The Wizards of Langley (29 page)

The ability of the KH-9 to photograph huge chunks of territory was a delight to the mappers of the newly created Defense Mapping Agency. The fewer photos needed to cover a part of the world, the easier it was to construct an accurate map. When the KH-9 program was terminated, the mappers at DMA “wept blood,” according to one intelligence official.
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The first KH-9, designated 1901, operated in an elliptical 114-by-186- mile orbit, with a 96.4-degree inclination. The inclination ensured that 1901 not only covered the entire earth from pole to pole in the course of its operations but also that its orbit was sun-synchronous—meaning that each daylight pass over an area could be made at an identical sun-angle and thus avoid differences in pictures of the same area that might result when photos were taken from different angles. Each ground track repeated every three and a half days. On days when a particular area was overflown, it was overflown twice, once in daylight and once in darkness.
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Between its launch on June 15 and its destructive reentry on July 6, fifty-two days later, 1901’s operators checked out its imaging, communications, and propulsion systems. It was also extensively calibrated to determine how well the new camera system held up to its theoretical promise. As with all new satellites, photographs were taken of a variety of locations in the United States and where the dimensions of the target and energy emissions could be precisely determined.
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Once checkout was completed, 1901 could begin snapping pictures of the usual targets of interest—including a variety of Soviet and Chinese nuclear and missile installations.

Reconnaissance was not the only directorate activity conducted to support U.S. efforts in Vietnam. OSI’s Project IMPACT, whose objective was to diagnose the nature of epidemics, predict their spread, and estimate their impact on military and civilian activities, was employed in an attempt to guide U.S. military actions.
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IMPACT’s earliest success was in December 1966, when OSI identified an outbreak of meningitis in China based on reports portraying the disease as viral encephalitis but stating that officials were using antibiotics to fight the epidemic, an ineffective medical strategy against encephalitis. IMPACT analysts proceeded to predict the spread of the disease from one province to the next and to note how it hampered the movements and activities of the Red Guard.
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In summer 1968, a new strain of influenza rolled out of China and into a substantial portion of the world, including Vietnam. Project IMPACT was assigned to forecast and quantify the effects upon the Vietcong (VC)
and North Vietnamese Army (NVA). The effort involved establishing a chronology of the times and locations of outbreaks, using reports over the 1968–1970 period—including any quantifiable figures on the rates of sickness and the frequency of VC-NVA requests for drugs and other medical supplies.
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A pattern evolved in which occurrence of the flu was a function of traffic density and personnel moving south from North Vietnam, and the trend coincided with the dry season—when the bulk of all military supplies moved down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Incapacitation rates ranged from about 40 to 70 percent, and analysts had very good evidence that except for isolation and quarantine of patients, the enemy had no capability to protect VC-NVA personnel by mass vaccinations.
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In December 1970, reports of outbreaks among VC-NVA forces in the North Vietnam–Laos border area increased, indicating the stage was set for the beginning of the 1971 influenza epidemic there. Members of the CIA’s Office of the Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs (SAVA) were consulted, and analysts used their data on traffic routes, troop concentration, and location of way stations to construct a model of the movement of the flu epidemic. Tchepone was a key junction on the Communist road network that extended into the south. If Tchepone became infected, the disease would move from way station to way station north and south in Laos and back to North Vietnam.
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In late December, there were indications that the NVA 4th and 16th AAA Battalions at Tchepone had become infected. It was estimated that in the primary infected area of Quang Binh province, the epidemic would peak about January 30, and in the secondary infected areas south of Tchepone, the peak would occur about mid-February. An overall 50 percent infection rate was calculated for VC-NVA personnel in those areas, and estimates were that half of those infected would be incapable of performing normal duties for about one week.
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Indigenous intelligence teams operating in Laos and Cambodia were warned to take special precautions during the peak influenza periods. South Vietnamese Army units entered Laos and conducted extensive operations near Tchepone and other areas around the primary infectious zone during February, hoping to take advantage of a weakened enemy. However, these operations weren’t mounted until just after the time analysts predicted the enemy would be most affected. As a result, the combat effectiveness of the VC-NVA forces was probably degraded to a lesser degree than if the operations had been launched earlier.
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*The CIA also tried on at least one occasion to train pigeons to carry a camera and move their heads to activate the device. The initial test run involved releasing a camera-carrying pigeon in the Washington, D.C., area. Almost two days after its release, the pigeon returned to the release site—on foot. The camera around its neck was too heavy to permit sustained flight.

