The Secret Genesis of Area 51 Read online

  The U-2 was not only detected by radar as it penetrated denied territory but was also tracked quite accurately in its earliest flights over satellite and Soviet areas. This state of affairs could only lead to an intensification of Soviet defensive efforts and the consequent shortening of the U-2’s usefulness as a reconnaissance aircraft.

  The Soviet Union was not the only threat to the CIA’s U-2 reconnaissance. From the start, General LeMay had stated his intent to take the U-2s away from the CIA once the agency got them flying.

  The CIA accomplished what it was supposed to do: it disputed the existence of the feared bomber gap and the missile gap.

  Two years after the U-2s left, the CIA returned, bringing new life to Area 51 following a project code named GUSTO that confirmed the need to replace the U-2. In September 1959, at Area 51, the CIA had returned to begin base construction to support Project OXCART, the Mach 3+, high-flying stealth Lockheed A-12 Archangel to replace the U-2 Angel and resume overflights of the Soviet Union.

  In early 1960, following the Cuban revolution, which propelled Fidel Castro to power on January 1, 1959, Castro sought and failed to gain a meeting with U.S. president Eisenhower to get relief from a U.S. economic embargo. Consequently, Cuba turned to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev for economic and political aid.

  The Soviet Union saw where supporting Cuba gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to spread its threat of communism to within ninety miles of the United States. The CIA responded to this new intelligence-gathering need by modifying the six agency U-2Fs at Edwards AFB, California, to allow in-flight refueling for Detachment G, which was having to make its many overflights of Cuba from Laughlin AFB, Texas.

  In April 1961, General LeMay’s Strategic Air Command U-2s were operating over Cuba during the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs military invasion of Cuba undertaken by Bissell’s CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506. On March 17, 1960, the CIA put forward its plan for the overthrow of Castro’s administration to the U.S. National Security Council, where President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his support. On April 4, 1961, President Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs plan.

  The invasion had started when President Kennedy received a telegram from Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, stating the Russians would not allow the United States to enter Cuba, and implied swift nuclear retribution to the United States heartland if their warnings went unheeded. After a U.S. bombing run against the Cuban air force, a group of 1,500 armed exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast. As the invasion faltered, President John F. Kennedy called off the promised airstrikes, leaving the CIA and the Cuban exiles at the fate of Castro, who executed the CIA-supported exiles, whom he denounced as invaders. Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic.

  President Kennedy was deeply dispirited and angered and reportedly said he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Later in the month, Russia and East Germany began construction on the Berlin Wall to separate Germany physically.

  Sure enough, the end was in sight for the CIA U-2 reconnaissance when President Kennedy ordered the CIA to allow the U.S. Air Force to fly the CIA’s better ECM-equipped U-2s during the Cuban crisis in 1962. Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. was the only combat casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when killed while flying CIA Article 343 U-2. NASA was also a challenge, already flying CIA aircraft in August 1974 when the CIA’s U-2 manned reconnaissance operations ended. The CIA transferred all its U-2 aircraft, equipment and logistical support parts directly to the U.S. Air Force.

  With Project OXCART, the CIA would design, build and fly 2,580 flights out of Area 51 in America’s first stealth plane, the A-12, a plane that flew up to ninety thousand feet at speeds above Mach 3, the fastest and highest-flying plane ever. The CIA’s A-12 would fly twenty-six Operation BLACK SHIELD reconnaissance missions over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and three missions over North Korea during the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo and its crew, held for over a year. The CIA lost two of its project pilots in the A-12. The six BLACK SHIELD pilots earned the CIA’s highest award, the Intelligence Star for Valor. One received his award posthumously. When the OXCART left Area 51, the CIA stayed for a new line of business: the exploitation of enemy aircraft.

  Soviet MiG-21 exploited at Area 51 by the author during Project HAVE DOUGHNUT. USAF.

  A-12 Archangel jettisoning fuel over Area 51 for landing during Project OXCART. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  At Area 51, the CIA support in obtaining and exploiting the Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed sparked the U.S. Navy to initiate its Top Gun Weapons School that reversed a 9:1 kill ratio of the navy aircrews fighting in the Vietnam War. The MiG-17 Fresco exploitation projects sparked the U.S. Air Force to initiate its Red Flag Exercises that reversed the 9:1 kill ratio of the U.S. Air Force fighting in Vietnam and every war it has fought since. These and additional exploitation projects maintained U.S. Navy and Air Force air superiority in all wars and enemy engagements since the Vietnam War.

  All the credit goes to the CIA for establishing Area 51 as a technology laboratory and business that continues today.

  GLOSSARY

  AEC: The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology.

  CAT: Civil Air Transport.

  ECCM: electronic counter-countermeasures.

  ECM: electronic countermeasures.

  NACA: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the institutionalized aeronautical research agency preceeding NASA.

  NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program.

  Nevada Test Site: Also known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site established in 1951 in Nevada for the testing of nuclear devices.

  pogo: Wheeled struts that supported the wings of the U-2 plane during taxi.

  Project AQUATONE: Initial program name for CIA-sponsored U-2 reconnaissance plane.

  Project BALD EAGLE: USAF counterpart to CIA’s AQUATONE; big-wing B-57 Canberra became RB-57D.

  Project GUSTO: A 1957 advisory committee selected by the CIA to select a successor to the U-2.

  Project OXCART: The CIA project at Groom Lake to design, build and operate the A-12 Blackbird reconnaissance plane to replace the U-2.

