Subject: CORONA symposium
From: thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
Date: 1995/05/25
Message-Id: <thomsonaD95nDy.11A@netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
TOP SECRET RUFF
Handle Via Talent-Keyhole Channels
(just kidding)
Net denizen Dwayne Day (take a bow, Dwayne) of the Space Policy
Institute at George Washington University has been instrumental in
setting up a truly amazing symposium on the first U.S.
photoreconnaissance satellites held on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Co-sponsored by GWU and the CIA's Center for the Study for Intelligence,
this meeting brought together many of the people responsible for the
CORONA/KH-4 spysat program.
The degree of openness uniformly displayed by the speakers (including
several who are still working at CIA) was remarkable, and the
proceedings will be a valuable historical document. In parallel, the CSI
produced a collection of declassified documents and pictures relating to
the creation of the CORONA program and the use of the photographs taken
by the satellites. These also served as a vehicle for the outing of the
former codeword RUFF and the name of the satellite photography
compartmentation channel "Talent-Keyhole."
The 18 new photos released at the symposium are much more interesting
than the initial four which were given out at the February declassification
ceremony -- the N-1 pads at Tyuratam, missile sites in the FSU, and
the Chinese nuclear test site a few days after a test are among
them. They, along with a CORONA satellite, will be at the
Smithsonian Air & Space museum for a short time, and then be taken
away for some months while a permanent display is prepared. 17,000
cans of film from the 100+ CORONA/ARGON/LANYARD (the latter two were
substantially improved CORONA-class satellites) missions flown
between 1960 and 1972 will be transferred to the National Archives
in College Park, MD and the USGS' EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls,
SD. Geographical indices and reduced resolution browse images will
be available from the USGS GNIS server on the internet by August
1996.
Random factoids and observations from the symposium:
- In 1972 DCI Richard Helms (who was on a panel at the symposium, and
looking his age) had a film called "A Point in Time" made about CORONA
with the intent that the program be declassified in the not-too-distant
future. As an aside, when I was in the gummint in 1978, I saw the CORONA
vehicle now at the Smithsonian in the NPIC building in the Washington
Navy Yard. The person who was escorting our tour remarked that the
satellite was going to be sent to the Smithsonian "soon."
- The CORONA program, start to finish, 12 years and more than 100
flights, cost ~$850 M. It's not clear what kind of dollars are
meant: I'd guess then-year ones.
- John Deutch, in a keynote address, explained a bit more about his
concept for a unified National Imagery Agency: It's to incorporate all
requirements-generation, imagery interpretation, and product
distribution. NRO continues to exist as the designer-to-requirements and
builder of spysats, but NIA controls the money. Richard Kerr, a former
acting DCI who headed one of the panels, observed that there was danger
in too much unification, particularly in the analytical area where
competition and argumentation are essential to the process. J.D., BTW,
comes across on stage as a more relaxed and sympathetic figure than his
reputation would indicate.
- Gen Lew Allen, PFIAB member, ex-DIRNSA, ex AF space guy, says that
the extreme covertness of CORONA was mandated by Eisenhower and
motivated by "political" concerns. Other statements and material in
the symposium say that the then-existing sensitivity to violation of
sovereign airspace was the motivating concern. The Powers U2 fiasco
shortly before the first CORONA returns lend credence to this
interpretation. OTOH, a senior ex-CIA official I spoke with and the
"Point in Time" movie both indicate that the US knew the USSR
realized the mission of the CORONA satellites by at least the
early/mid-60s. So what was the blackness for after that?
- The positive role of Eisenhower was emphasized by several participants,
and historians there said the declassified material will add significantly
to their understanding of the Eisenhower administrations.
- Approximately 40,000 of a program total of 866,000 images (1960 -
1972) were taken of the U.S., mostly for engineering calibration. A
CIA panel member was asked if there were a legal problem with this
(CIA spysat took a picture of my house!). CIA guy replied that their
lawyers had agonized long and hard over this question, and had
decided that "the risk was acceptable." (Since 2 m resolution was
the very best that the CORONAs ever did, it's hard to see a general
problem. Maybe forbidden agriculture, but I can't think of anything
else.)
- A high-priority use of the CORONA product was to identify and
locate targets for the new ICBM and SLBM forces. Apparently geodesy
at the time was in a very primitive state, and the relative location
of points on different continents could be off by miles. Because
there was no PhD program in the US at the time, DOD and CIA helped
set one up at up a Ohio State using European faculty. The people
coming out of this program revolutionized geodesy and were largely
responsible for the WGS-84 coordinate system now underlying GPS.
- At the start of the U-2 program, it was anticipated that the
aircraft could overfly the USSR several times before the Soviets
detected it. In fact, Soviet radar coverage was better than expected
and the U-2 was detected and tracked on the first and all subsequent
flights. (It would be very interesting and perhaps instructive to know
the details of this story, and how we came to underestimate the USSR's
capabilities for detection and tracking. "Those who do not learn from
history...")
- The primary and classified purpose of the Manned Orbiting
Laboratory was strategic reconnaissance. The program was killed after
an independent panel concluded that the presence of humans on a
spysat added little value.
- The DCI was given special authority to conduct programs unburdened
by the usual paperwork requirements; this authority was transferred
to the DNRO. John McMahon, former DDCI and LMSC president, said that
this authority still exists and "we enjoy it but don't like to talk
about it much." There was also mention of "unvouchered" funds used
in the black projects.
- The imaging system on Lunar Orbiter was derived from the WS-117L
project which preceded CORONA.
- The people there who'd worked on the program and used its product all
seemed to be delighted to be able to talk about it and to show people
what they'd done. OTOH, a senior NRO official famous for his extreme
adherence to secrecy was looking somewhat glum during the two days.
(Rumor has it that he went to the mat to prevent the wave of
declassification that led to the symposium, and lost decisively. Since
he was also involved in the NRO attempt to prevent publication of my
recent satellite vulnerability paper, I observed his pique with a certain
amount of schadenfreude.)
- I met several APOC and ssp netizens in the flesh for the first time.
There's a lot to be said for being virtual. ;)
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