The Wizards of Langley (5 page)

At that meeting, Eisenhower confirmed the decision to assign the CIA responsibility for developing a reconnaissance satellite that could eject its film for recovery on earth. That decision had been prompted by a late October 1957 report from the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities (PBCFIA), which stressed the need for an interim photographic reconnaissance system that would be available before either SENTRY or OXCART. Bringing the CIA into the reconnaissance satellite effort had been proposed to General Bernard Schriever, head of the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Division, by Colonel Frederic Oder, head of the SENTRY program. Oder believed that CIA funding would help to accelerate the program. He was also well aware of the CIAAir Force cooperation in regard to the U-2, inasmuch as Schriever’s deputy was Osmond Ritland, Bissell’s deputy on the U-2 project.
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Not surprisingly, given the success of the U-2, Bissell was assigned to manage the new satellite program, which would soon be designated CORONA, through his Development Projects Staff. Ritland repeated his role as deputy—for the Air Force would remain a key player in the program. Bissell exercised direct control of the program through monthly meetings with contractor representatives.
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His program staff included U-2 veterans such as Eugene Kiefer, his special assistant for technical analysis, and John Parangosky, who became deputy chief of the CORONA Program Office development staff. Out on the West Coast, Charlie Murphy, a longtime Air Force designee to the CIA, served as Bissell’s Field Technical Director at the Lockheed Advanced Projects (AP) facility in Palo Alto, where tests of the cameras and other elements of the payload were conducted.
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Five contractors played key roles in the development of CORONA. Itek, a Boston-based company founded by Richard Leghorn, and Fairchild Camera and Instruments were asked to develop camera systems. General Electric and Eastman-Kodak were, respectively, awarded con
tracts for developing the recovery capsule and supplying the film. The Lockheed corporation would have a dual role—in addition to building the upper stage that would propel the CORONA satellites into orbit, it was given the responsibility for integrating the entire effort.
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To provide cover for the launches—the portion of the effort that could not be hidden from public view—the DISCOVERER program was created. Ostensibly a scientific and biomedical research effort that would give some small animals a once-in-a-lifetime joyride into space, it would explain the repeated launches and recovery of payloads from orbit.
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As a result, a significant portion of the Air Force’s role, such as the procurement of boosters and launches, could be conducted as an overt effort. To carry out those responsibilities, a small program office, originally consisting of four or five people and headed by Lt. Col. Lee Battle, was established at the Ballistic Missile Division headquarters near Los Angeles. Work on the “black” side of the project was handled down the hall.
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Early on in the project, Bissell and Ritland made several key decisions concerning the camera and satellite. Originally, the camera to be carried on the first CORONAs, proposed by Fairchild, would remained fixed and scan the earth below as the satellite spun in orbit. In late March or early April 1958, they opted for an Itek design, in which the panoramic camera would scan while the satellite itself remained stable. Fairchild would remain as the camera builder. In addition, they decided that after the Agena second-stage had separated from the Thor rocket booster and carried the payload (consisting of the camera and recovery vehicle) to orbit, it would remain attached. The Agena would ensure that the payload remained stable in orbit, as well as provide power.
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On February 28, 1959, a little over a year after the CORONA program started, test launches began from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. That first launch did not carry a camera, which was just as well, since the Agena rocket failed to reach orbit. Two more camera-less launches, in April and June, also produced failures. In the first instance, the reentry vehicle, instead of landing in the Pacific where it was to be recovered either in the air before final touchdown or from the ocean, landed in the vicinity of Spitzbergen, Norway, near a Soviet mining operation, and was never recovered—at least not by the United States.
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The fourth launch, on June 25, was the first to carry a camera, which was subsequently designated KEYHOLE-1 (KH-1). The Itek-designed
panoramic camera, manufactured by Fairchild, was capable of scanning 35 degrees in each direction from the line of flight. At the center of its swing, it would point straight down toward the earth.
