The Wizards of Langley (17 page)

Indeed, the pilots who participated in Project TACKLE, as the U-2 missions over China were code-named, were in constant danger from China’s air defense system. Nationalist Chinese pilots flying from Taiwan as well as U.S. pilots flying from a base at Ban Takhli, Thailand, all faced the prospect of death or incarceration.

During a July 1966 flight, Major “Spike” Chuang Jen Liang ran into a SAM battery when turning over Kunming air base; eight missiles were fired at him in two salvos. Two were photographed as he put his plane into an evasive turn and escaped death. On another overflight targeted on Lanzhou, Major Billy Chang Hsieh spotted two SAMs fly by as he passed over the nuclear facility. As he revisited the site shortly afterward, the camera photographed missile crews scrambling to reload the launchers and fire another salvo.
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A device instrumental in saving Chuang’s life was the Oscar Sierra warning system, which had been installed in the U-2s in spring 1965. The key to the system was its detection of the change in pulse repetition frequency of the SA-2 radar when the system shifted into firing mode. The change caused a red light labeled “OS” to go on in the U-2 cockpit, giving a pilot flying at 72,000 feet about forty seconds to get out of the way. Pilots soon came to translate the “OS” as Oh Shit!
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China’s nuclear program was not the only target of U-2 overflights. In mid-1963, Deputy DCI Marshall Carter, Jack Ledford, and Kelly Johnson were all at Edwards Air Force Base in California. One day they met at the bachelor officers’ quarters. Ledford later recounted that Johnson had a couple of White Horse scotches, the only scotch he would drink, and that the three of them began talking. The question arose of whether it would be possible to operate U-2s from aircraft carriers. Such an ability would alleviate the
problem of having to find foreign bases for U-2 operations—since many countries were nervous about a U-2 base on their territory. That conversation was not the first time such a possibility had been raised.
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What followed was Project WHALE TALE, the modification of some U-2s to permit carrier operations. The project began in August 1963 with a successful U-2C takeoff from the USS
Kitty Hawk
operating off San Diego. The landing was much less successful: The plane bounced, hit hard on one wing, and barely managed to become airborne again before reaching the end of the deck. To make landings possible, the landing gear was strengthened, an arresting hook was attached to the rear of the fuselage, and “spoilers” were placed on the wings that, with the push of a button by the pilot, would kill the plane’s lift.
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In May 1964, a U-2G—a U-2C with the necessary modifications—was aboard the USS
Ranger
when it set sail for the mid-Pacific. The plane’s target was Mururoa atoll, a twenty-mile-by-ten-mile strip of territory thousands of miles from land. For a U-2 to overfly it would require a carrier as a launch site. Mururoa was part of French Polynesia and was a target because a year earlier France had selected the atoll as its new nuclear test site, to replace the site in what had become independent Algeria. For the next four years, the CIA maintained a contingent of carrier-qualified U-2 pilots as well as three U-2Gs. During that time, France conducted six atmospheric and three underground nuclear tests on Mururoa. But the May 1964 flight was the sole operational mission from a carrier. After the first, senior officials had second thoughts on the propriety (and presumably the public relations risk) of spying on an ally, even a troublesome one.
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One proposed modification of the U-2, aimed at a quite different target, never was made. ORD’s director, Robert Chapman, advocated building a long-focal-length camera to be put in the nose of a U-2. Rather than looking down, the camera would look up into space and photograph the Soviet satellites that FMSAC was so curious about. Putting the camera in a U-2 would get it up above the atmosphere and avoid the loss of clarity due to atmospheric interference. Chapman hoped the clearer images would allow more precise evaluation of the satellite’s mission. However, the proposal was, as Bud Wheelon recalled, “not a very good idea” and was “stomped on” by the NRO.
