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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

°MO: OF THE DIRECTOR

6 January 1961

Mr. Gordon Gray

Special Assistant to the President

for National Security Affairs

This is transmitted at the

request of the Director of Central

Intelligence for use at the National

Security Council meeting of

12 January; when it will be discussed.

APPROVED FOR RELEASE

DATE: OCT 2006
• MORI DocID: 1366035

APPROVED FOR RELEASE

DATE: OCT 2006

17 March 1959

PROJECT CORONA - SECURITY IN 1960

Reference: Memorandum "Project CORONA" dated 11 March 1959 (COR -0372)

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1. The referenced memorandum proposes that a series of eight CORONA

flights be scheduled in calendar year 1960 as a continuation of the flights currently

scheduled for the next eight months. A question arises as to whether, if this

supplementary activity is approved and undertaken, an effort should be made, as

with the series for 1959, to conceal its true purpose. If an affirmative decision

is made on this matter, the 1960 flights would presumably be described as a

continuation of the publicly announced DISCOVERY series. The alternative course

of action might involve the identification forthwith within the Military establishment

of the 1960 activity as a reconnaissance project entirety separate from the

DISCOVERY series, to be handled in all respects as a normal Military project.

and involve in due time a public announcement of the true mission. This is

primarily a foreign policy decision but it requires an estimate (a) of the feasibility

of maintaining security for a second year, and (b) of the impact on the original

1959 CORONA program of a public announcement concerning a 1960 series, The

following comments are addressed to these topics.

Z. The DISCOVERY series of satellite flights has been publicly described

as a research and development activity with a variety of specific objectives

including development flight testing of hardware, development and testing of

procedures for the recovery of a satellite payload after flight, the study of

environmental conditions relevant to human flight including measurement of

certain types of radiation encountered at relatively low altitudes, tests of a

satellite infra-red sensor as the prototype of an early warning device, and the

exercise of tracking stations and other elements of a new ground environment.

The official cover story states or implies that achievement of these specific

objectives will contribute to the broad purposes of bringing a number of Military

subsystems closer to operational status, of the achievement of man-in-space

flight, and more generally contributing importantly to the ability of the Military

establishment to design and operate missile and satellite systems. This

official cover story was carefully designed and is constantly being supplemented

in an effort to satisfy two requirements: First, that the operations undertaken

under the name of the DISCOVERY series should not themselves be Military

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acts, and second, that they should nevertheless be activities appropriate to

the Military establishment and of importance sufficient to justify an operation

on a substantial scale. It should be noted that ARPA has announced programs

involving the use of satellites for early warning and communications and

involving the development of a manned recoverable space vehicle, thus confirming that the Defense establishment is actively pursuing all the long-range

objectives which the DISCOVERY series allegedly serves.

The above-outlined official cover story has been embroidered and

amplified in one important respect in the technical press. It was quickly

recognized when the DISCOVERY series was announced that it would include

certain operations originally contemplated as part of the SENTRY project.

Accordingly, it was widely speculated that the DISCOVERY series is at least

in part the research and development phase of SENTRY, that is, that a major

purpose of the DISCOVERY series is development flight testing of basic hardware (vehicles, guidance, recovery system, and ground environment) which

would ultimately be used for SENTRY. It would, perhaps, have been preferable

if this inference could have been avoided but it was in fact foreseen before the

public announcement of DISCOVERY that technical speculation would take this

direction. Fortunately, there has been little speculation to date to the effect

that the DISCOVERY series includes any operational flights of a reconnaissance

vehicle. Given this development, it would be altogether infeasible to deny

that there is an element of truth in this speculation, and to attempt to do so

would simply call the whole CORONA cover story into question. Accordingly,

current efforts are devoted to emphasizing the specific objectives of the 

DISCOVERY series as stated in the official cover story while freely admitting 

that this alleged research and development program will benefit not only the 

achievement of space flight and the development of early warning and communications satellites but also the development of the SENTRY reconnaissance system,

which has long been an officially announced and identified Military program.

The above circumstances are cited as background for the judgment

expressed in this and the following paragraph on the feasibility of maintaining

reasonably effective cover for an extended CORONA series in 1960. The first

such judgment which is offered here with some trepidation is that the principal

threat to the security of the present or extended CORONA program is not that

of unauthorized diaclosure by properly witting individuals and that this threat,

with good luck, can be contained. Major efforts have been made to limit the
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number of persons knowledgeable of the program. The number is too large

for comfort (and almost larger than it need be) but reasonable success has

been achieved in impressing on all concerned the vital importance of security.

