AMERICA'S SUPERSECRET EYES IN SPACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2012
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: January 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4
NF1' YnPK TI"F5 "ACAZINT
13 January 1985
A-\IERIC, S
StPERSECRIET
F S) IN '~PACF
VFL L
N UNEARTHLY ROAR SHAT-
ters the quiet of a Florida after.
noon. On a launching platform at
the Kennedy Space Center, liquid
hydrogen and liquid oxygen surge
through the thick aluminum veins
of the space shuttle Discovery and
explode in a 3,200-degree fireball of
thrust. Four seconds later, the solid
fuel of the two boosters ignites
and
,
the space-plane, as tall as a 12-story building, arches grace.
fully into the sky.
Forty-five minutes later, all communication to and from
the crew of Mission 51-C will suddenly become a seeming
jumble of static. For the first time in the history of the
American space program, all communication with the as.
tronauts will be hidden in complex codes intelligible only
with special unscrambling equipment. The fiery liftoff of
Discovery, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 23, will mark the
begin- g of a new intelligence era. Added to the shuttle's
list of customers will be the most secret organization in the
American intelligence community, the Na i ?At a,unn..
naicsanc.Office (.R.O.),
For nearly a quarter of a century, the N.R.O. has been re-
sponsible for managing the nation's growing fleet of spy
satellites - at least one of which will be firmly secured to a
pallet in Discovery's cavernous cargo hold. For the same
period, America's reconnaissance-satellite program has
been hidden under a heavy layer of security classifications
and code names, such as Byeman and Top Secret Ruff.
Since its establishment on Aug. 25, 1960, the N.R.O. has
been an entirely "black" organization: The Federal Gov-
ernment has never admitted that it exists, and its name is
gence community has become on the country's network of
spy satellites. To give a recent example, it was satellite
surveillance that produced the famous photos of the crates
on the dock of the Soviet Black Sea port of Nikolayev. (That
some American officials erred in suspecting that the crates
were used for shipping Soviet MIG's to Nicaragua was not
the N.R.O.'s doing.) It was the same satellite capability
that revealed Libya's failure to abide by its recent promise
to France to withdraw its troops from Chad. And if Presi-
dent Reagan's "Star Wars" plan for placing antimissile de-
fenses in space ever moves from research to development,
it will be the N. R.O.'s task to provide the eyes that could de-
tect Soviet offensive missile launchings from their very
first stages.
The story that enters a new phase next week began 26
years ago, on Jan. 21, 1959, on a launch pad at Vandenberg
Air Force Base, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The
countdown that day was for the test flight of a large Thor
ballistic missile. Packed inside the missile's nose cone was
Discoverer, a prototype of the first photographic recon-
naissance satellite.
Since June 1956, the United States had been relying on the
high-flying U-2 aircraft for overhead photography of the
Soviet Union. But by 1959, the Russians had developed mis-
siles capable of reaching the U-2's top altitude of 72,000
feet. The plane's days of safety were numbered. Discov-
erer was the result of an ambitious operation, shared by the
C.I.A. and the Air Force, to develop a satellite that could
take over from the U-2. The camera-laden spacecraft
would take pictures of the Soviet Union as it orbited high
above the earth. The capsule containing the exposed film
would then be ejected by the satellite and snared by spe-
cially rigged aircraft as it parachuted down over the Pa-
cific Ocean.
officially secret. R HE FIRST TRY WAS A FIASCO;
"That office is still classified," says the missile never got off the ground.
the retired admiral who headed the Central Intelligence For the next 19 months the project had
Agency from 1977 to 1981, and who is writing a book about a record of complete failures and near
his tour with the C.I.A. "I can't acknowledge that we have misses. But early on the morning of
a National Reconnaissance Office-if we do have one." Aug. 18, 1960 - just three and a half
"That's the primary issue that I'm fighting the C.I.A. on, months after a U-2 was shot down
to get release of my book," Admiral Turner added.."They over Russia -Air Force Capt. Harold
won't let me talk about satellites, other than as they are E. Mitchell spotted the falling capsule
used for arms control, and I can't even acknowledge that and, on his third try, succeeded in
we use satellites for looking at tanks.... In my book, I re- snatching it in the trapezelike rigging that trailed from his
peatedly refer to the 'offices in the Pentagon that handle aircraft's tail. A week before, another Discoverer capsule
photographic reconnaissance.' " had been recovered from the ocean. The two recoveries
The problem, he admits, is partly of his own making: opened a new frontier for the collection of intelligence, a
"There was a debate in my day about declassifying the frontier that has never stopped expanding. _
N.R.O., and I sided, or eventually sided, or gave in any- A few days after Discoverer 14 was plucked from the at.