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But that mission proved no more successful than the previous three. The next eight tries, seven of which involved camera-carrying satellites, also resulted in failure of one variety or another. The reentry vehicle would sink or be shot into a higher orbit, or it would fail to detach itself from the spacecraft, or its parachute would not open; other times, the rocket would be destroyed or head for the Pacific Ocean rather than outer space. Failure was constant, even if the cause was not. It was, Bissell recalled, “a most heartbreaking business.”
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Finally, on August 10, 1960, Navy frogmen recovered the reentry vehicle from DISCOVERER 13 after it had eluded the C-119 aircraft that was supposed to snatch it out of the air. There was no camera on board, but the recovery represented a major step forward for the beleaguered program—a significant enough triumph that James Plummer, Lockheed’s CORONA program manager, was thrown into a swimming pool during the resulting celebration.
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Others were not as elated. The cable from Bissell assistant Eugene Kiefer to Lee Battle read “Congratulations on a random success.” Battle was not amused.
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But just eight days later, full success arrived. A KH-1-equipped CORONA blasted off and, after some difficulty, attained a 116-by-502mile orbit, with an inclination of 80 degrees, allowing it to overfly all of the Soviet Union. As it began to pass over Soviet territory, its camera started operating as programmed. Its first photos were of the MysSchmidta air base in the Soviet Far East, about 400 miles from Nome, Alaska. On August 19, after seventeen orbits of the earth, which took it over the Soviet Union seven times, the satellite’s film-return capsule was ejected and then plucked out of the air off Hawaii as it descended toward the ocean.
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A few days after the capsule had been recovered and the film processed, Arthur Lundahl, director of the CIA’s Photographic Intelligence Center, addressed an auditorium full of his interpreters—the individuals whose skill and special training would begin the process of turning overhead images into intelligence. In the past, after film from U-2 missions was delivered to Washington, Lundahl’s photointerpreters were shown a map of
the Soviet Union with a squiggly line indicating the route of the U-2. In addition, they viewed blowup photos of particular targets.
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The CORONA briefing had a dramatic flair. After the photointerpreters were settled, Lundahl announced that it was “something new and great we’ve got here.” His deputy, Jack Gardner, opened a curtain to show a map of the Soviet Union. Instead of a single line across the map, there were seven vertical stripes emanating from the poles and moving diagonally across the Soviet Union. The interpreters knew the stripes represented the portions of the Soviet Union that had passed under the satellite’s cameras. Their immediate reaction was to cheer. After being briefed on what to look for, especially for missile sites at Plesetsk, they began work on OAK-8001, the first photointerpretation report based on satellite photography.
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They had an extensive amount of film to study. The first CORONA mission produced coverage of over 1 million square miles—greater than that produced by all of the U-2 overflights over the Soviet Union. There were 1,432 photos, including photos of the Kapustin Yar Missile Test Range, its presumed impact area, SA-2 missile sites, the Sarova Nuclear Weapons Research and Development Center, and several newly discovered airfields.
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The quality, however, was substantially lower than that achieved by the U-2. The KH-1 camera produced images with a resolution of about 40 feet—sufficient to permit identification of the missile sites, airfields, and facilities, but of little use in producing detailed technical intelligence.
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Still, the crude photographs returned by the August 18 mission, along with photos from four additional successful CORONA missions between December 1960 and June 1961, all of which employed the improved KH-2 camera with its 25-foot resolution, enabled Lundahl’s photointerpreters to shatter a significant myth—one that had played a major role in the 1960 presidential campaign.
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Several years before the campaign, by the time the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) “Main Trends in Soviet Capabilities and Policies 1957–1962” was completed in November 1957, the Soviets had already tested an ICBM, and it was feared they might have about ten prototype ICBMs for use by 1959. Then, in a December 1958 estimate, the intelligence community stated its belief that the Soviets intended to acquire a sizable ICBM force at the earliest practicable date. The NIE also pointed out the absence of sufficient evidence to judge conclusively the magnitude and pace of the Soviet ICBM program. Indirect evidence, including
production capacity and the ability to construct launch facilities, to establish logistic lines, and to train operational units, led to the conclusion that the Soviets “could achieve an operational capability with 500 ICBMs about three years after the first operational date [1959].”
