house-guests. At the request of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, the editors of the Times agreed not to publish that information, but it was only a matter of time before the wrong people would discover the truth.113

  In mid-December 1979, Antonio J. Mendez was chief of Authentication Branch, Graphics and Authentication Division, Office of Technical Service—responsible for disguise, false documentation, and the forensic examination of questioned (and possibly forged) documents and materials in support of counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations. Mendez had been with the agency, and its technical services unit, since 1965. His career had taken him to Southeast Asia and Moscow as well as Langley and ultimately resulted in his being named one of the CIA’s fifty trailblazers.114

  The assignment his division chief presented him that day in December would be among his most challenging—arrange for a cover story and documentation that would enable the six Americans to be rescued from Iran. Since any cover that relied on U.S. passports would draw unwanted attention, the first option that was consistent with the fact that they all spoke North American English was to make them Canadians.115

  To do so, to give them Canadian passports, would first require Canada to approve and provide valid blank passports. On January 2, 1980, Mendez and an OTS document specialist flew to Canada, hoping to demonstrate to Canadian officials how OTS could turn the blank passports into convincing cover. They were confronted with a decision that had already been made during a rump session of Parliament—to make an exception to Canadian passport law and provide the six passports. But the Canadians were not willing to deliver another two blank passports for CIA escorts.116

  Providing unimpeachable passports was only one element required for a successful rescue. If the Americans were to leave via Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, the CIA would also need to know about the departure process—including whether the forms that travelers received on arrival and were collected upon departure (to verify that they left before their visa expired) were actually collected and checked. Since the agency had recently moved one agent out of Iran through the airport, it had a body of information on airport controls and personnel.117

  Also needed was a cover story that would be the basis for any documentation. OTS and other agency elements began an all-source search for information on the types of groups traveling in and out of Iran’s major airport, while the operations directorate’s Near East Division collected data on covert, overland exfiltration options.118

  None of the groups traveling legally to Iran fit the CIA’s requirements, and the agency came up with three purely fictional possibilities. The first option for a cover story was that the six were an advance party scouting overseas locations for a motion picture. Such a team would include a production manager, a cameraman, an art director, a script consultant, a transportation manager, a business manger, and a director. There were two other options—a group of Canadian nutritionists conducting a survey of the Third World, or a group of unemployed teachers seeking jobs at international schools in the region.119

  While Mendez traveled between Ottawa and Washington to work on the logistical details associated with the options, an OTS team in Ottawa worked on the documentation and disguise items, which the Canadians had agreed to send via courier to Tehran. Back at Langley, Mendez’s team collected and analyzed the most recent information available on Iranian border controls.120

  Mendez also traveled to Hollywood to consult with John Chambers, a Hollywood makeup artist best known for his work on Planet of the Apes, who was one of several film-industry specialists Mendez had consulted when he headed the technical service’s disguise section. While there, Mendez created a name for the movie, Argo, designed a logo, and ordered ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter describing the notional film as a “cosmic conflagration.” He also brought back Hollywood “pocket litter,” such as matchbooks from the Brown Derby, to provide the Americans.121

  On January 21, one of the CIA officers who would escort the Americans out of Iran left Frankfurt for Geneva to apply for an Iranian visa. Mendez left Dulles Airport the same day for Frankfurt. He traveled on his official U.S. passport, but when he arrived at the Iranian embassy on January 22, he had altered his appearance and carried OTS-produced documentation showing him to be Kevin Costa Harkins, a film producer associated with Studio Six Productions in Los Angeles.122

  In the meantime, the OTS-prepared exfiltration material had arrived in Tehran, including material to be used if Mendez and his associate failed to arrive, for whatever reason. An urgent message soon arrived for Mendez, after Taylor and one of his aides discovered that one of the passports showed a date of issue of the Iranian visa as sometime in the future.123

  But Mendez and his
colleague arrived in Iran on January 25, carrying the Argo script, one completed before the rescue mission was planned and based on a science fiction novel. Later that day, they briefed the Americans on the three possible cover stories, who decided to leave as a group using the Studio Six cover. Mendez then provided the exfiltrators with Argo supporting documents and résumés from the portfolio. Three days before their departure, the Americans also received disguise materials and clothing props from Mendez so they could transform their appearances to match what might be expected of a film crew.124

  In the early morning hours of January 28, the six American diplomats—Joseph and Kathleen Stafford, Mark and Cora Lijek, Bob Anders, and Lee Schatz—escorted by Mendez and his colleague, headed for Mehrabad Airport carrying their OTS-prepared Canadian passports along with the OTS-produced material that padded their wallets. A delay in departure of the scheduled 5:30 a.m. flight, along with the close questioning of one of the diplomats about his passport photo, increased the tension. But both the documentation and disguises proved sufficient. On January 28, 1980, the six Americans flew out of Iran—almost a year before their less fortunate colleagues at the U.S. embassy.125

  Several weeks after the rescue, Studio Six folded, having already received twenty-six scripts, including one from Steven Spielberg. In 1997, Mendez, who had retired in late 1990, found a Federal Express envelope inside his studio’s screen door. It contained a letter from Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet informing Mendez that although his trickery may have gone undetected by Iran and other targets, it had not gone unnoticed by the CIA. The letter informed him that he had been named one of the CIA’s fifty trailblazers—people “who by their actions, example or initiative helped shape the history of the first half century of this agency.”126

  *Indeed, Dirks’s continued intense focus on such programs was exceedingly annoying to Robert Kohler, one of his successors as director of development and engineering. At one point, Kohler told Dirks that “if you want to run the fucking program, we can trade jobs.” (Telephone interview with Robert Kohler, July 6, 1999.)