way, to pressures not to declassify, and they still have not. A mosphere, C.I.A. chief AlLSQJaVW summoned his Deputy
Whereas you can talk about the N.S.A." - the National Se- Director for Plans, card M. Bissell Jr., to his office. It
curity Agency, which intercepts communications and was time, Mr. Dulles said, to formalize the management of
breaks foreign codes - "you cannot talk about the N.R.O." the nation's space reconnaissance program. The result of
As a result of this continuing secrecy, few people are that decision was the secret creation, in 1960, of the N.R.O.
aware of how increasingly dependent the American intelli- The C.I.A. was made responsible for arranging for the
James. Bamford, a writer who specializes in national-se-
curity issues, is the author of "The Puzzle Palace," a book
on the National Security Agency.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4
By James Bamford
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0100310033-4
c. velopment of the spy satellites. The Air Force was to pro-
vide the launch vehicles, control the launch and recover
the film. The N.R.O. would be in overall charge of all-spy.
satellite missions.
Although the new organiza.
tion was placed - secretly -
under the direction of the
Under Secretary of the Air
Force, Joseph V. Chary-k, the
arrangement left a number of
Air Force officials bitter. As
they saw it, they had already
lost much of the aerospace
program to the National
Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration in 1958; now
they were being forced to
share another space mission
with still another civilian
agency. Mr. Charyk man-
aged to complete his tour as
N.R.O. director in 1963 with-
out major problems, but the
fragile truce was about to
end.
Mr. Charyk's successor at
the N.R.O. was Brockway
McMillan, another Air Force
Under Secretary, better
known to some as "Break-
away" McMillan. The new di-
rector did not like it one bit
that the Air Force had virtu-
ally no say on what type of
spy satellite it sent aloft. At
the time, the C.I.A. was pri-
marily interested in taking
pictures of large-scale ob-
jects and expanses of strate-
gic importance; this entailed
the use of satellites capable of
photographing broad areas.
The Air Force, on the other
hand, wanted lower-orbiting
satellites, which could
produce higher-resolution
photographs for close-up, de-
tailed looks at Soviet aircraft
and other tactical targets.
Mr. McMillan's object be-
came to wrest control of the
N. N.R.O. for the Air Force.
This attempt, however, ran
into opposition within the Pen-
tagon itself. Secretary of De-
fense Robert S. McNamara
was afraid that an Air Force in
charge of spy satellites would
have great advantage over the i
other services, and that this
could lead to slanted informa-
tion impairing his ability to
make independent judgments.
For that reason, Mr.
McNamara joined forces with
the new C.I.A. chief, John A.
McCon , against his own Air
Force Under Secretary.
After more than two years of
bitter wrangling, the N.R.O.
was placed under the overall
supervision of the C.I.A. direct
for and the Secretary of De-
fense. These officials exer-
cised their authority through a
new body, the National Recon-
naissance Executive Commit-
tee, or Excom. Mr. McMillan
resigned. His successor, Alex-
ander H. Flax, former techni-
cal director of the Cornell
Aeronautical Laboratory, was
more interested in the fron-
tiers of scientific knowledge
than in the boundaries of his of-
fice. The issue of control was
resolved.
All the same, the next four
years were not easy ones, as
cording to James Q. Reber, a
C.I.A. expert on satellite sur-
veillance who took over as the
N.R.O.'s deputy director.
