Area 51_ An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base - Annie Jacobsen [232]
33. After Bevacqua had left Groom Lake: Interview with Tony Bevacqua.
34. mission on July 26, 1968: This was the first time an SR-71 was fired upon by an SA-2. With Bevacqua, in the backseat, was reconnaissance systems officer Jerry Crew. www.blackbirds.net/sr71/sr-crew-photos/ (accessed December 29, 2010).
35. The 1129th Special Activities Squadron had reached its end: The Oxcart program lasted just over ten years, from its inception as a drawing on a piece of paper called A-1, in 1957, to termination in June of 1968. Lockheed produced fifteen A-12 Oxcarts, three YF-12As, and thirty-one SR-71 Blackbirds. The CIA’s John Parangosky wrote in summation, “The 49 supersonic aircraft had completed more than 7,300 flights, with 17,000 hours in the air. Over 2,400 hours had been above Mach 3. Five OXCART were lost in accidents; two pilots were killed, and two had narrow escapes. In addition, two F-101 chase planes were lost with their Air Force pilots during OXCART testing phase.”
36. The CIA held a special secret ceremony at Area 51: Interviews with Ken Collins, Frank Murray, Colonel Slater, and Jack Layton. Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor, deputy director of Central Intelligence, presented the CIA Intelligence Star for Valor to Kenneth S. Collins, Ronald L. Layton, Francis J. Murray, Dennis B. Sullivan, and Mele Vojvodich. Jack W. Weeks’s award was accepted by his widow, Sharlene Weeks. The United States Air Force Legion of Merit was presented to Colonel Hugh Slater and his deputy, Colonel Maynard N. Amundson.
37. The men moved on: Interviews with Ken Collins, Colonel Slater, Frank Murray, Charlie Trapp, Roger Andersen.
Chapter Seventeen: The MiGs of Area 51
Interviews: T. D. Barnes, Doris Barnes, Tony Landis, Peter Merlin, Colonel Slater, Frank Murray, Roger Andersen, Grace Weismann (Joe Walker’s widow)
1. Iraqi air force colonel named Munir Redfa: Uzi Mahnaimi, “Stolen Iraqi Jet Helped Israel Win Six-Day War,” Sunday Times of London, June 3, 2007.
2. “Turn back immediately”: Geller, Inside the Israeli Secret Service. I use information from chapter 3, “Stealing a Soviet MiG.”
3. Redfa flew over Turkey: Obituary, “Major-General Meir Amit,” Telegraph, July 22, 2009.
4. Amit sat down with the Israeli air force: Ibid.
5. James Jesus Angleton: Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, 275. “Jim’s interest in Israel was of exceptional value… To my knowledge, only Israel has ever dedicated a monument to a foreign intelligence officer.” Angleton worked as “the Agency’s liaison with the FBI… The best of Angleton’s operational work is still classified and in my view should remain so.”
6. Agency’s most enigmatic and bellicose spies: Author visit to CIA spy museum, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia.
7. “wilderness of mirrors”: Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, 277. The phrase has become synonymous with Angleton’s thinking and most notably included Angleton’s belief that the split between the Soviet Union and China was not real. According to Helms, Angleton’s “conviction that the Sino-Soviet split was mirage created by Soviet deception experts [was] interesting but simply not true.”
8. when they worked in the OSS counterintelligence unit, X-2: Ibid., chapter 28, “Beyond X-2.”
9. Helms’s status with President Johnson: Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 319.
10. But what didn’t make the news: Interviews with Colonel Slater, Frank Murray, T. D. Barnes.
11. Doris was reading the classified: Interview with Doris Barnes.
12. Beatty, Nevada, was one strange town: Details about Beatty in the 1960s come from interviews with Doris Barnes and T. D. Barnes.
13. “Daddy’s spaceship!”: Interviews with the Barnes’s two daughters, who wish to remain anonymous.
14. where the X-15 could land if need be: Interview with Peter Merlin; Barnes, “NASA X-15 Program,” 1.
15. Barnes got on the radio channel: The dates and data regarding X-15 mission flights can be found in Jenkins, Hypersonics Before the Shuttle. This story of the missing audiotape comes from Barnes.
16. a catastrophic midair collision occurred: I tell the story as Barnes related it to me. Another