Area 51_ An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base - Annie Jacobsen [240]
12. the Chicago of the West: State Historic Preservation Office, Beatty, Center of the Gold Railroads, “Chicago of the West,” Nevada Historical Marker 173.
13. “secret testing [that] could be conducted safely and securely”: Johnson, “Tonopah Test Range Outpost of Sandia National Laboratories,” 8.
14. would quote Saint Paul of Tarsus: Ibid., 9.
15. Operation Roller Coaster, three dirty bomb tests: Ibid., 47; Operation Roller Coaster Sites, TTR SAFER Plan, Section 2.0. Map here; NVO-171 Environmental Plutonium on the Nevada Test Site and Environs, June 1977, 35.
16. construction for an F-117 Nighthawk support facility: Interview with Peter Merlin.
17. grow their hair long and to grow beards: Interview with Richard Mingus, who lived there.
18. test flights of the F-117: Crickmore, Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, 4. Major Al Whitley became the first operational pilot to fly the Nighthawk in October of that year.
19. Lieutenant General Robert M. Bond: U.S. Air Force official Web site, biography.
20. men like General James “Jimmy” Doolittle: Interview with Harry Martin.
21. “There was some debate about whether the general”: Barnes had left Area 51 by this time; this is a secondhand story. Having been involved in the MiG program since its inception, Barnes was privy to information about Bond but was never formally briefed.
22. were the general’s last words: Transcript reads: 10:17:50 a.m., Bond: “How far to the turn?” 10:17:53 a.m. Ground control: “Turn now, right 20.” Bond responds with two clicks. At 10:18:02 a.m. Bond: “I’m out of control. I’m out of…” At 10:18:23 a.m. Bond: “I’ve got to get out, I’m out of control.”
23. Fred Hoffman, a military writer: Hoffman, “Allies Help Pentagon Obtain Soviet Arms,” Associated Press, May 7, 1984.
24. at Area 51 and Area 52 for eleven years: Johnson, “Tonopah Test Range Outpost of Sandia National Laboratories,” 79. The first flight of Have Blue was December 1, 1977, by Bill Park at 7:00 p.m. as noted in Crickmore, Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk.
25. Code-named Aquiline: Hank Meierdierck’s personal papers; interview with Jim Freedman; interview with Millie Meierdierck, who had the only known mock-up of the drone sitting on the bar in her home.
26. original purpose of Aquiline: Interview with Gene Poteat.
27. Cold War Soviet hydrofoil named Ekranopian: James May, “Riding the Caspian Sea Monster,” BBC News magazine, September 27, 2008.
28. Jim Freedman to assist him on the Aquiline drone: Interview with Jim Freedman.
29. ninety-nine million dollars over budget: Hank Meierdierck’s personal papers.
30. Project Ornithopter: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 148.
31. Project Insectothopter: Seen by the author at the CIA museum, located inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
32. “Acoustic Kitty”: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 147.
33. sensor drones to detect WMD signatures: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
34. Early efforts had been made using U-2 pilots: Interview with Tony Bevacqua, who flew “sniffer” missions in U-2s for the U.S. Air Force. The Black Cat pilots flew some of these dangerous missions, per my interview with Colonel Slater.
35. Operation Tobasco, risked exposure: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 93–94.
36. did considerable damage to the Agency’s reputation: Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” 220. Marks’s entire chapter 12, “The Search for Truth,” is a particularly searing portrait of how the CIA was perceived during this time.
37. “probable biological warfare research”: CIA Top Secret, Biological Warfare, USSR: Additional Rumors of an Accident at the Biological Warfare Institute in Sverdlovsk. Dated October 15, 1979. Declassified 6/10/96.
38. Hellfire missiles: Lockheed makes the Hellfire, which is an acronym for its original design: helicopter-launched, fire-and-forget.
39. his name was Osama bin Laden: Coll, Ghost Wars, 533: “While hovering over Tarnak Farm outside Kandahar, the Predator photographed a man who appeared to be bin Laden.”
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