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Over the next several years, that judgment was revised downward, in the absence of intelligence to sustain earlier high estimates of the pace of Soviet ICBM deployments. The 1959 NIE suggested that the Soviets might have 140 to 200 ICBMs on launchers by mid-1961, and, speculatively, 250 to 350 by mid-1962 and 350 to 450 by mid-1963. Though smaller than previous estimates, they were consistent with a Soviet missile force that could destroy the vulnerable strategic bomber bases of the Strategic Air Command, particularly since it was believed that improvements in the accuracy and reliability of Soviet ICBMs had sharply reduced the number required to launch an effective attack.
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Although such estimates were highly classified, their basic thrust reached the public through key columnists such as Joseph Alsop and prominent politicians such as Senator Stuart Symington (D.Missouri). The electorate was well aware of Soviet missile tests and even more so of the
Sputnik
and other Soviet space launches. The expectation of a substantial missile gap in the Soviets’ favor thus became part of the 1960 election, with Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy lambasting his opponent, Richard Nixon, over the issue.
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The NIE for Soviet strategic offensive forces during the period 19601965, issued the month after Kennedy’s razor-thin victory, reflected different views by various intelligence organizations, but was consistent with the expectation of a significant Soviet advantage in the near future. The Air Force took the most pessimistic view, predicting 200 ICBMs by mid-1961, some 450 by mid-1962, and 700 by mid-1963; the CIA predicted 150, 270, and 400 for the same periods. At the low end were the Air Force’s military rivals. The Army and Navy jointly predicted deployments of 50, 125, and 200.
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In June 1961, the intelligence community issued a new assessment. It argued that the Soviets might have 50 to 100 operational ICBM launchers and therefore the ability to bring all SAC operational air bases under attack. In any case, the estimate concluded that the Soviets would have 100 to 200 operational launchers within the next year and would almost certainly be able to attack then.
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By September 1961, new intelligence had a dramatic impact on the estimates. One item was a top-secret report, “The Soviet ICBM Program,”
that was based on information from an officer in the Soviet military intelligence service, Lt. Col. Oleg Penkovskiy; this document sharply discounted the near-term missile threat. In addition, electronic monitoring of Soviet missile and space test centers provided data on the types of missiles being developed. The third, and most conclusive, source was CORONA photography.
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The estimators noted that through CORONA operations since mid1960, “our coverage of suspected deployment areas in the USSR has been substantially augmented” and that the photography had “been studied in detail by photo-interpreters with knowledge of US and Soviet missile programs.” Analysis revealed that many of the suspected areas did not contain ICBM complexes as of summer 1961. Thus, the NIE, which drew a predictable Air Force dissent, estimated “that the present Soviet ICBM strength is in the range of 10–25 launchers from which missiles can be fired against the US, and that this force level will not increase markedly during the months immediately ahead.” The expected number of Soviet ICBMs by mid-1963 was 75 to 125. The Soviets had apparently chosen to deploy only a small number of heavy and cumbersome first-generation SS-6 ICBMs and to concentrate their efforts on a smaller second-generation system for deployment, probably in 1962.
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The people who had been members of the CIA’s Photographic Intelligence Center when the CORONA program yielded its first imagery were, by September 1961, employees of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). NPIC was formally established by National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID, pronounced N-Skid) No. 8 of January 18, 1961.
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NPIC was to be run by the CIA as a service of common concern for the entire intelligence community—interpreting both aerial and satellite imagery. Its establishment provides another example of how far the CIA had come in employing science and technology in the pursuit of intelligence requirements.