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Space


KH-1 CORONA

References

1 Space reconnaissance is traditionally divided into categories. One is called "Search," and is dedicated to answering the question, "Is there something there?" CORONA was designed to photograph large contiguous areas in a single frame of film in order to answer that question. A second observation function is "Surveillance." Surveillance is required after one has decided that "There is something of interest there," and says "I want to continue to watch that something, learn more about it, identify it and classify it." In most cases, bona fide surveillance was beyond CORONA's capability.

2 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956, Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1963, pp. 522 and 483, respectively.

3 It turned out the United States had misjudged the performance characteristics and deployment pattern of the Soviet air-surveillance network: their radar promptly acquired and tracked the very first U-2 flight over Soviet territory.

4 Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace 1956-1961, Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1965, p. 390.

5 Memorandum, D/Director R&D to DCS/D USAF, 13 November 1957.

6 Col. Oder (who became General Manager of Lockheed Space Systems in 1973), Gen. Schriever and Lockheed WS-117L manager James W. Plummer (who became Director of the NRO in 1973), were, with seven other colleagues, recognized as space pioneers in a 1989 Smithsonian Institution exhibit.

7 Memorandum of Conferences on 7 and 8 February 1958.

8 Basic authority for CIA conduct of overflight reconnaissance operations stems from National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 5, which gave the CIA primary responsibility for the conduct of clandestine intelligence activities abroad. Collection by satellite was therefore considered to be within the responsibilities assigned to the CIA under the National Security Act of 1947, as amended.

9 Samos was named for a small Greek island where the astronomer Aristarchus lived (310-230 B.C.) referred to by Archimedes and Plutarch. It is not an acronym as commonly believed, though the press dubbed it "Space and Missile Observation System."

10 Los Angeles Times, "New Samos Sky Spy May Be Launched Soon," 16 October 1960.

11 Aviation Week and Space Technology, "Discoverer Becomes Satellite Test Bed," 25 September 1961; San Jose Mercury-News, "Top U.S. Space Project Product of S.C. Valley," 25 February 1962.

12 Maj. Gen. O.J. Ritland, Commander, Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, "Aerospace Power for National Security," before the Institute of Radio Engineers, 4 February 1960.

13 Bissell was charged with overall CIA responsibility for CORONA, and was the critical person who intervened at the White House to give the program time to move from failure to success.

14 Letter, Gen. C.E. LeMay to President, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, 25 April 1960.

15 Message 1352, 12 August 1960.

16 National Air & Space Museum, "Satellite Reconnaissance." Prescience from the Nation's archives?

17 Message 2804, R.M. Bissell to Maj. Gen. O.J. Ritland, 17 August 1960; memorandums on quality of take, 23 & 24 August 1960.

18 Vice President Richard M. Nixon was constrained from revealing that the missile gap, on which John F. Kennedy had earlier campaigned, was an illusion. Intelligence from the Discoverer XIV payload was digested two months before the election campaign ended. Kennedy, who had been made aware of the mission results, stopped talking about the missile gap. But some of his supporters did not, and Nixon's indirect assertions that there was no missile gap had little impact, because he had been saying this much earlier, when nobody really knew, and because he had subsequently adopted the policy of promising to enlarge the U.S. missile program in much the way Kennedy proposed.

19 Richelson, Jeffery. America's Secret Eyes in Space. Harper and Row, New York. 1990. pp 40-41.




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