The greatest clinger of disclosure is that individuals in the Defense establishment, and especially various technical consultants_, will surmisetkatstina_

classified program is being carried on, will correctly guess its general 

character, and will feel free to discuss their surmise widely in the technical 

community. It is impossible to be sure that this will not happen but every

effort is being made to detect the spread of informed rumor in the technical

community and to halt it (usually by making the originator aware that there is

a classified program and placing on them the responsibility for preserving its

s ecurity).

5. The obverse of this limited optimism concerning disclosure is that

the major danger to effective concealment of the true purpose of CORONA is

that constituted by speculation in the technical press. It will be readily

recognized that once great curiosity is aroused concerning a program of this

character the efforts of skillful and well informed representatives of the press

to ferret out more information from witting individuals in the Government or

in the companies concerned are exceedingly difficult to resist. Accordingly,

the only real defense against such speculation and its consequences is the 

construction and the constant amplification in detail and reiteration of a plausible 

cover stort.. If the ostensible purposes of the missile flights are in sufficient

detail to answer the queries of the press, and if they are truly plausible, the

danger is vastly reduced. It is be/ieved that in the case of CORONA it has been

possible to date and will continue to be possible to develop and sustain cover

stories of this character (provided that administrative obstacles do not interfere).

It is also believed, however, that to do so will require if anything increased 

reliance on the explanation that the DISCOVERY series is indeed contributing 

in an important way to the development of SENTRY. The reason that the abovementioned speculation to this effect is an important part of the CORONA cover

story is that the detectable connection of certain individuals and companies with

DISCOVERY can most easily be explained by admitting the existence of a connection between the two programs. Moreover, if there should be any disclosure 

of work going forward on specifically reconnaissance subsystems, the disclosure 

could be covered in confusion if a connection between the two programs had been 

acknowledged. This is not to suggest any change in the policy of insisting that

DISCOVERY is completely separate from SENTRY but only that the contribution

of DISCOVERY as a developmental activity to SENTRY as an operational program

should be tacitly acknowledged.

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In summary, the preceding paragraphs are intended to express

cautious optimism that it may be possible both to avoid unauthorized damaging

disclosures concerning the true purpose of CORONA and that it will be

possible to provide plausible explanations of an extended DISCOVERY series

which characterize it as a continuing developmental activity. Care has been

taken up to this point not to announce any firm schedule for the DISCOVERY 

series or any definitely scheduled number of flights. Hence, there is no need

to announce a change of plans (which always invites attention) nor, indeed, to

make at this time any announcement about the duration of the DISCOVERY

series. If an affirmative decision is made on the proposal in the referenced

memorandum for a 1960 series, it would probably be best either to say nothing

at this time about the duration of the activity or to say frankly that the number

of DISCOVERY flights has not yet been finally determined. This cautious

optimism, it must be emphasized, is contingent upon continued more strenuous 

efforts by all concerned both to avoid unauthorized disclosure and to support

the cover stories. In particular the maintenance of cover for CORONA (even 

through 1959) will require the stern exercise of authority at all appropriate 

points to discourage the kind of technical discussion in advisory committees 

and in Military and civilian components that quickly reveals the fact of a highly

classified project, the purpose and character of which can then be readily

surmised,

Finally, it must be repeated (from the last paragraph of the referenced

memorandum) that the degree to which the cover of CORONA will be eroded

in forthcoming months, and thereby the judgments expressed above, is inevitably

subject to a high degree of uncertainty. Accordingly, if it is decided to conduct

a series of flights with the CORONA vehicle in 1960 and if concealment of the

true purpose of this activity is believed desirable, the best course of action

might well be to embark on this program with every intention of conducting it

under the security with which CORONA has been surrounded but to review the

security status of the program in six months. If its cover has then begun to

wear thin , it would probably be better in a carefully contrived manner to surface

its true purpose. Alternatively, if cover is holding up well, the original intent

can be adhered to. No attempt has been made here to comment on the importance

of concealment of the reconnaissance mission. If this is of low importance,

it will be well to decide at this point to surface the purpose of the 1960 program

at a time and in a manner which will best preserve the security of CORONA in

1959. If, at the other extreme, the importance of concealing the mission is so

great that the program could be carried out only if such concealment is effectively

maintained, then it must be said in all honesty that there is a substantial risk

that the objective cannot be achieved.

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