PENTHOUSE NEWS RELEASE ON GERMAN MISSILE RANGE IN ZAIRE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M00165A000400010001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 1, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 28, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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$77-12020
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Penthouse News Release on German Missile
Range in Zaire
1. The attached news release by Penthouse on a German
missile range in Zaire prompts me to insure that we have
something going to track this down in all its details. Surely
when the full article comes out we are going to be asked a lot
of questions. It seems to me we should anticipate this by
pulling together everything we know on the subject and providing
it to our Select Committees promptly. We should also prepare
our response to the press on this even if it is to be "no
comment."
STAT
2. I'd like to be sure that is doing
everything he reasonably can to t c is situation down and
confirm or deny the specific allegations that Szulc raises.
Attachment
cc: DDO
A/DCI/PA
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\L-
P[+1 ii-K-)Li;E iGvJTFTIATi,IAL LTD
91.19 THIRD AVENUE
/tp
NEW YORK NY 101.02
TEL[PHJNE (2'12) 593-3301
Contact: Tad Szulc [phone]
Jim Goode [phone].
West Germany 1i aken over a 100,000 square mile area of Zaire where it is secretly;
testing the cruise missile and the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) , Penthouso
magazine disclosed today (December 13).
Author Tad Szulc, the noted diplomatic correspondent who obtained the story, said
the program "is in deliberate disregard" of the 1954 Treaty of Brussels and that it is
going forward with the knowledge and approval of the U.S. government.
Prototypes of four or five cruise missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads--po-
tentially the most deadly weapon of the atomic age---have already been flown there over
an area as big as Colorado. The work is being directed by the Orbital Launch and Rocket
Corp. (O'IRAG), a mysteriously tax-exempt company based near. Frankfort and which may he
receiving as much as $300-million of support from the Bonn military budget. The corpor-
ation has signed a non-cancellable 24-year contract under which it has virtual sovereign--
-ty over the Shaba (formerly Katanga) province area and for which it has agreed to pay-
Zaire $50-million a year.
Both the CIA and its West German counterpart, the Bundes Nachrichtendients (BND)
"have played a crucial role in this program through the recruiting of American-trained
scientists and political coordination in Kinshasa (Zaire's capital), Bonn and Washington
he said.
Szulc said the Shaba province development "is obviously designed to equip west Gerrit:nI
with the most sophisticated delivery systems for missiles with conventional nuclear war-:
heads." He added that there is "massive evidence" that "the whole West German military-
industrial complex is behind this enterprise and that the Bonn government is the ~_iltimat';
recipient of the missil produced in Zaire. The secret cooperation by the U.S. in the
Zaire undertaking through the supply of cruise-missiles and other advanced technc1o ica
kna.w-how constitutes another aspect of the deepening American involvement in Africa,"
Szulc continued.
Although the Brussels Treaty forbids the production of "long range missiles and
guided _missiles" on German territory its phrasing did not rule out such production out
side Garman territory. French, Soviet, and Polish officials have all expressed concern"
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over the enterprise and the Soviet ambassador in Kinshasa has delivered a formal protest
to the Zaire government. The-Polish government is equally upset and French officials who
asked Bonn to explain the Zaire activities "are known to be unconvinced" about the German
response that only weather satellites are being tested, Szulc said.
Information from the Szulc article, scheduled to appear in the March issue of Pent-
house, to co on newsstands in early February was released to the press toda "because
of the gravity and. enormity of the situation," Publisher Bob Guccione said. "This stunn-
ing,- clandestine development has been proceeding in the dark without the knowledge of the
American people, and could upset the SALT talks and hasten the spread of nuclear missile
built. U.S. specialists who studied the photograph concluded that the missile was flying
over what appeared to be African terrain, author Szulc said.
The testing territory covers the area lying between Lake Tanganyika. in the east, and
the North-South line at 26 degrees 55" longitude in the west. The northern boundary is
The article belied the private assurances of. the Bonn. government that it is only test-
ing weather satellites. U.S. experts on'-space technology dispute the need for an area as.
large as Colorado to-test weather satellites. But they do point out that the. cruise miss-
ile, and especially the IRRM, do require a vast operational area so that they can be re-
covered within the proving grounds after the launch. Moreover, at this year's Air Show at
Le Bourget, near Paris, the German incongruously exhibited a photographic blow-up of a
cruise missile without providing any explanation as to where, when, or how this had been
the Lukuga River and the southern boundary is the
.border.
full and complete power in the territory." OTRAG also enjoys "disciplinary" powers over
all its personnel and their families and establishes, "the,permn rent-closing by Zaire::Of
unprecedented waiver of sovereignty," Szulc reported. Operating in behalf of German defense
contractors,.ORTAG may act "as if it were sovereign," according to an American legal. expert.
