The Secret Genesis of Area 51 Read online

  The CIA and Bissell were thinking of also having non-Americans fly reconnaissance missions. Bissell made the initial policy decision to proceed based on its conforming to this concept. This way, the CIA avoided describing the project as a military operation conducted by any offensive arm of a regular military establishment.

  The CIA saw the project as a power projection operation with a U.S.-based facility operating as the nucleus of a global aerial spy operation. The agency was doing what the U.S. Air Force refused to do: it was building its fleet of reconnaissance planes to overfly the USSR.

  Bissell saw the CIA power projection as having the capacity to rapidly and effectively deploy and sustain its aerial reconnaissance. Having power projection meant its U.S. base had to remotely operate from multiple dispersed locations outside the limited bounds of its territory.

  Bissell wanted the CIA capable of responding on a global scale. At this stage, this meant deploying anywhere in the world that the Soviet Union or others posed a threat to the United States and its allies. Flying globally meant his having to plan for the logistical difficulties inherent in projecting its U-2 detachments. The U-2 project would have to proceed with even more secrecy than did the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. Security was such that for several months, Bissell, a tall man, usually wearing tennis shoes, gray-colored trousers and a checkered sports jacket, would show up at the Lockheed Skunk Works known only as “Mr. B.” Few ever knew of the CIA involvement in an ultra-secret project ostensibly for weather reconnaissance by the First Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Provisional.

  The vital necessity for security brought with it two implications for the organization. First, it had to limit knowledge of the project to the narrowest possible circle of those with a need to know. This category included only those individuals working on some aspect of AQUATONE and a few top policymakers. Second, it organized the project to give it the best possible cover.

  The U.S. Air Force normally operated through a chain of command. It also conducted a policy of routinely rotating its personnel assignments. For this CIA project, the air force had to operate outside its chain of command protocols. It had to focus its responsibility for maintaining security and ensuring close control using special channels rather than the usual chain of command. Both air force SOPs (standard operating procedures) were reasons for choosing the CIA over the air force to manage the U-2 program. The CIA did not follow either of these policies.

  Bissell knew that doing this the CIA way would alienate “Old Iron Pants,” General LeMay. Nonetheless, he felt the project’s character required the air force participants to station its leadership in Washington. Another thing was the air force had to give its representative the authority to deal with the CIA and with other components regarding the project’s business. This requirement meant there could not be the typical air force chain of command.

  Bissell also wanted a direct channel from the Washington project headquarters to overseas units. The U.S. Air Force balked at the idea of the CIA playing down any connection to the air force’s operational command. Bissell insisted on avoiding any identification of the project with the military. He took these requirements up with the air force chief of staff, Nathan Twining.

  No substantial agreement came from the meeting. A month later, Dick Bissell fired his second shot. He gave to Generals Everest and Putt for discussion purposes a memorandum addressed to the deputy chief of staff for operations. The opening paragraph began:

  It was understood the view of the Air Staff that Air Force support for Project AQUATONE in its operational phase should be the responsibility of the Strategic Air Command. Assistance and support during research, development, and procurement will, however, continue as the liability of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Development.

  Accepting this premise, Dick Bissell continued to explain the original concept of the project being a clandestine intelligence-gathering operation. Using the CIA to run the program would minimize the risk of detection and offer plausible attribution to the U.S. government. He indicated the CIA’s assumptions regarding the character of project operations.

  The CIA would determine the number of aircraft, the equipment and operating facilities. As to specific functions performed by the CIA, it would recruit and administer the civilian pilots. The CIA would furnish maintenance personnel for primary mission aircraft and equipment. It would maintain project security control, project communications and the collection and coordination of requirements and intelligence.

  Bissell channeled air force support by suggesting the CIA’s viewpoint, which exposed differences of opinion existing between Generals Everest and Putt. Neither accepted the CIA’s proposals. Nor did either of them present or put forth an agreed counterproposal of their own.

  On June 8, 1955, Colonel George McCafforty informed Bissell concerning Generals Twining, White and Everest’s engaging in a controversy over the U.S. Air Force’s role in the project. They had instructed the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, to take no further action on the project’s personnel requirements pending a settlement of the issue.

  Dick Bissell sought the assistance of Trevor Gardner, who had a letter signed by the secretary of the U.S. Air Force to General Twining urging the chief of staff and his deputies to agree with the CIA as much as possible.

  Trevor Gardner had during World War II worked on the Manhattan Project, and later he headed the General Tire and Rubber Company before starting his research and development firm, the Hycon Company, which built aerial cameras. Gardner served as the secretary of the air force’s special assistant for Research and Development and then as the assistant secretary for Research and Development during Eisenhower’s first term of office. Gardner’s concern about the danger of a surprise attack helped lead to the establishment of the Technological Capabilities Panel. Gardner also urged the building of Lockheed’s CL-282 aircraft.

