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DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE 

WASHINGTON 

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OFF"ICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY June 21, 1969 

:MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD 

SUBJECT: Notes on the Meeting of June 20 Executive Ca.:nmittee 

The June 20, 1969 ExCom meeting was a meeting of principals 

only for the purpose of discussing, in a general way, certain 

topics which are listed below. The meeting was not held to 

reach specific decisions, but to provide for an exchange of 

views. However, certain tentative decisions were reached and 

certain general statements of views were made which should be 

borne in mind as we proceed with our planning for the full ExCom 

meeting which will be held on August 8. Reference should be 

made to the agenda for the meeting for further background on 

the items discussed here. 

1. Use of Drones for Peripheral SIGINT in Place of Manned 

Aircraft. 

As stated in the agenda notes, we are proceedi~g with 

a combined! ~LINT package for 147T high-altitude drones. 

Four prototype systems should be available within a very few 

months with the 20 drones being equipped and ready to go a few 

months thereafter. There was general agreement that we should 

proceed with these 20 drones and then take another look at the 

overall need for drones for peripheral reconnaissance. There 

are two main questions. The first deals with the requirement 

for peripheral reconnaissance. Although I believe all ExCom 

members recognized the requirement, they questioned whether or 

not we are flying too many reconnaissance missions and whether 

we could not scale down the frequency of flights and perhaps 

even eliminate certain reconnaissance missions altogether. In 

view of this we should think hard before we spend too much money 

equipping drones to replace manned aircraft. The other question 

related to whether or not the 147T drone is the optimim, assuming 

we accept the requirements for drones. Certain . i)es of reconnaissance are best conducted from a platform which can remain 

;)n station for a longer period of time, for example, 24 hours 

2rsus 5 hours for the 147T. We should investigate the desirLbility of an alternative drone program before we commit any 

further funds to the 147T beyond the 20 now being equipped. 

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2. SANDY HOOK versus TAGBOARD. 

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following the completion of the test program on TAGBOARD, there will be about 16 aircraft left which could be used 

for training missions or operational missions beginning later 

this year. There was c.::11siderable qt:cstion in ,'.-,:: minds of 

those present that we · -· afford 2. system :. ·:::h the single 

mission :::ost is so hi : was suggested t~ s missions 

which ,. ··-:pee t to fly, :::n is something l :: or 4 miss ions 

per ye2.. '<,ould be flo\,~~. :.:-o collect real dat:. that we would 

begin tc ~velop a feel for the real usefulr~ ~ this drone. 

As for SA~·Jy HOOK, on which only a few mil lie:·. . .. :_lars have 

so far been spent, it was agreed that this was an interesting 

program from the technology standp' ~· ciDd that we should go 

ahead with '~, ·· t].0 million prograr _ '. 1970 but should hold 

off on syst~ -~ere are ~~ous questions related to 

materials for -, the engine a~d radar absorption materials 

which can be & ~ by a conti:1::::.ng technology program; also, 

the usefulness c: slurry hydroge~ as aircraft fuel ippears 

interesting for iurther exploration. 

3. Manned Aircraft Reconnaissance. 

There was general agreement that the study proposed in 

our backup agenda material should be carried out. It was 

suggested that we go back to the beginning of the U-2 program 

and trace the historical development thereof and the growth 

which had led to OXCART, SR-71, etc. 

4. Termination of MOL and Initiation of HEXADOR. 

It was agreed that we should continue to develop the 

carnera and look at various alternatives for a spacecraft in 

which to fly the camera. One of these is the H:EXAGON spacecraft, 

but we should look at others. We should also investigate the 

desirability of starting a system development on January 1,-1970, 

or July 1, 1970. 

5. HEXAGON Overrun and Slip. 

A quick but rather thorough review of the HEXAGON program 

has been conducted in the last two weeks by a group of three, 

chaired by Dr. Robert Naka. Other members were Colonel Norman, 

Air Force and~--------~of the CIA. The gist of their 

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recommendations are: that we should revise the CORONA launch 

schedule to 5-5-2 instead of 6-6-0; that we should fund the 

HEXAGON as requested by the CIA; that we should conduct another 

review in about six months to see whether HEXAGON stands a good 

chance of maintaining its schedule of IOC December 1970 and 

decide at that time if additional CORONAs should be procured. 

The ExCom accepted in a tentative way these recommendations; 

however, it was decided to have a meeting with Admiral Nimitz and 

others from Perkin-Elmer at an early date to try to develop a 

feeling of confidence as to whether the program was now under 

control and whether further schedule and cost difficulties would 

arise. Also at such a meeting we would impress on Admiral Nimitz 

and his key management people the difficulties which are created 

for us by these slips and ·overruns and the need to run the program 

in a more businesslike way. I will meet with the CIA in a day or 

two to work out a fonnat for the presentation. I believe the 

presentation should include an introductory statement by the CIA 

management group,to be followed by the Perkin-Elmer briefing, 

with a wrap-up by CIA. 

6. Readout. 

We reported on the beefed up technology program already 

underway and our plans for further buildup next year. Although 

considerable discussion took place on this item, no decisions 

were reached and it was decided to wait until the end of July 

at which time we would have had a chance to review the report 

being prepared by a team under -----~ chainnanship. We can 

then discuss that report at the meeting on August 8. 

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9. Operational Control of Overflight of Denied Territory 

by Reconnaissance Aircraft. 

It was stated by some of the ExCom members that this 

question has been resolved at a recent 303 committee and need not 

be discussed at this time. 

10. Comparison of Capabilities and Costs of Various Ways of 

Conducting Crisis Reconnaissance. 

Although this item was discussed at some length, it was 

decided that since the report being pr~pared by Benington's group 

bears directly on this subject, we should defer our discussions 

until that report is available. Some of the candidates for crisis 

reconnaissance are drones and various satellite systems which 

could be launched at the time of the crisis L---..-------~---.--------- I n the past we have not been willing to develop systems other 

than drones for this particular use. 

At the close of the meeting, it was stated that many of the 

systems we had been talking about appeared to overlap each other 

to a considerable extent. It was agreed that we should prepare 

a kind of. report or analysis which shows how these systems line 

up with respect to each other and so we can see what competes with 

what in terms of mission capabilities. I will ask our NRO staff 

to prepare such a document·. It should cover the historical development of photo and SIGINT systems and project what our budget and 

program will look like if we include the various systems we are 

talking about. 

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John L. McLucas 

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