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The NRO also helped terminate the low-altitude overflights of China that began with the ST/POLLY program. In June 1963, a P-3A Orion mar
itime patrol aircraft arrived at the Naval Aviation Depot at Alameda, California, after having been diverted from Florida-based training flights. The plane was modified by widening the main cabin door and adding a duplicate next to the original door. As a result, both doors swung inward and back out of the way, creating an opening approximately fifty-three inches wide. That Orion was the first of three P-3As that were remodeled as part of ST/SPIN—the follow-on to ST/POLLY.
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Assigned to manage the conversion program, which was carried out by the secretive E-Systems of Greenville, Texas, was OEL’s Robert Singel. As was the case with its predecessor, the primary function of the aircraft was to fly low into China in order to stir up and monitor China’s air defenses, data required by the Strategic Air Command. The modification of its cargo doors reflected the plan to use the planes for the same types of covert-action operations as the P-2V Neptune conducted—dropping equipment, arms, ammunition, and agents on some occasions, and thousands of propaganda leaflets on others.
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Along with the ELINT receivers that were carried on the Neptunes, the Orions were equipped with a variety of additional sensors, including side-looking airborne radar for missions flown along the Chinese border, communications intercept equipment, and an infrared detector. Reportedly, an acoustic eavesdropping device was tested, one so sensitive that it could detect engine and machine-manufacturing noises. The planes were also equipped with cameras for slant-range or oblique photography. To help satisfy nuclear intelligence requirements, the planes also carried an air-sampling apparatus that was connected to the ram air scoops to the rear of each side of the cockpit.
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The first ST/SPIN aircraft, manned by Nationalist Chinese personnel, began operations in 1964. Some missions involved flying along the southern border of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with occasional penetrations to detect air defense radars and determine the characteristics of their signals. Missions into the interior, in addition to conducting airdrops, also involved locating military installations, intercepting military communications, and air sampling. Missions were eventually conducted over Burma and up into Tibet to collect intelligence on Chinese activities against the civilian population.
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The ST/POLLY and ST/SPIN programs were threatened by the behavior of both PRC and Nationalist Chinese officials. The PRC was occasionally able to shoot down an aircraft. P-2Vs were shot down in November 1961, June 1963, and June 1964. Another disappeared in January 1962,
possibly as a result of an operational accident. In addition, the PRC’s information about the Nationalist Chinese personnel involved was so extensive that the intruding P-3As often received calls from PRC radio operations requesting to speak, by name, to one or more of the Nationalist Chinese on board. Further, the planes carried far more personnel than necessary, often twenty-seven instead of the required fourteen to sixteen. Personnel received bonuses for participating in such missions, and the Nationalist Chinese general who ran the program was willing to assign extra crew members to the missions in exchange for a kickback (which he also required from the first fourteen crewmen). When OSA chief Ledford told Wheelon that the general had been sent to prison for his actions, Wheelon told him that not only should the United States do nothing to get him out, but that the Nationalist Chinese should “throw away the fucking key.”
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In 1965, before the third P-3A had been modified, Singel received word that the program was being terminated by the NRO, which had provided the funding.
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It is unclear what combination of PRC and Nationalist Chinese actions, the capabilities exhibited by the NRO’s new ferret satellites, and budgetary limitations resulted in the cancellation decision. The last flights in the program occurred in 1966.
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In September 1966, the OXCART had still not flown an operational mission. For Wheelon, it proved a “hell of a challenge,” a weekly “four-alarm fire” that threatened to destroy the CIA’s “reputation for doing things on the cheap [and] quickly.” Bureaucratic and technical issues consumed “so god damn much of my time,” Wheelon recalled. Along with Ledford, he worked to ensure continued Air Force support, which included allocation of tankers to refuel the planes, for the program.
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According to Wheelon, for a while it was unclear if OXCART would ever reach operational status. In contrast to the U-2, it was behind schedule and over budget. The fundamental technical problem was compressor stalls, which induced horrendous shaking and caused pilots to bail out. But more than a plane was lost. One pilot died when his parachute didn’t open, and all but one Lockheed test pilot quit. Wheelon threatened to cancel the program unless Kelly Johnson, “who didn’t trust electronics,” put in an electronic system to correct the problem. Wheelon also put people to work developing a jammer that could limit the threat from hostile radars.
