Area 51_ An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base - Annie Jacobsen [219]
23. Oxcart being the fastest: CIA Document EO 12958 3.3(b) Oxcart Facts: A-12 Specifications; A-12 Experience Record (as of July 10, 1967). Note that in November of 1961, the X-15 rocket plane flew Mach 6, or 4,092 mph. At the time of this meeting, the CIA thought they were building the fastest airplane in the world, which technically it was, because the X-15 didn’t take off on its own power. As per interviews with T. D. Barnes, who worked on both projects.
24. Area 51 was back in business: Parangosky, The Oxcart Story, 3 (per Dr. Wheelon, Parangosky was the true author of this seminal work on Oxcart; any other name was a pseudonym). The contract was officially signed on February 11, 1960.
25. the CIA hired work crews from next door: Interview with Ernie Williams.
26. The construction of a new runway and the fuel farm: Interview with Harry Martin; Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 25–26.
27. The A-12 Oxcart was a flying fuel tank: Interview with Harry Martin.
28. CIA’s “own little air force”: Interview with Colonel Slater.
29. Getting the Oxcart to fly: Interview with Frank Murray.
30. 186-mile swath just to make a U-turn: Interview with Colonel Slater.
31. same was true at NORAD: Interviews with Dr. Wheelon, Colonel Slater.
32. they passed a simple sketch: Interview with Ed Lovick.
33. S. Varentsov: CIA Memo, S. Varenstov, Chief Marshal, USSR, The Problem of Combat with the Nuclear Means of the Enemy and Its Solution, August 1961.
34. advancing surface-to-air missile technology: Interviews with Dr. Wheelon, Ed Lovick, T. D. Barnes.
Chapter Eight: Cat and Mouse Becomes Downfall
Interviews: Gary Powers Jr., T. D. Barnes, Dr. Wheelon, Jim Freedman, Gene Poteat, Helen Kleyla (Richard Bissell’s longtime secretary, via written correspondence)
1. drenched in sweat: Powers, Operation Overflight, 75.
2. Tyuratam was Russia’s Cape Canaveral: CIA report on U-2 Vulnerability Tests, April 1960, Eisenhower Archives, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 15, Intelligence Matters. Memo: ICBM Targets—The Urals and Tyura Tam, “Sverdlovsk in the Urals is the best bet on the location of a major ICBM factory.” Notable color U-2 flight maps are in this file.
3. head up to a facility at Plesetsk: Harford, Korolev, 112. “R-7s and R-7As were deployed at only two launch pads at Baikonur and, eventually, four at Plesetsk, a launch center readied by 1959… Plesetsk soon became the busiest of the USSR’s three launch facilities, having responsibility for placing in orbit reconnaissance and other military satellites.”
4. two-and-a-half-foot increments: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 185.
5. indicated he wanted to speak with him: Powers, Operation Overflight, 69.
6. had a premonition: Ibid.
7. awakened by a ringing telephone: W. Taubman, Khrushchev, 443.
8. a sharp poke in the eye: Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 444. “Sverdlovsk, was an especially deep penetration into our territory and therefore an especially arrogant violation… They were making these flights to show up our impotence. Well, we weren’t impotent any longer.”
9. “An uncomfortable situation was shaping up”: Orlov, “The U-2 Program,” 10.
10. Soviets’ secret bioweapons program: Hoffman, The Dead Hand, 119.
11. Kyshtym 40 was as valuable: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 43.
12. “Destroy target”: Orlov, “The U-2 Program,” 11.
13. Stop and think: Powers, Operation Overflight, 83.
14. “He’s turning left”: Jack Anderson, “US Heard Russians Chasing U-2,” Washington Post, May 12, 1960.
15. NSA operators heard: Bamford, Body of Secrets, 49.
16. “Bill Bailey did not come home”: Richelson,