*The CIA’s view proved correct. The SS-9 Mod-4 was never deployed, apparently because it could not be made sufficiently accurate. The first genuine MIRV was tested on the SS-18 Mod-2 in August 1973. A later SS-18 Mod was deployed with MIRVs. The first operational missile to be deployed with MIRVs was the SS-19 Mod-1 in December 1974. (Kirsten Lundberg, “The SS-19 Controversy: Intelligence as Political Football,” Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1989, p. 20.)

*A number of CANYON spacecraft often had problems communicating with the Bad Aibling ground station. However, over the life of the program, CANYON satellites produced a massive volume of intercepted material—covering North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the Middle East. The volume was so great that the United States arranged with Canada and Britain to have their SIGINT services provide analysts in exchange for access to the CANYON product. Unfortunately, one of the British personnel assigned to translate CANYON’s Soviet intercepts was Geoffrey Prime—who provided the Soviet Union with details of the program.

By 1972, Duckett’s leadership had helped solidify the position of the Directorate of Science and Technology, which had become a worldwide enterprise—with CORONA, HEXAGON/KH-9, and RHYOLITE spacecraft orbiting the earth, U-2s patrolling the skies, and ELINT stations in Iran and Norway intercepting Soviet missile telemetry. In Washington, the Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center and OSI were analyzing foreign nuclear and missile programs. ORD, meanwhile, was looking toward the future.

The directorate had also exhibited unusual organizational stability. The six offices Duckett had inherited—Computer Services, Special Projects, Special Activities, Research and Development, ELINT, and Scientific Intelligence—along with FMSAC, were still on the directorate’s organizational chart. Nor had there been any additions. That would change, with the reorganization of the responsibilities of FMSAC and OSI, the renaming and expansion of the mandate of Special Projects, and the acquisition of units that had been part of the intelligence and operations directorates.

Meanwhile, the CIA role in the U-2 effort it had forged would end in 1974. The directorate would also enter into new areas—some of which, such as covert communications, would become permanent missions. Others such as parapsychology would, fortunately, not survive much longer than Duckett’s tenure.

Three organizational changes occurred within the science and technology directorate in 1973. In September, responsibility for the analysis of the characteristics and capabilities of defensive missile and other weapons systems was transferred from OSI to FMSAC, which then became the Office of Weapons Intelligence (OWI).
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Because the analysis of weapons systems had significant common elements—such as the dependence on telemetry and data processing techniques—all weapons research was consolidated in a single office. OSI remained responsible for producing finished intelligence on foreign nuclear capabilities, biological and chemical warfare, advanced technologies, and the physical and life sciences.
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The transfer of the National Photographic Interpretation Center from the intelligence directorate to DS&T had been in the works for several years. By 1973, NPIC was no longer operating over a car dealership on K Street. In 1962, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and members of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board visited and were shocked by the conditions at 5th and K and advised the President that NPIC needed a new building.
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Kennedy promptly told DCI John McCone “to get them out of that structure” and wanted to know how soon a move could be accomplished. McCone responded that the Naval Gun Factory appeared to be a reasonable choice but that it would require a year to refurbish it. Kennedy’s reply was “All right, you do it.”
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On January 1, 1963, NPIC moved into its new home—Building 213 in the Washington Navy Yard, often referred to as the “Lundahl Hilton.” It was, according to McCone, a “rags-to-riches” situation. The 200,000 square feet of floor space meant that hundreds of more workers could be added. The building had large elevators, air conditioning, and good security. Most of all, it was the national center that Lundahl had envisioned almost ten years earlier. Most people in the building worked for the CIA—the people who typed the letters, drove courier trucks, ran the computers and library searches, and produced the graphics.
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But the photointer-preters came from the CIA, DIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, and other organizations. An Air Force interpreter who studied photos of Soviet silos might ride the elevator with a CIA interpreter who pored over photos of Chinese nuclear facilities and a Navy representative whose safe was filled with the latest photography of Soviet submarines.