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But the reason OXCART was not operational by September 1966 was not problems with the aircraft, which had been corrected. By the end of
1963, there had been 573 flights totaling 765 hours. On July 20, 1963, an OXCART flew at Mach 3 for the first time, and in November it reached Mach 3.2, flying at 78,000 feet. On February 3, 1964, it flew for ten minutes at Mach 3.2 and 83,000 feet. By the end of 1964, there had been 1,160 flights, although the flight time was only 1,616 hours. Eleven aircraft were available, four of which were reserved for testing.
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On January 27, 1965, an OXCART took off on its first long-range, high-speed flight. It flew for 1 hour and 40 minutes, with all but 25 minutes of its flight conducted at above Mach 3.1. Its total range was 2,580 nautical miles, at altitudes between 75,600 and 80,000 feet.
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OXCART was delayed because higher authorities turned down repeated proposals to employ the plane on operational missions. The first suggestion that OXCART might be ready for operational deployment came in early 1964, when OSA began planning for its use over Cuba under a program designated SKYLARK. On August 5, Deputy DCI Marshall Carter directed that OSA achieve emergency operational readiness by November 5. The plane would operate at Mach 2.8 and 80,000 feet. But SKYLARK was never implemented.
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In 1965, Asia became a possible theater for OXCART’s first operations. On March 18, McCone, McNamara, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance met to discuss the growing threat to aerial surveillance of China, a threat manifested in the loss of several Air Force drones. They agreed that the CIA should take all preparatory steps necessary to overfly China with OXCART aircraft, flying out of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. Deploying the planes to Okinawa, however, would require presidential approval.
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Four days after McCone and Vance met, OSA director Ledford briefed Vance on details of the scheme, designated Operation BLACK SHIELD, which had been drawn up for Far East operations. It called for three aircraft to be deployed to Okinawa for sixty-day stints twice a year. About 225 personnel would be involved.
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During that period, North Vietnam began to deploy SAMs around Hanoi, threatening U.S. reconnaissance capability. In early June, McNamara inquired about the use of OXCARTs as substitutes for U-2s and was told BLACK SHIELD could operate over Vietnam as soon as the planes could be certified for use.
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With deployment expected to take place in the fall, the detachment went about demonstrating the reliability of the aircraft and its systems at Mach 3.05 and 2,300 nautical miles. But longer flights at higher speeds
and temperatures resulted in new problems, the most serious being with the electrical wiring system. Such problems prompted CIA program manager John Parangosky to visit Kelly Johnson in early August. Johnson decided to spend full-time at the site in order to get the job finished quickly.
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Four primary BLACK SHIELD aircraft were selected, and final validation flights conducted. OXCART achieved a maximum speed of Mach 3.29, an altitude of 90,000 feet, and sustained flight time above Mach 3.2 for 1 hour and 14 minutes. As a result, Johnson wrote Ledford that “my considered opinion is that the aircraft can be successfully deployed for the BLACK SHIELD mission with what I would consider to be at least as low a degree of risk as in the early U-2 deployment days. . . . I think the time has come when the bird should leave its nest.”
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However, higher authorities did not agree. Their reservations were not technical but political. Two days after Johnson’s letter to Ledford, the 303 Committee, the NSC group responsible for reviewing sensitive intelligence operations, received a formal proposal to unleash the OXCART over North Vietnam. It was but one of several proposals for OXCART operations that the 303 Committee vetoed. Vice-Admiral William Raborn, who had replaced McCone as DCI in late April 1965, raised the prospect of deploying OXCART to Okinawa at five 303 meetings during the first half of 1966 but always failed to win sufficient support.
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The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the PFIAB supported the CIA proposal, but top officials at State and Defense concluded that the political risks of basing aircraft in Okinawa outweighed any intelligence the OXCART might gather. On August 12, both groups presented their views to President Lyndon Johnson, who sided with the majority of the 303 Committee against deployment.
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