  RATSCAT: radar target scatter site.

  reconnaissance: An overt act of reconnaissance in the field; a search made to produce useful military information to inspect, observe or survey for enemy positions, strengths and intent, etc. No longer just military purposes in this blended technology age.

  SCR: signal corps radio #584.

  spying: Work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information about enemies.

  TO&E: table of organization and equipment.

  Watertown: Name of the Groom Lake facility in Nevada during the CIA U-2 Project AQUATONE.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bissell, Richard M., Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.

  Brown, William H. “J58/SR-71 Propulsion Integration.” Center for the Study of Intelligence 26, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 15–23.

  Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Special Activities. “Chronology, 1954–68.” Declassified, June 2003. The CIA and the U-2 Program 1954–1974 by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Weizenbach, History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 1998.

  CIA BYE 2986–65. Project Oxcart and Operation Black Shield Briefing Notes. October 20, 1965.

  Crickmore, Paul F. Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed. London: Osprey, 1996.

  Drendel, Lou. SR-71 Blackbird in Action. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1982.

  Goodall, James. SR-71 Blackbird. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publicatio
ns, 1995.

  Goodall, James, and Jay Miller. Lockheed’s SR-71 “Blackbird” Family: A-12, F-12, M-21, D-21, SR-71. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2002.

  Graham, Richard H. SR-71 Blackbird: Stories, Tales, and Legends. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2002.

  ———. SR-71 Reveals: The Inside Story. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International Publishing, 1996.

  Haines, Gerald K. “The CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90.” Center for the Study of Intelligence 41, no. 1 (1997): 67–84.

  Helms, Richard, with William Hood. A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency. New York: Random House, 2003.

  Jenkins, Dennis R. Lockheed SR-71/YF-12 Blackbirds. North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 1997.

  Johnson, Clarence L. “Development of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.” Center for the Study of Intelligence 26, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 3–14.

  ———. “Kelly,” with Maggie Smith. Kelly: More than My Share of It All. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.

  Landis, Tony R. Lockheed Blackbird Family: A-12, YF-12, D-21/M-21 and SR-71 Photo Scrapbook. North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 2010.

  McIninch, Thomas P. “The OXCART Story.” Center for the Study of Intelligence 15, no. 1 (Winter 1971): 1–25.

  Merlin, Peter. From Archangel to Senior Crown: Design and Development of the Blackbird. Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2008.

  Miller, Jay. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Leicester, UK: Midland Publishing, 1995.

  Pedlow, Gregory W., and Donald E. Welzenbach. The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954–1974. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 1992. Chapter 6 on OXCART declassified October 2004.

  Remak, Jeannette, and Joseph Ventolo Jr. The Archangel and the OXCART: The Lockheed A-12 Blackbirds and the Dawning of Mach III Reconnaissance. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing Co., 2008.

  ———. A-12 Blackbird Declassified. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing Co., 2001.

  Rich, Ben R., and Leo Janos. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.

  Richelson, Jeffrey T. The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001.

  Robarge, David, PhD. Archangel: CIA’s Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Government Printing Office, January 2012.

  Suhler, Paul A. From Rainbow to GUSTO: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird. Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2009.

  Sweetman, Bill. Lockheed Stealth. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing, 2001.

  Wheelon, Albert D. “And the Truth Shall Keep You Free: Recollections by the First Deputy Director of Science and Technology.” Center for the Study of Intelligence 39, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 73–78.

  Whittenbury, John R. “From Archangel to OXCART: Design Evolution of the Lockheed A‑12, First of the Blackbirds.” PowerPoint presentation, August 2007.

  Wings of Fame. London: Aerospace Publishing, 1997.

  REFERENCE DOCUMENTS

  “History of the OXCART Program.” Burbank, CA: Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, July 1, 1968. Declassified, August 2007.

  Johnson, Clarence L. “Archangel Log.” Undated.

  WEBSITES

  archive.org/stream/HistoryOfTheOfficeOfSpecialActivitiesFromInceptionTo1area51specialprojects.com

  blackbirds.net

  roadrunnerinternationale.com

  www.habu.org

  www.Lockheedmartin.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Thornton D. “TD” Barnes, author and entrepreneur, grew up on a ranch at Dalhart, Texas. He graduated from Mountain View High School in Oklahoma and embarked on a ten-year military career. He served as an army intelligence specialist in Korea and then continued his education while in the army, attending two and a half years of missile and radar electronics by day and college courses at night. Barnes deployed with the first combat Hawk missile battalion during the Soviet Iron Curtain threat before attending the Artillery Officer Candidate School, where an injury ended his military career.

  Barnes’s career includes serving as a field engineer at the NASA High Range in Nevada for the X-15, XB-70, lifting bodies and lunar landing vehicles; working on the NERVA project at Jackass Flats, Nevada; and serving in Special Projects at Area 51. Barnes later formed a family oil and gas exploration company, drilling and producing oil and gas and mining uranium and gold.

  Barnes currently serves as the CEO of Startel, Inc., a landowner, and is actively mining landscape rock and gold in Nevada. He serves as the president of Roadrunners Internationale, an association of Area 51 veterans, and is the executive director of the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

  Two National Geographic Channel documentaries feature Barnes: Area 51 Declassified and CIA—Secrets of Area 51. Numerous documentaries on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel and others also feature him. The Annie Jacobsen book Area 51 Declassified documents his career.

  Barnes lives in Henderson, Nevada.

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