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DE?ARTMENT OF TI~E AIR FORCE 

WASHINGTON 

MEMORANDul\1 FOR: Director of Reconnaissance Programs, CIA 

SUBJECT: Relationship of the Eastman Ko,dak Company 

to the National Reconnaissance Program 

The Eastman Kodak Company has been associated 

with the United States exotic photographic reconnaissance 

programs since the beginning of the U-2 program in 1954. 

That company has been responsible for the main developments 

in film and for the processing throughout the programs of 

.the last ten years. Currently it is, among other things, 

providing many of the photographic inputs for the GAMBIT, 

G-3, and Manned Orbiting Laboratory. I believe it would 

be beneficial to the Director and to you if you could spend 

a half day in the near future looking at some of the hardware at Eastman and meeting their key peopl~. This would 

be usefully related to the Director's recent.visit to the 

West Coast and highly relevant to his role as a member of 

the Executive Committee of the NRP. It would also be of 

value to you as the Director's pripcipal aid in NRP matters 

Furthermore, I believe that such a visit would contribute 

to easing the strained relations which exist between that 

company and CIA, at least strained from the point of view 

of EK. Certainly in the long run good relations are desirable quite apart from any future contractual relationship 

which I am not in a position to predict. At your request 

I will discuss below some of the possible reasons for these 

strained relations. 

May I suggest that it might also be desirable on 

the occasion of such a trip to stop briefly at Westover, 

Massachusetts, to visit an NR? facility, the Special Projec 

··· --.---Facility; which ·paTticipates·in the-±e1Ji~oafrc-fioii Qf .. photo--.:.:·-· 

graphic materials .collected through our exotic reconnaissanc 

prog:..~ams. Such a trip ;:night involve departure here at abouBYE-52142-66 ~:.:: 

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8:45 a.m., arriving at Westover about 10 a.m. After an 

hour or so touring the facility, you could take off for 

Rochester, arriving around noon, approximately in time for 

lunch after which the Director could spend two hours or so 

touring as suited his des e. My thought is th&t this 

brief g would be principally one of observation rather 

than 1 tening to canned briefings. ! wou:d rec that 

General Stewart of this off e serve as an escort for the 

Director and yourself. 

Comments on the CIA Relations with EK 

It seems to me that among the important interfaces 

that bear upon the· success of the NRP is the one between 

Government and major contractors. In daily affairs this 

boils down essentially to the rela onship between program 

directors and contractors with an important, less frequent 

participation by the Director, NRO and with occasional contacts between the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the 

Director, CIA with the senior people in these firms. Whereai 

the prof it motivation is and under our system should be 

always present in the motivations of our con actors, I 

believe that alone is not enough to insure the achievement 

of our programs, most of which are htghly complicated. 

From time to time I believe it is important for men such 

as Admiral Raborn and Mr. Vance to-be able to convey to 

leaders in these firms the importance to national security 

of the efforts underway. A failure to understand is 

importance, as may have occurred the Glli~BIT situation 

recently, accounts for a lack of management energy cons tently applied to insure success. In the presence of a 

failure one cannot readily shift contractors-- e task is 

too big and the delay is unacceptable. thermore, on 

many occasions the problems require breakthroughs in the 

state of the art and thus a hi degree of imaginatio~. 

Since the problems are frequently wide ranging and not necessarily predictable the time of e occu~rence, e 

existence of a healthy rapport between the Government entia!"id ma:j or -eon 

Perhaps in case of Eastman Kodak and .Age!lc: 

there will be, thin the next seve:."." :le~rs, 

dealings--! now speak of is relatio~ship as 

that of tl~e Dir:e.ct;or 2~~3 a me~1oer of the E2:Com of 

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If this is so, then there is no particular need, admittedly, 

to bother about the strained relations which EK feels 

vis-~-vis the Agency. 

As in most interfaces and particularly those 

existing over a long period of time, in this case for ten 

years, it is very difficult for anyone, and particularly a 

:rela:'::ive newcomer, to analyze all of the past. The thoughts 

which I have mentioned below I suspect can be refuted bi 

officials in the Agency 2.nd I suspect that they have some 

justifiable unpleasantries vis-a-vis the company which they 

cou::_d relate. I have not made c. complete study of this prob 

lem and do not believe that it is necessary to do so. I 

believe rather that it is more 7rof itable to decide whether 

one cares about the relationshi7~ and if he does, then to 

give attention to speciiic ways that improvement can be 

brought about by usiag my open proposal in this paper 

as a specific starti~g ?Oint. 

A layman's ex~lanation of factors which over the 

years have cotltributed to the present strained relations 

are 2.s f ollmvs: 

a. The understandable preoccupation of 

Mr. Bissell wi the TI-2 aircraft as opposed to 

~~lm and film processing. The same can, I thin~, 

be said of the early days of the CORONA. Occasional high :evel attention to the company during 

this period would h&ve been helpful. 

b. In the last several years the Agency's 

unfavo::::-:::.bl· attitude tov;ard the GAVIBIT program, 

the camerc... for whicli. is an EK product, probably 

is relevant. Once the decision was made by the 

NRO to have a GAM:BIT, obvio~_1sly EK ha.d nothir.g 

to do with the internecine s ife between the 

NRO 

the 

bii-t 

and the Agency. The decision to have a G-3, 

camera f 01~ icl1. j~s being built by is 

an extension of thii-~oirit. - -~··-- --- -- . 

c. There seeres to have been a series of 

unfortunate c cumstances surrounding the New 

Search System. I suspect the affects of certain 

personal:,_ t:Les instance a~ 0 very 

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d. In those cases where the coiupany has 

had relations with the Agency, there seem to 

have been difficulties in getting decisions. 

This situation, if true, may have been related 

to the Agency's problems with the NRO and the 

lack of clear lines oi working arrangeme~ts. 

e. In some cases friction has perhaps 

arisen due to the lack of understanding by components in the Agency of certain basic principles 

which EK feels are critical to their own company 

in relation to the Government. It could well be 

that the converse of this is true, also. Mutual 

understanding in such circumstances is necess~ry. 

I gather that some cases engineering proposals 

requested by the Agency were not acknowledged. 

In my recent visit to EK mention was made of the 

Agency's desire to hire for a year an EK employee 

to work on a particl.'.12.r problem. This was considered inappropria,ce beca:1se i,: vras construed 

that this individual woule be able, by virtue of 

his knowledge i~ e c , to collect ideas 

relevant ·to the task for which he also would be 

hired. Thus felt that the proper method here 

was to discuss the problem with the compa~y rather 

than putting it on an individual basis. I suspect 

that the intention which Eastman ascribed to this 

move was erroneous but it illustrates perhaps the 

way in which, lacking the proper rapport, such 

misconstruction is possible. 

if you 

you on 

lems. 

raised 

I suggest that none of this background be discusse 

and the Director go to Eastman. Nor do I suggest tha 

t~1.a t occc..s io11 1'Jecc:ne 'rol ... vecl in an:l pa.rt icl 1la:r .. p:r c1JObv ious ly, you would want to address any questions 

by them. You r.;,2~y wish, 2.f ter your visit and in the 

ligl!t of tl1.ose con"t:a.c-'cs, ::~~~ so::n.e f:J.t",.J.1~e ::ime ·to enter to 

d:ts.cussi-0ns ;;ri th Ivir-. 1r\ .. 2..-gge~s~3.-r-:..;!-Se-1-- o~- -M-r-. --S-:~-orts- .. 

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