"You can readily sense how
you've got 20 or 30 military
officers, you have me in there
as deputy, you have an Air
Force Assistant Secretary as
my boss," Mr. Reber said in a
recent interview. "And though
I am seconded here, I am es-
sentially still a C.I.A. person.
You can surmise both my posi-
tion and theirs."
The C.I.A., he explained,
wanted him to push more ag-
gressively for its preferred
programs: "What they were
saying was, 'You haven't
served our interests.' And I
said, 'I didn't assume that was
my job. My job is to serve the
interests of the N.R.O.' So you
see that the view wasn't neces-
sarily unified as to what I was
supposed to do."
Over the years, the N.R.O.
has conformed closely to the
original blueprint, and inter.
agency competition over tar-
get selection has remained
vigorous. The current wearer
of the "black hat" is Air Force
Under Secretary Edward C.
Aldridge Jr., appointed by the
President in 1981. An aeronau-
tical engineer who has spent
most of his career alternating
between government and pri-
vate industry, Mr. Aldridge
spends half his time on N.R.O.
matters and half on his
"white" duties.- Most of the
day-today work is carried out
behind a set of yellow double-
doors at the Pentagon.
The doors, equipped with a
combination lock and a cipher
lock, are designated only by a
number, 4C-956, and two
names - Col. Paul Foley and
Jimmie D. Hill. Both have offi-
cial Defense Department titles
as covers, but Colonel Foley is
the N. R.O's chief of staff and
Mr. Hill is its longtime budget
chief. The doors lead to a hall-
way lined with offices where,
according to a former top intel-
ligence official, "a bunch of
bloody serious technocrats"
operate the current generation
of spy satellites and plan for
the next generation.
Another N.R.O. center is
situated on the West Coast,
where most of the reconnais-
sance satellites are built and
launched. There, the agency
operates from the Air Force
Space Division, near Los An-
geles, under the cover name of
the Special Projects Office.
The N.R.O. still reports to
the Excom, which is said to
have been enlarged by repre-
sentatives of the Navy and
other groups. Principal au-
thority over the program rests
with the Secretary of Defense.
Assigning coverage and tar-
gets is the responsibility of the
C.I.A. director, and he does
this through the Committee on
Imagery Requirements and
Exploitation, or Comirex,
made up of representatives of
the N.R.O.'s various custom-
ers. The committee reviews
requests from the C.I.A., the
N.S.A., the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency (D.I.A.), the
military services and the State
Department, and decides
which targets will be approved
and what priority each will
have.
A list of targets and priori-
ties then goes to the N.R.O.
The agency calculates such
things as the orbital parame-
ters, which determine when
and where to turn the cameras
on and off, and this informa-
tion is transmitted to the Satel-
lite Control Facility in Sunny-
vale, Calif. The "Blue Cube,"
as this facility is known, trans.
mits the signals up to the spy
satellites from any one of its
eight tracking stations around
the world.
Another copy of the targets
and priorities goes to a tall,
nearly windowless concrete
building in the Washington
Navy Yard. This is the Na-
tional Photographic Interpre-
tation Center (N.P.I.C.), the
Fotomat of the intelligence
community. It is here that the
film capsules come after their
long drop from the satellites
and their mid-air recovery
near Hawaii. The film spools,
some weighing hundreds of
pounds, are moved with grap-
pling hooks onto long conveyor
belts for processing. Once de-
veloped, the films are pro-
jected on the screens of photo-
intelligence specialists, who i
search for the targets assigned
by Comirex. If an interesting
new cannon should appear on a
tank, the analyst pushes a but-
ton and a computerized lens
zooms in to enlarge the detail.
To find out the length of the
gun, a cursor is run along the
barrel, and the exact dimen-
sions flash onto the screen.
The committee's choice of
targets, says Arthur C. Lun-
dahl, founder and former di-
rector of the National Photo-
graphic Interpretation Center,
is based on "national security
needs, not departmental
needs," and this can lead to
some heated argument. As IVs.