Of course, the environment at the Washington Navy Yard, itself located in a rundown area of Washington, was far from luxurious. And working in a building whose windows, for security reasons, were bricked up certainly could be claustrophobic. But at least NPIC personnel were located in a larger facility with some amenities.

Even before the first KH-9 mission, NPIC officials, including director Arthur Lundahl and senior manager Dino Brugioni, realized that up
graded equipment would be needed to exploit the imagery fully. Using lasers rather than crosshairs for measurement would increase precision. Lundahl helped sell Richard Helms on the idea by arguing that better equipment would enable photointerpreters to extract more data from KH-9 images and thus reduce the chances of successful Soviet deception, a particular fear of Helms.
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Also required was other new equipment that would make the photointerpreters’ work easier and more productive, such as new light tables, microstereoscopes, and adjustable chairs. The new light tables would employ cold light to eliminate the unpleasant effects of hot lights, such as dry skin. Adjustable chairs would allow both short and tall interpreters to work in comfort.
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But the funding required was difficult to obtain while NPIC was in the intelligence directorate, where spending large amounts of money on equipment was not a common practice. Further, according to Brugioni, contractors were not interested in working with NPIC because it had relatively little money to spend. A million-dollar contract was not worth the trouble, and the intelligence directorate had no leverage with such contractors. However, the science and technology directorate did hundreds of millions of dollars of business with such contractors, giving it considerable influence. Accepting work from NPIC, even if it was for relatively little money, would be a smart business move if it was done for a valued customer. Helms was sufficiently convinced to authorize NPIC’s transfer to the DS&T, a move not without opposition.
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On February 2, 1973, Richard Helms’s tenure as DCI ended, a consequence of his refusal to permit President Nixon to use the agency to help cover up the Watergate break-in. Helms was shipped off to Iran as the new ambassador, and James R. Schlesinger, the former Bureau of the Budget official who almost terminated the HEXAGON program, became the nation’s new intelligence chief. Serving at that time as the agency’s executive director, its number-three official, was William Colby, a veteran of the OSS and the CIA’s Plans directorate. Colby quickly convinced Schlesinger that the executive director position was of little value, and that Colby would be more useful as the head of Plans.
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In his memoirs, Colby recalled that as the new head of Plans, he changed its designation to Operations and, on Schlesinger’s orders, transferred the Technical Services Division—which Helms had insisted remain in the Plans directorate when he headed it—to the DS&T. The change was, he wrote, “a start in breaking down the walls of compart
mentation between the Operations Directorate and the Agency’s other directorates.” In return, Schlesinger agreed to shift to Operations the unit of the intelligence directorate that operated overtly within the United States to gather information from U.S. citizens with knowledge of foreign developments or personalities.
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As a result of the transfer, TSD became OTS—Office of Technical Service.

Colby’s boss had more in mind for TSD than a change in name and a transfer from one part of the agency to another. One day in April 1973, Schlesinger summoned John McMahon to appear at his office at nine o’clock the next morning. At the time, McMahon was in his second year as director of the ELINT office, after having served as deputy director of both the Office of Special Projects (1965–1970) and the Office of ELINT (1970–1971). Having no idea why Schlesinger wanted to see him, McMahon called Duckett, who joined him in the director’s seventh-floor office the next morning.
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Schlesinger told a surprised McMahon that he wanted him to assume command of OTS, replacing Sidney Gottlieb. The CIA veteran noted that his last real contact with the office and its activities was in the 1950s. Schlesinger’s response—“close enough”—settled the issue. With the issue of “whether” settled, the only question left was “when?” Duckett suggested the first of the month, but Schlesinger looked at his watch and said, “How about ten o’clock?” McMahon never returned to his office at OEL.
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McMahon’s immediate transfer reflected the DCI’s belief that it was necessary to clean house at OTS and do so without delay. According to McMahon, the key issue was that the drug research OTS was conducting with the Army had “got out of hand.”
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Schlesinger was also probably aware that in July 1971, TSD had provided former CIA officer and then White House employee Howard Hunt with an assortment of its products—a wig, a speech-altering device that would give him a lisp, a gait-altering device that would make him limp, a pair of thick glasses that provided clear vision, and false identification papers. Hunt’s projects included trying to dig up derogatory information on the Kennedys, in particular potential Democratic presidential nominee Edward Kennedy, as well as trying to obtain information that could be used to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked a copy of the Defense Department’s topsecret
Pentagon Papers
study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam to the
New
York Times
.
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In May, Schlesinger issued a directive requiring all elements of the agency to report any activities that were conducted outside the agency’s charter.

