DISCUSSION WITH ED RISLEY AND BOB PORTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B01709A000400020039-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2008
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: May 16, 1968
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2008/03/05: CIA-RDP79B01709A000400020039-5wT ' "I C
16 May 1968
Not referred to DOI. Waiver
Fapplies.
(not for distribution)
SUBJECT: Discussion with Ed Risley and Bob Porter
1. On 13 May 1968, I lunched with Edward Risley,
Executive Secretary of the Committee on Space Programs for
Earth Observations, Advisory to the U. S. Geological Survey
(COSPEAR/GS). This Committee is considered part of the
National Research Council. Robert Porter, responsible officer
for NASA's Earth Resources Satellite Program, was also present
at the luncheon. Both have T-KH clearances. The following remarks
are for your information.
I of the text by DoD. Later NRO disapproved having25X1
it presented by at a meeting in Its publication in 25X1
"Photogrammetric Engineering" is also not allowed. This type of DoD
response to basically unclassified technical information is rumored to
be of some concern to interested members of the American Society of
Photogrammetry. Release of the Proceedings of the Woods Hole
Conference of last summer is also being held up at the present time,
since portions relate to earth sensoring from orbital satellites, I
do know, however, that a few copies at least,of Volume I,have been
distributed within the Government.
9 was presented at a meeting in Texas before revision, after approval
2. Ed Risley, as a staff member of the National Academy
of Sciences, works in the interests of the scientific community and
with many from foreign countries. He is involved with scientific
meetings of various sorts to which foreign scientists are frequently
invited. He is oriented toward the "white" side of the earth sensing
from space by use of satellites. As a result he has had his problems
with the DoD with regard to clearance of proposed papers, attendance
of foreigners at meetings, etc. The attached report by 25X1
3. Ed Risley tends to favor a separate "white" effort for
earth resource surveys and is a bit unhappy about complexities of
problems that might arise from the ARGO exercise.
NRO review(s) completed. NASA Review Completed.
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He feels that major contributions can be made by use of a variety
of sensors recording above the established "threshold", realizing
at the same time that benefits must be measured against costs and
availability of funds. He feels that, under present security
conditions, those U.S. social and physical scientists who hope to
keep at all current in their research in the resources field need
T-KH clearances. At the same time, he recognizes that living
in two worlds ("black" and "white") creates frustrating experiences.
4. Bob Porter said that he had had a lot of feed-back
from his remarks at the ARGO briefing seminar in early March
and was really surprised that so many attending were concerned
about his statement regarding NASA's intention to carry out its
ERS program. He feels that there is a good deal of sympathetic
understanding of the program among CIA people, but that the DoD
people just don't want to see it established and are putting up
roadblocks, . He believes much more attention needs to be given
to policy matters inherent in the management of these two somewhat
parallel programs, each carried on separately. He worries about
how to sort out future collection requirements in terms of which
can be most effectively fulfilled by "black" versus "white" programs.
He has the impression that DoD dislikes open discussion of currently
unclassified sophisticated sensor instrumentation, and heard a rumor
representative who knew n
th
o
ing a
5. Bob feels that, in terms of cost and benefits, more
policy consideration should be given to possibilities of letting certain
types of unclassified sensors ride along on some future classified
missions, with proper share of cost assigned to these secondary sensors,
the data from which would be publicly available. This should result
in eliminating undue duplication in mounting missions. He also feels
that a hard look should be given to policy regarding retaining data
in the T-KH system, and would hope for at least partial declassification,
with due regard to essential national security. He would not be
surprised if the President at some future time would step in to help
clear the air. He feels that the benefits of maximum unhampered use,
particularly in the economic field, to the U. S. in its foreign aid and
in its need to understand foreign markets and investment potentials,
in large part override many present rationalizations for maintaining
high security treatment, especially when we know pretty well what the
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Soviets are doing in their reconnaissance programs, and they must
be rather knowledgeable regarding the quality of the data obtained by
our reconnaissance satellite missions.
The following remarks on the attached report by
(who does have T-KH clearance and therefore, as author,
enhances the security problem envisaged by the DoD) do not stem
directly from the discussion at the subject meeting. You may be
interested in scanning the whole paper, but I am noting points of
possible special interest:
a. On page 1 -- percentages of world-wide
and U. S. coverage by compiled maps of various scales.
b. On pages 4 and 5 -- under "Orbital Restraints",
the last two sentences in first paragraph on page 5 and the
illustration on page 6.
c. On pages 5, 7, and 8 -- the section on
"Resolution and Map Scale".
d. On pages 11 and 12 -- the summarization of the
"Camera System Capability" and the following paragraph.
On page 12 --
f. On pages 15 and 16 -- the NASA data
recovery capsule as described in the last two paragraphs
on page 15 and page 16.
g. On page 18 and following -- the section
'Is It Economically Feasible!' The values are not
necessarily those currently quoted within the MC&G
community, but they are close.
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