Lundahl puts it: "The Navy
could whine in the wings,
'We've got to know all about
this submarine at this or that
particular place.' And I said,
'Listen, you have to make your
case, you have to set it all down
on paper as to why it's impor-
tant, and they would have to
lay side by side with other
competition for coverage, and
if indeed your case is right, it
will get covered first. If it isn't
right, it might get covered
later or it might never get cov-
ered at all.' "
THE N.R.O.'S ORGANI-
zational chart has re-
mained fairly constant
over the years, but the same
cannot be said of its technolo-
gy. In the years since Discov-
erer, the revolution in over-
head espionage has been re-
markable - and prodigiously
expensive. The N.R.O. in re-
cent years has had "the largest
budget of any intelligence
agency," according to a June
1975 report of the Commission
on the Organization of the Gov-
ernment for the Conduct of
Foreign Policy. (The commis-
sion, set up by Congress, did
not, of course, identify the
N.R.O. by name) According to
Anthony Kenden, a British
aerospace writer who follows
the American military satel-
lite program, the United States
entered 1983 with something in
the neighborhood of 60 military
satellites in operational use.
z
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0100310033-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4
"They ranged," said Mr. Ken-
den, "from a weather satellite
that had been in space for just
11 days to a navigation satel-
lite that had been in daily use
for over 15 years."
The United States still relies
on high-flying reconnaissance
planes, such as the U-2 and the
SR-71, when pictures are
needed in a hurry and when a
satellite is unavailable or ham-
pered by cloud cover. Original-
ly, the N.R.O. had responsibil-
ity for these aircraft, as well as
for satellites. But in 1969 it
turned over all control of spy
planes to the Strategic Air
Command.
Currently, the N.R.O.'s
photo reconnaissance pro-
gram, code-named Keyhole,
consists of three separate
satellite systems. The largest
and probably most sophisti-
cated is the KH-11, the first of
which was launched into orbit
on Dec. 19, 1976, after more
than five years of development
by TRW Inc., the C.I.A. and
the N.R.O. Six stories tall,
weighing in at 15 tons and
equipped with a televisionlike
photo-transmission system,
the KH-11 is the ultimate in
state-of-the-art espionage.
Orbiting the earth every 92
minutes at an altitude of be-
tween 170 and 320 miles, the
satellite's signals are first
transmitted to another satel-
lite. The pictures are then re-
transmitted down to analysts
at the Mission Ground Site, a
large, windowless, two-story
concrete building at Fort Bel-
voir, near Washington, with
the cover name of Defense
Communications Electronics
Evaluation and Testing Activi-
ty. For the first time, analysts
can order up detailed views of
target areas virtually instant-
ly. "You can call up the KH-
11," says one person familiar
with the system, "and when it
comes up on its geometry to
the target area, you can get a
photo and have it back down
here, printed out, in an hour,
and have it over to the White
House."
The advantage of speed,
however, means some sacri-
fice of resolution. When clarity
of image is the main consider-
ation, it is a job for the KH-9, or
Big Bird satellite, which, like
the early Discoverer, returns
the exposed film to the earth in
recoverable pods. About the
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4
same weight as the KH-11,
though some 10 feet shorter,
Big Bird has been sent into
orbit regularly since June 15,
1971. Both the KH-11 and Big
Bird travel in a north-south
polar orbit, which takes them
over virtually every place on
earth. A KH-11 can frequently
remain operational for several
years, but the life of a Big Bird
is usually about eight or nine
months.
When extremely good
photography is needed, the job
is given to yet another satel-
lite, the KH-8. Unlike the Big
Bird, which orbits at an alti-
tude of between 103 and 167
miles and is designed for look-
ing at the big picture, the KH-S
can come down as low as 70
miles for a close look. Objects
on the ground as small as six
inches across can be distin-
guished in photos from this
satellite. Originally, the life-
time of the KH-8 was meas-
ured in weeks. Now it fre-
quently stays aloft for three or
four months before it runs out
of fuel and film. Once that hap-
pens, a rocket on the satellite is
fired, slowing down the space-
craft and sending it crashing
into the atmosphere, where it
burns up.
As in most areas of space i
technology, the United States
has long had a significant lead
over the Soviet Union in photo
reconnaissance satellites.
