f

•

...";

&

•

; .

•
. . -

. • ::•• •: • --TOPSECREF

•

PREFACE 

•

The Department of Defense has a short memory. Its key people

are transient and its records "management" program inexorably devours

documents which belong to the past. The National Reconnaissance Office,

as part of the DOD, shares this problem, with one temporary difference.

The NRO is just young enough to think it remembers what has happened

and just old enough to be forgetting.

Over the past two years, we have attempted to shore up the NRO

sense of history by preparing a series of chronologies (together with their

supporting documents) on subjects which have influenced, or continue to

influence, our policy decisions. Some of these are:

Political and Informational Aspects of Satellite Reconnaissance

Space Technical Information Control

Peaceful Uses of Outer Space

Space Law

Space Vehicle Registration

Bilateral US/USSR Space Negotiationis

These chronologies have been most helpful to us and are individually

unique within the Pentagon (ASD/ISA representatives refer to us as their

archivists on these subjects).

During the Winter of 1964-85, it became clear that relationships

between the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance

Office were developing - or deteriorating - into a major policy problem

and that a chronology of events should be assembled on this subject for

intra-NRO reference. Major William Yost has prepared such a document.

We are not as confident that this chronology is as comprehensive as its

predecessors: many CIA/NRO contacts have taken place at meetings or

in telephone conversations, and the record of these events is not available to us. But we can affirm that the chronology contains everything

we can locate on the subject. Additions are welcome.

A chronology is not a history; throughout this paper there has

been disciplined effort to report events and to indicate the documents

TOP SECRET

••• •••••• ••• ••• •••• n•••••••7••••r• wit • s ••••••••• •••• .......r .-•a•

. " .
.

associated with these events. As one reads the chronology, however,

a historical perspective necessarily intrudes and one can see certain

key events and certain currents of activity which appear to furnish a

structure to what has occurred.

.'1

The history of the National Reconnaissance Office begins in June

1960, when President Eisenhower directed a special review of the

satellite reconnaissance program. This review by the National Security

Council, prompted a reorientation of the SAMOS project and its establishment under a special management structure. Further revisions to

this structure in late 1960 and early 1961 did not appear to provide the

degree of management effectiveness warranted by the national importance of the program. A very comprehensive review of the situation

culminated in a DOD/CIA agreement of 6 September 1961, which established the NRO and named the Under Secretary of the Air Force

(Dr. Charyk) and the Deputy Director (Plans), CIA (Mr. Bissell) as

Co-Directors. The (then) 5412 Group rejected the co-director proposal

on the ground that the National Reconnaissance Program was too

important to be conducted under a divided managerial responsibility.

In May 1962, a second DOD/CIA agreement was signed establishing an

NRO with a single Director (Dr. Charyk) directly responsible to the

Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence for the

management and conduct of the Program.

Reconnaissance requirements and product exploitation had already

been elevated to a national level of control. Agencies and Services were

adjusting to the concept that the United States Intelligence Board had

become the single national agency for issuing approved requirements

for reconnaissance of denied areas. The National Photographic Interpretation Center had been chartered to insure that reconnaissance products

were exploited as a national resource. A similar elevation for the remaining reconnaissance activity - operations - appeared logical and necessary.

The attainment of a national posture for the "operations" activity appeared

contingent upon the NRO assuming a role of direct management responsibility of a single national program. Dr. Charyk adopted this approach.

In accomplishing this task he considered that "all such projects

are NRO projects, not CIA or DOD projects, that the NRO should

2
•

•••. ••11, 

• •• %/I

st

literally fuse the formerly distinct and separate efforts of separate

Agencies and Services into a single national program under close and

effective management of the Director. " His adherence to this principle stimulated acceptance of the NRO concept by the U. S. Army,

Navy, Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency.

and National Photographic Interpretation Center. Eventually, the only

serious residual resistance to Dr. Charyk's interpretation of his mission

came from the CIA.

Why did an adverse reaction develop in an organization which had

co-sponsored the NRO? Several important things happened to the CIA

view of the NRO during 1962. First, two key CIA architects of the NRO

resigned from government service. Mr. Dulles departed just prior to

1962; Mr. Bissell in early 1962. Their replacements -- Mr. McCone

and Dr. Scoville -- were both wary of the concept of "a single national

program. " Second, similar changes were occurring in CIA middle

management, and the new arrivals rapidly developed a feeling of ownership toward two specific programs - CORONA and IDEALIST. This

attitude had no historical justification; actually, the DOD contribution

to both programs was overwhelming in money, people, facilities, and

sheer energy expended, but these facts either were not available or of

no interest to the new arrivals, who viewed the NRO with suspicion and

as a growing threat to CIA missions and prerogatives. The suspicion

was confirmed in their minds in October 1962 when Strategic Air Command pilots began flying U-2's over Cuba. The abrupt entry into what

had been an exclusive CIA preserve was referred to openly by CIA

middle and top management as a "betrayal. "

•• • •

Dr. Charyk recognized the growing CIA antagonism and was

understandably concerned over it. In his final report to the Secretary

of Defense he stated, "The most serious problem concerns the fundamental nature of the NRO; is it to be an operating agency, with actual