The only comparable situation in the world currently exists in the 1903 Panama. Canal Treaty.
Article Two of the contract provides that Zaire, "expressly and without restrictions,.
grants OTRAG the right to take all measures that it deems necessary for the exercise of
The lease contract,.- signed on March 26,1976, between Zaire and OTRAG, "constitutes an
power to-ban undesirable persons from the territory and OTRAG can. even order Zaire citiz-
ens to "evacuate the region" if it chooses.
If such precautions seem unusual for the testing of weather satellites, Szulc said, it
'ay well be because nowhere in the contract are such vehicles mentioned. Only in the final
Article Three, a provision without parallel in international law,- vests in O`.rMG the
Shaba's airspace to-all aircraft but its own__ and O`1'PA'1G's," Szulc. reported.
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section does the contract cite OTRAG's comniUxrA2!nt to place in orbit free of charge an
experirrental reconnaissance satellite for the Zaire government. Moreover, a section of
the contract, kept secret by Bonn, refers clearly to OTRAG's need for "a vast operations
area lending itself to the launching into the atmosphere and space of payload missiles"
and to supporting activities for such flights.
The Penthouse article further punctured the German government cover story that OTRAG
is a "private contractor" rather than a front for the German government. Szulc reeled off
a long list of facts pointing directly to control by Bonn:
# Jbst of the $300-million required to construct the airstrip, launching ramps, hous-
ing aix1 hospital facilities for OTRAG workers "comes directly or indirectly from the West
German defense budget (although the budget does not show it)," Szulc said.
# In Article Five of its contract with Zaire, it is stated tha Zaire will receive _- f
its $50-million payment annually after GTRAG receives its full remuneration for the launch-
ing of a payload rocket from a 'client.' Szulc said, "OTRAG's 'clients' are not identified
in the contract, but it is obviously improbable that cruise missiles or IR&i's would be. ===.
purchased by private'compani.es."
# The identities of OTRAG's technological backers, furthenrrore, are revealed as camp-
anies involved in military-industrial enterprises. The principal consortitum backing the
effort are the German aircraft makers Dornier, which provides the airframes and Messer-
scTmddt, which makes the engines;-and the French Thompson-CSF Company,. which builds the
navigational guidance systems for the German missiles.
"According to highly placed Western European informants, ORTAG is prorl
ucing a cruise
-Fissile and the IRBM for the West German consortium formed by the r'esserschrnidt, Belkov
and Blaum Companies, the principal defense contractors in the German Federal Republic,"
Szulc said. "At the proper time, it is believed, the missiles will be turned over to the
West German. armed forces," he added.
Penthouse said that the "headquarters" division of OTRAG is located in New Isenburg,
near Frankfort. It is this division which works in direct liasion with BND and where the
entire Zaire operation is being coordinated. Another division of the company, OTRe'1G, S.A.,
Africa, has been established in Africa with..offices in Vaduz, in the principality ofLich-
tenstein. Vaduz is a tax haven for multinational corporations and, clearly, a convenient
,channel for the secretive flow of funds for the Zaire project.
The president of OTRAG and the man who signed the contract with Zaire, is Dr. Lutz T.
Kayser, a mysterious figure described as a top missile,e,Ypert who-reportedly worked for
NkSA in the 1960s at the height of the U.S._ space program.'A check of NASA records, how-
ever, does not-show such involvement on his part.
Speaking privately, American officials, Szulc said, "have indicated that there is a
strong possibility that the U.S. has made avail.-'West . Germany the required technol-
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ogy for the cruise missile and IRBM projects under the so-called Program of Cooperation.
This is a secret program, dating back to the 1950s, under which highly classified milit-
technology is provided to NATO allies, including West Germany. In some instances, POC op-
erations have been conducted between the Pentagon and NATO defense ministries anc4 top mil-
itary corrrnands, bypassing the state departments in Washington and foreign ministries in
the European capitals, Szulc continued.
Bonn has long wanted its own cruise missile, but so far as it is known, the U.S. of-
ficially has not been known to have provided the actual weaponry. That the Germans have
had U.S. support in this development was, in effect, confirmed by 'Defense Secret ly Harold
Brown when he told the NATO Defense Minister's t cti.ng last December 7th that "the U.S. has
made no commitment not to transfer cruise technology to its European allies."
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