Lacking a "real-time" video-
transmission satellite like the
KH-11, the Russians have had
to rely on satellites that return
the film in capsules. Thus, the
Soviet Union was forced to
launch 27 photo satellites in
1983, compared to two for the
United States. Recently, how-
ever, according to a Washing-
ton expert, the Russians sent
up a reconnaissance satellite
that has been up for more than
four months. "As far as I
know, it is still up there and
still functioning," the official
said. This may be the long-
awaited Soviet version of the
KH-11.
Whether a Soviet gain in
reconnaissance technology is a
loss for the United States is an
interesting question. The
United States and the Soviet
Union openly accept each
other's use of reconnaissance
satellites as an essential ele-
ment of arms control. Grudg-
ingly, both sides also accept
each other's use of satellites
for pure espionage. Neverthe.
less, says a senior official of
the Reagan Administration,
the Russians frequently use
camouflage to hide their weap-
ons, and conduct some of their
more sensitive outdoor activi-
ties at night to frustrate the
American satellites in space.
It may be assumed that the
American military takes simi-
lar precautions.
L AST YEAR WAS AN
unusually active one for
the N.R.O. For the first
time in 10 years, two KH-8
close-look satellites were sent
into orbit within a period of lit-
tle more than four months.
During much of the summer
and fall, all three types of
satellite were in orbit and
operational. Yet, at this time
of increasing reliance on space
photography, the N.R.O., ac-
cording to several sources, has
had to cut back on the produc-
tion of the KH-8 and Big Bird
satellites. The problem is mas-
sive cost overruns on the KH-
11. Because of that, according
to officials, the inventory of the
other two satellites is becom-
ing dangerously low.
Even with a full complement
of Keyhole satellites, much is
missed because of cloud cover
and the darkness of night. For
example, the Russians had
been at work for more than a
year on a large new radar in-
stallation at Abalakova, in Si-
beria, before it was spotted by
an American satellite. Another
large radar complex, this one
at Pechora, in northern Rus-
sia, took more than 18 months
to discover and photograph.
"There have been times when
I've wanted to see Moscow
with a satellite," says Daniel
Graham, former head of the
Defense Intelligence Agency.
"I wanted a picture of Moscow
for four months, and no pic-
ture. Why? Because she went
by in the dark, she went by
when there's clouds." The
East-West deadlock over
medium-range missiles in Eu-
rope goes back to the deploy-
ment of new Soviet SS-20 mis-
. siles in the 1970's, yet Gen.
Richard G. Stilwell, Deputy
Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, told a recent gathering
of former intelligence officers
that he had "never seen a good
picture of an SS-20 out of canis-
ter."
Because of . the cost over-
runs, reported to be totaling as
much as $1 billion, the photo.
transmitting KH-11 has its crit-
ics. "Nobody looks at the
money very closely, and those
guys spend money like
drunken sailors," said a senior
Administration official closely
associated with the N.R.O.
"The KH-11 is a good example.
They rushed into that and sold
everybody a bill of goods. And
then when they came to de-
liver, it cost 50 times what they
said, and it didn't produce half
of what they said it would.
You've diluted the whole recon
capability. You're spending all
your money on a Rolls-Royce
instead of buying a couple of
hundred Bronco II's, or Jeeps,
or whatever."
Some say that Congress
shares the blame for not exer-
cising sufficient oversight
through the Senate and House
committees on intelligence and
appropriations. One former
senior N.R.O. official who
agreed with this criticism told
of his experience in testifying
before a Congressional com-
mittee: "So here we are, with
detail after detail, and they
say, 'Forget about that, just
give us the big picture. Tell me
what this thing here is sup-
posed to do.' And we say, 'Well,
you know, it's going to go over
there, and it's going to do the
following thing.' And they say,
'Well, that sounds terrific,
what do you need?' And we
say, 'Well, you know, we want
to build two of these and they
cost about a hundred million
each, or whatever.' And they
say, 'Well, you guys have been
running a good program, good
luck to you.' "
Another consequence of the
overruns affects the pro-
gram's future development.