  The secretary contemplated a joint task force of the CIA and the U.S. Air Force to carry out the operational phase of Project OILSTONE (the U.S. Air Force cryptonym for AOUATONE). Colonel Ritland would head the U.S. Air Force portion and serve as deputy to the senior project officer designated by the director of Central Intelligence for all operational activities.

  Bissell sought to hasten an air force decision by drafting a memorandum outlining specific organizational arrangements based on the secretary’s formula. He sent copies to Gardner and Generals Everest and Putt as preparation for another meeting in the first week of July. However, the agreement never happened.

  Within the agency, the charter for Project AQUATONE had gone through twelve drafts during the first month of planning before submission to the director and approval by him on January 10, 1955. In his refining process, Dick Bissell’s comprehensive six-page document that was expected to remain valid for three months remained unaltered for the seven years of its duration.

  CHAPTER 4

  SCOUTING FOR AREA 51

  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, inaugurated four months earlier, sought ideas from the civilian sector for developing and flying high-altitude aircraft for surveillance. He assigned MIT president James R. Killian Jr. to meet with other Scientific Advisory Committee members in the Boston area. The president based his approval on an authorization to the director of Central Intelligence to obligate in the fiscal year 1955 an amount not to exceed $35 million from the reserve for aircraft procurement. The project outline estimated the cost of the airframes, photographic and electronic equipment and some field maintenance equipment at $31.5 million with a margin of error of $2 million, within the $35 million limit.

  These estimates assumed the U.S. Air Force was furnishing technical assistance and supervision of all government-furnished equipment (GFE). The assessment included forty jet engines and transportation of materiel and personnel to a yet unspecified testing site. The estimate placed pilot recruitment and training costs at $600,000. If the U.S. Air Force underwrote the flight training, it reduced to $100,000 the charge to the CIA
for the initial period.

  The estimates in the project outline contained no allowance for the testing program, since it fell within the fiscal year 1956, or any allowances for acquisition or preparation of bases, operational costs or costs to process the photographic and electronic products obtained from overflights.

  Using “unvouchered” funds—virtually free from any external oversight or accounting—the CIA wrote checks to finance secret programs, such as the U-2. The process went back to Public Law 110, Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, approved by the Eighty-First Congress, which designated the director of Central Intelligence as the only government employee allowed to dispense federal money without the use of vouchers.

  Regional layout of Area 51 in Nevada. From David Darlington’s Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles.

  Using non-vouchered funds made it possible to eliminate competitive bidding and thereby limited the number of parties knowing of a given project. The use of non-vouchered funds sped up the federal procurement cycle. It enabled a general contractor such as Lockheed to purchase much, if not all, of the needed supplies for a project without resorting at each step to the mandatory procedures involving public, competitive bidding,

  Allen Dulles, with the approval of President Eisenhower, financed the startup of constructing the U-2 using unvouchered funds from the agency’s Contingency Reserve Fund. The “U” referred to the deliberately vague designation “utility” instead of “R” for “reconnaissance,” and the U-1 and U-3 aircraft already existed.

  Bissell, as head of the project, used this covert funding subject to the guidance of the director and deputy director with authorization to obligate funds in amounts up to $100,000. Any items in excess required the director’s approval. Bissell was also required to maintain the closest possible security control over all phases of AQUATONE, a requirement that turned into one of the most difficult and yet unbelievably successful tasks for several years until it grew into a bureaucratic committee with representation from every intelligence agency of the government.

  Lockheed’s original proposal to the U.S. Air Force in May 1954 amounted to $28 million for twenty U-2s equipped with GE J73 engines. During negotiations with CIA general counsel Lawrence R. Houston, Lockheed changed its proposal to $26 million for twenty airframes plus a two-seat trainer model and shared with the U.S. Air Force furnishing the engines.

  On December 22, 1954, the CIA signed a letter contract with Lockheed using the code name Project OARFISH. The CIA proposal gave Lockheed “performance specifications” rather than the more rigid and demanding standard air force “technical specifications.”

  To finance the U-2 program, President Eisenhower authorized DCI Dulles to use $35 million from the CIA’s Contingency Reserve Fund. Houston insisted on the CIA budgeting $22.5 million for the airframes because it needed the balance of the available $35 million for cameras and life-support gear. The two sides agreed on a fixed-price contract with a provision for a review three-fourths of the way through to determine if the costs exceeded the $22.5 million.

  With the agency about to sign a contract with Lockheed for $22.5 million to build twenty U-2 aircraft, the company needed a cash infusion to keep the work going. On February 21, 1955, Bissell wrote a check on an agency account for $1.25 million and mailed it to the home of Kelly Johnson.

  Johnson’s willingness to begin work on the aircraft without a contract illustrated the importance of the use of non-vouchered funds for covert procurement. It paved the way for the CIA to use secret funding for its sensitive projects at Area 51, simplifying both procurement and security procedures. It made the funds non-attributable to the federal government with no public accountability for their use.