Aside from cleaning house, McMahon had two other missions. One was to build up office morale, which had been damaged as a result of the negative publicity the CIA had received as fallout from Watergate and other matters. The other was to push improved technologies through the R&D phase and into operations.
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OTS, McMahon later recalled, “made any kind of James Bond device you could think of.”
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Those devices, in addition to the kind provided to Howard Hunt, included personal weapons such as the “cigarette pistol” (a .22-caliber weapon disguised as a European king-sized cigarette); a “pen” that could fire a .38-caliber tear gas cartridge; and a specially modified version of the Walter PPK—James Bond’s gun. Among the photographic and agent communications equipment developed and produced by OTS were cameras disguised as cigarette lighters and wristwatches and a complete radio station in an attaché case.
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Audio surveillance gadgets included briefcases and attaché cases equipped with recording equipment; clandestine listening devices disguised as batteries, appliance plugs, and other innocuous items; and hot-miked telephones—telephones wired to permit the mouthpiece to be activated even with the handset in the hung-up position. To help with surreptitious entry were such OTS products as assorted lock-picking devices, a kit to make key impressions, and an electronic stethoscope to aid in safecracking. There were also means for destroying equipment or cryptographic material (a combustible notebook), for producing explosions (explosive flour), or for incapacitating an adversary’s automobile (the gas tank pill, battery destroyer, or tire spike).
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OTS also produced a variety of means to open envelopes, including a flaps and seals kit, and a flaps and seals hot plate, which provided a portable heat source to aid in steaming open envelopes. In addition, there was the dead-drop device—an aluminum spike that could be unscrewed to insert microfilm or other material, rescrewed, and then driven into the ground—as well as a hollow coin that could be opened only by applying pressure to a specific point on one side of the coin.
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Schlesinger’s brief tenure in early 1973 as director was also marked by the April transformation of the Office of Special Projects into the Office of Development and Engineering (OD&E). The change in title reflected a change in mandate. Whereas OSP’s sole responsibility had been the development of satellite systems, OD&E was to provide engineering and
system development support for the entire agency, with the Office of Research and Development focusing on “exploratory development.”
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Along with the new name came a new director for the office. Leslie Dirks, who had become OSP’s deputy director in September 1970 when John McMahon was assigned to head the ELINT office, became the first head of the office.
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Despite its more extensive responsibilities, OD&E’s primary business remained the same—development of satellite reconnaissance systems.

By the time Dirks assumed office, both the HEXAGON/KH-9 and RHYOLITE programs were well established. All three HEXAGON missions in 1972 had been successful, with the last staying in orbit for ninety days. The first of those missions was part of stepped-up U.S. reconnaissance activities designed to provide an updated survey of Soviet strategic forces in preparation for final negotiations on the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. On April 23, the first 1973 mission was in its forty-fifth day.
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The first RHYOLITE continued to monitor telemetry from Soviet ICBM and SLBM tests. In June 1969, testing of a new SLBM, the SS-N-X-8, began and continued for several years. In October 1970, SS-9 Mod-4 tests resumed after a six-month hiatus, and by November 5, there had been four more. An October 1972 national intelligence estimate noted that the Soviets were continuing to test the Mod-3 version of the SS-11, which then constituted 60 percent of the Soviet ICBM force. The Soviets also began testing the Mod-2 version of the SS-N-6 Sawfly in 1972.
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The second RHYOLITE was launched March 6, 1973, and once its checkout was complete, a two-satellite constellation was established. The second RHYOLITE apparently was placed south of the Horn of Africa to receive telemetry from liquid-fueled ICBMs launched from Tyuratam toward the Kamchatka Peninsula impact zone.
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Both were kept busy by Soviet ballistic missile tests for years to come.