The United States, according
to senior Administration
sources, is working on a radar
satellite designed to orbit at an
altitude of 22,300 miles. The
satellite, at that height, would
travel at the same speed as the
earth, and, therefore, would
appear to be parked over a sin-
gle spot. Moreover, the space-
craft would see through cloud
cover and other weather condi-
tions, and would transmit what
it saw instantaneously. Thus, it
would be able to provide, for
the first time, continuous,
high-resolution, photolike
coverage of vast areas of the
3
 China. Yet,
Soviet Union and Ch'
because of the cost overruns on
the KH-11, this project has suf-
fered from continued delays.
Many in Washington are con-
vinced that the problems of
overruns and oversight have
been magnified by the intense
secrecy that has surrounded
the N. N.R.O. since the day it was
born. Asked about the reason
for such secrecy, a C.I.A. offi.
cial said: "You know, I can't
give you any reason behind it,
except that it's part and parcel
of the whole satellite question.
The decision has been made to
maintain the classification,
and that's all we can say."
Clearly, one of the main rea-
sons for the secrecy is rooted in
a broad principle: To acknowl.
edge the N.R.O. would be to ac-
knowledge the existence of the
spy-satellite program, and
that the intelligence com-
munity has never been willing
to do. To its critics, this policy
seems illogical. In the early
days, when satellite reconnais.
sance was new and not gen-
erally known, there may have
been valid reasons for keeping
this collection method under
heavy wraps. But, the critics
say, such is not the case today.
There have been times in the
past when the policy seemed
on the verge of change. Ad-
dressing a gathering at Cape
Canaveral on Oct. 1, 1978,
President Jimmy Carter ac-
knowledged that the United
States uses satellites for photo-
graphic intelligence. Except
for an offhand remark by
President Lyndon B. Johnson
in the late 1960's, It was the
first time an incumbent Presi-
dent had ever acknowledged
the use of spy satellites. Yet
Mr. Carter's remark - the re-
sult of a decision, according to
a senior intelligence official,
that "there would be more
gained than lost by the ac-
knowledgement" - has re-
mained an isolated instance.
Under President Reagan, the
secrecy is as tight as ever.
The irony is that the Soviet
security and intelligence or-
ganization K.G.B. probably
knows more about America's
spy-satellite operations than
all but the few most highly
cleared people in the United
States. The reason for this is an
abominable track record in se-
curity on the part of the C.I.A.
and the satellite intelligence
community as a whole.
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I I look satellite. The shuttle could
Within little more than a
eral Accounting Office NASA be launched on fairly short no,..
year after the first Ku
11 ,
-
was
has been objecting to the elabo-
launched, the Russians had a rate security measures that
complete copy of the satellite's have been introduced for shut-
technical manual. It was sold ! Ue launchings to them in February 1978, for over the last few
$3,000, by William P. Kam-A years. NASA's argument is
piles, a former IA. emniov_t these new rules are giving
ee. Kampiles had walked out of the military too much control
the agency headquarters in over shuttle operations - an
Langley, Va., with the manual objection that surfaced on
with less trouble than he would front pages of newspapers as
have had sneaking "Gone with the launching scheduled for
the Wind" from the public I. next week approached.
brary. He was later found The N.R.O., on the other
guilty and sentenced to 40
years, but the damage, accord-
ing to testimony at the trial,
was enormous. To the Rus-
sians, the manual was invalu-
able, and left little to the
imagination.
As if losing one copy of the
KH-11 manual was not bad
enough, it was revealed at the
trial that, out of 350 copies
printed, the C.I.A. was inexpli-
cably missing 16 additional
manuals - including one
signed out to the director. As
far as is known, the C.'I.A. has
never been able to find out
what happened to these copies.
According to Jeffrey Richel-
son, an assistant professor at
the American University in
Washington, the Russians may
have gotten additional details
on the satellite even before
they received the manual. In a
recent paper in the Journal of
Strategic Studies, Mr. Riche]-
son says that Christopher
Boyce, a former employee of
TRW convicted in 1977 for sell-
ing satellite secrets, gave the
Russians 5 to 10 typed pages
dealing with a satellite that
closely resembled the KH-11.