  In July 1955, the U.S. Air Force was still withholding decisions needed urgently to move the project forward. The director of Central Intelligence, using Bissell’s briefing papers, attended a conference at Air Defense Command Headquarters in Colorado, with the U-2 project the number one agenda item. Bissell had outlined proposals advanced to date and recommended the task force responsible for the project have a clear responsibility for both operational planning and the actual conduct of operations. He specifically called for having a clear and direct line of command from headquarters to the field detachments. Within that premise, Bissell saw three feasible alternatives: 1) a CIA-controlled task force drawing on air force personnel and support; 2) the air force being in control and drawing on the CIA for support or control; and 3) drawing on both agencies for support.

  Though the USAF and the navy would eventually fly the U-2, the CIA had majority control over the project, code named Project Dragon Lady. Despite SAC chief LeMay’s early dismissal of the CL-282, the USAF in 1955 sought to take over the project and put it under SAC until Eisenhower repeated his opposition to military personnel flying the aircraft. Nonetheless, the USAF substantially participated in the project; Bissell described it as a “49 percent” partner. The USAF agreed to select and train pilots and plot missions, while the CIA would handle cameras and project security, process film and arrange foreign bases.

  It took a face-to-face meeting of DCI Dulles and the top air force official to bring results with the approval of a joint agreement titled “Organization and Delineation of Responsibilities—Project OILSTONE.” It was signed by General Twining for the U.S. Air Force and Dulles for the CIA in August 1955. The agreement gave the responsibility for the general direction and joint control of the project to the DCI and the chief of staff of the USAF. Subject to guidance from higher authority, the CIA appointed a project director and the U.S. Air Force appointed a deputy project manager responsible for the conduct of the project through all its phases.

  Per the agreement, the U.S. Air Force Project Group, headed by Colonel Russell A. Berg, acted in the name of the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and SAC. The group performed a supporting role with no control in the training and operational phases. Commenting on how this agreement worked in practice, Bissell some years later said:

  In the negotiations with the US Air Force, a concept emerged which worked well for five years. The U-2 project was quite explicitly set up as a joint Air Force/the CIA project. Throughout the U-2 phase, the US Air Force was a supporting element. It held precisely 49% of the common stock. Quite aside from interdepartmental clearance obligations of the normal sort, I had to clear every major policy decision with two bosses. They did it, and it did work, and it worked smoothly and well. Whether it could ever work again was something I won’t comment on because I don’t know.

  Eventually, President Eisenhower settled the dispute. “I want this whole thing a civilian operation,” the president wrote. “If uniformed personnel of the armed services of the United States flew over Russia, it was an act of war—and I don’t want any part of it.” With the issue of control over the program settled, the two agencies soon worked out the remaining details.

  The OILSTONE pact gave the U.S. Air Force responsibility for pilot selection and training, weather information, mission plotting and operational support. The CIA retained responsibility for cameras, security, contracting film processing and arrangements for foreign bases. Also, the CIA kept a voice in the selection of pilots. All aeronautical aspects of the project, including the construction and testing of the aircraft, remained the exclusive province of Lockheed.

  Because of this agreement, the CIA remained in control of the program; Richard Bissell later remarked how the U.S. Air Force became a supporting element and to a major degree wanted a role more than supplying half the government personnel. He said the U.S. Air Force held 49 percent of the common stock.

  Lockheed produced the twenty aircraft at a total of $18,977,597 (including $1.9 million in profit), or less than $1 million per plane. It was all on time and under budget, a miracle in today’s defense contracting world.

  DESIGNING A NEW TYPE OF PLANE

  Kelly Johnson pulled together a team of engineers at Lockheed’s Advanced Development facility in Burbank, California, known as the
Skunk Works, taking them away from Lockheed projects without being able to explain why to their former supervisors. The engineers immediately began to work sixty-five hours a week on the project under a letter contract with Lockheed.

  Rather than going with Lockheed’s original proposal to the air force in May 1954 that called for twenty U-2s (called “angels” because they flew so high), equipped with GE J73 engines, Lockheed negotiated for twenty airframes plus a two-seat trainer model. The formal contract, No. SP-19 13, was signed on March 2, 1955, and called for the delivery of the first U-2 in July 1955 and the last in November 1956.

  Kelly Johnson’s approach to prototype development placed his engineers not more than fifty feet from the aircraft assembly line to make them immediately aware of any difficulties in construction.

  Although the final product resembled a typical jet aircraft, its construction was unlike any other U.S. military aircraft. The new, 2.5g aircraft was technologically challenging from a design standpoint, with drag and weight the more significant design challenges. The designers kept the weight to four pounds per square foot by going with a bicycle landing gear arrangement with a single strut. Mounted mid-span on each wing to provide balance were the jettisonable pogos, the wheeled struts that supported the fueled wings before takeoff. The tail assembly attached to the main body with just three tension bolts, a sailplane design to save weight. The U-2’s two separate wing panels attached to the fuselage sides with tension bolts. The fragile wings had a “gust control” mechanism that set the ailerons and horizontal stabilizers into a position that kept the aircraft in a slightly nose-up attitude, thereby avoiding sudden stresses caused by wind gusts (again, just as in sailplanes).