: and effective management responsibility for a single national program,

or is it to be a coordinating office responsible for liaison and coordi- **7 nation between related projects which are the management responsibility

of different Agencies and Services?" As Dr. Charyk saw it, ".... the

Director of the NRO is responsible for the actual management of all

projects of the National Reconnaissance Program and has the authority

Hide v Cootie fa TO P

3
4

T(1

to carry out this task without the necessity of reaching agreement on

each and every aspect of the management actions involved. " By

contrast, he described an evolving CIA view that the CIA would respond

to the Director, NRO, only if it agreed with his direction. By 1963,

Dr. Charyk believed an impasse had been reached and he stronglyrecommended a clarified DOD/CIA agreement to give the Director

unequivocal managerial (and fiscal) authority over the total program.

On March 13, 1963, only a few days after Dr. McMillan's appointment as Director of the NM, such an agreement was signed. It named

the Secretary of Defense as the Executive Agent for the program and r'n set up the NRO as a "separate operating agency of the Department of

Defense. " It made the Director "responsible for management of all

aspects of the Program;" he could take any "steps he may determine

necessary to the efficient management of the Program. " Mr. McCone '8

signature on this document and his subsequent statement in a letter to

the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that the agreement

was indeed "well conceived and soundly detailed" were encouraging signs

that the NRO had finally developed an operating charter which would

adequately support the successfUl accomplishment of the Program.

Unfortunately, these hopes were short-lived. As early as mid-1963,

it became apparent that the CIA and the NRO were not working in a spirit

of cooperative harmony. By 22 August 1963, Mr. McCone was expressing serious concern that the NRO was functioning as a line organization,

which in his estimation was not the intention of the basic agreement. In

early September 1963, Mr. McCone advised Mr. Bundy that while both

parties to the basic agreement had done as much as possible toward

insuring that no ambiguity or areas of possible conflict were contained

in the document, its implementation had brought forth certain areas

needing clarification. During this same period, the CIA began to intensify

its control over the payload portion of CORONA (for which, on a purely

historical basis, it had continued to furnish "black" contracting support).

Within three months, it was clear that CORONA was splitting into two

parts, and that both the security and technical progress of the project

would be jeopardized by the lack of a single, authoritative program

manager.

In December 1963, the Director, NRO attempted to realign CORONA

under a single manager - General Greer - who already had the responsir- bility for the remainder of the CORONA system as well as for all other

Handle vislipipi Control

••• • ••••••••• .;..".••••••••••••••17“.."... •

4•••

; .1..

n •

1
reconnaissance satellite programs. The CIA repeatedly agreed to

this action in principle but obstructed it in fact. By Spring 1964, the

President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board considered the problem serious enough to warrant investigation. After gathering its own

facts in the matter, the Board recommended immediate adoption of

the DNRO's proposed course of action. In June, Mr. McNamara and

Mr. McCone agreed, as part of the assignment of a single manager to

CORONA, that the Aerospace Corporation would perform the "general

systems engineering function" for the program. On 17 August,

Mr. Vance and Mr. McCone announced a similar agreement. Today,

almost a year later, not one of these unifying actions has been put into

effect. Today there is no overall system technical supervision for

CORONA. There is no single manager who can be held responsible

for CORONA missions. Mission success is entirely contingent upon

a providential absence of major technical problems.

This situation is deplorable, but is only one symptom of an

attitude which is of even greater concern, and that is the purposeful

revolt of the CIA against the very concept of a National Reconnaissance

Office. The extent of this revolt became cle Summer of 1964,

when the CIA decided to develop and operate ,

a space

reconnaissance program of its own. In early ugu , . Vance met

with Mr. McCone to discuss CIA activity on this program (preliminary

When confronted with NRO concern over this situation, Dr. Wheelon

of the CIA advised the Director, NRO that the complete plan went even

arther. He was establishing a System Project Office which would draw

on Space Technology Laboratories for engineering assistance. The CIA

planned to hire a launching contractor (Martin), to control operations

from a DOD pad, and to use the DOD's Satellite Test Center and

Recovery Forces. In case the DOD should be unwilling to furnish this

support, the CIA was.studying the development of launching and recovery

1=111 Contrel System 5

-* ,•••••••• • •••••••• -1777"""'"'""r"-rwZI?".."..4-. • J . .

•

, . . .

.

•

%mile j
• r •

----T-OP-SEGREF---

facilities of its own. All attempts - commencing in late September 1964

and extending to the present - to control this mama A been

to no avail, in spite of Mr. McCone's agreement tha • uld

be responsive to NRO direction. Demands to fund th ifort

are being laid on the Department of Defense month by • • • •

demands are being met, albeit reluctantly.

With the appointment of Admiral Reborn, on 28 April 1965, as the

new Director of Central Intelligence, the way was opened for a fresh

start in affirming and strengthening the concept of a National Reconnaissance Program. Future entries in this chronology will determine if

this hope was valid.

ow.

June 1965

6