One view is that the Govern-
ment's unwillingness to de-
classify the N.R.O.'s existence
and some of its work has to do
less with national security
than with bureaucratic turf.
Daniel Graham, the former
D.I.A. director, sees It as fol-
lows: "Resistance to change
came from the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, and it Caine on
bureaucratic grounds. So long
as all of this photography was
in a category controlled by the
C.I.A., they had the upper
hand, and they could say who
got it, who didn't get it, and
they could play games."
Lately, the issue of openness
versus secrecy has seemed to
be coming to a head. Accord-
ing to a 1983 study by the Gen-
hand, has long been concerned
over the shuttle's reliability;
the coming launching was
postponed three times in the
last 15 months because of tech-
nical problems. As a result, the
Air Force recently received
S15 million from Congress to
develop expendable rockets for
launching satellites originally
intended for the shuttle. This
program is presented as a
complement to the shuttle's
missions. But NASA, which
will need a good quota of mili-
tary missions to help pay for
the shuttle in the years ahead,
is afraid the Air Force may
want to go back to expendable
rockets as its primary launch-
ing technique.
W HATEVER THE
outcome of the de-
bate over secrecy,
the biggest change in the year
ahead will come from the
space shuttle. Home for Dis-
covery will be a city of giant
concrete monoliths and tower-
ing steel platforms north of
Los Angeles. This is "Slick
Six" - the Vandenberg Space
Launch Complex, or SLC-6,
built specifically for the shut.
tle's military missions.
lice, maneuvered to a target
area and made to descend, at
least briefly, to as low as 70
miles. Several high-resolution
cameras could then be aimed
downward from the cargo
hold, and the pictures could be
relayed directly to the Mission
Ground Site at Fort Belvoir.
Other film spools, with higher-
resolution photos, could return
with the shuttle.
The feasibility of such a mis-
sion was demonstrated last Oc-
tober, when the shuttle's Mis-
sion 41-G produced photos of.
startling clarity with its ex-
perimental cameras, including
one that could "see" through
clouds. The shuttle's future as
a spy plane will be tested even
more rigorously by Mission
51-C next week.
Still further down the space
road is a new signals.intelli.
gence, or Sigint, satellite.
Even more secret than photo
satellites, the "ferrets," as
they are called, eavesdrop on
communications and elec-
tronic signals. This includes
everything from radar to long.
distance telephone calls to the
high-pitched whistle of teleme-
try from a missile test. One of
the most important. Sigint
satellites.- is - ? Rhyolite, first
launched operationally in the
early, 1970's. From . its
"parked" orbit high above the
earth, the satellite is able to
pick up telemetry and com-
munications traffic from both
the Soviet Union and China.
This is then -relayed to the
N.S.A. -
In 1975, there was a major
debate within the N.R.O. and
the Excom on whether to de-
velop a loll
ow
-up system to
Eight to 10 times a the
year, Rhyolite. An experimental
shuttle will rocket into space satellite, Argus, with a 140.
with rec
onnaissance and other
types of military satellites.
Once up, the crew may repair
foot-wide antenna - twice as
big as Rhyolite's - was sent
in
975
. But the
L
a malfunctioning "bird" or, .---
should that fail, bring ~ project was eventually killed
it back by a budget-conscious House
to earth. At other times, the committee. As a result, an ap.
shuttle will act as a space tank- parently scaled-down. copy,
er, refueling a KH-11 with an- Chalet, was approved and or-
other year's supply of hydra- bited in 1978,1979 and 1981. The
zine, or as a supply ship, re- next generation communica-
loadi.ng the film on a close-look tions satellite a
giant known
KH-8. Finally, the shuttle may. as Aquacade, was. designed to
become an actual spy plane, take advantage of the roomy
For years, the N.R.O. has shuttle. And it is this space-
considered using the shuttle ; craft, or some modified ver-
for intelligence collection as a sion, that, in all likelihood, now
sort of cross between a high- ' sits behind the clamshell doors
flying SR-71 reconnaissance of Discovery, waiting to open
aircraft and a low-flvinrr close- the newest frontier in espio-
nage. ^
y
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100310033-4