August 1966, Top Secret, Approved for release Jul 2001, 5. “5 October 1962, Last CIA Flight over Cuba (50 flown in all).”
18. pushing for preemptive strikes: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 265.
19. Ledford had been asked by McCone: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
20. General LeMay encouraged him to take the CIA liaison job: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 53.
21. Ledford’s plane crash, involving heroics: Official Website of U.S. Air Force, biography of Brigadier General Jack C. Ledford, retired Oct. 1, 1970; died Nov. 16, 2007.
22. tried to treat Ledford with opiates: This story was legendary among the men who worked under Ledford at Area 51 and is sourced from multiple interviews including with Colonel Slater and Frank Murray. A version of it can be read at the Arlington National Cemetery
Web site. Ledford’s backseater, Sergeant Harry C. Miller, died of his original wounds several hours after Ledford and the medic helped him out of the plane.
23. The chances were one in six, Ledford said: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 53.
24. Kennedy felt that if a CIA spy plane: Interview with Dr. Wheelon.
25. Air Force pilot flying an Agency U-2: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, 54.
26. Photographs showing nuclear missiles: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, photographic inserts.
Interviews: Ken Collins, Don Donohue, Sam Pizzo, Frank Murray, Roger Andersen, Florence DeLuna, Frank Micalizzi, Harry Martin
1. Collins went by the code name Ken Colmar: Interviews with Ken Collins, who had never revealed his code name before.
2. She made it as far as Athens: Powers, Overflight, 59.
3. he flew deep into North Korea: Citation, First Lieutenant Kenneth S. Collins, SO. No. 221 Hq FEAP, APO925, 6 May 53, by Command of General Weyland.
4. fired at by MiG fighter jets: Ibid.
5. Distinguished Flying Cross: Citation to Accompany the Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (First Oak Leaf Cluster) to Kenneth S. Collins. AO 2222924, United States Air Force.
6. coveted Silver Star for valor: Citation for Silver Star, First Lieutenant Kenneth S. Collins, by direction of the president.
7. a total of five Oxcarts being flight-tested at Area 51: Robarge, Archangel, 17.
8. Captain Donald Donohue would start out following Collins: Interview with Don Donohue.
9. Later, Jack Weeks: Interview with Ken Collins.
10. “Suddenly, the altimeter was rapidly unwinding”: Interview with Ken Collins.
11. Sam Pizzo had a monumental amount of work: Interview with Sam Pizzo.
12. took to the desert terrain on horseback: Interview with Ken Collins.
13. filled by Air Force brass: Interview with Colonel Slater.
14. Holbury had been given a commendation by General Patton: General Robert J. Holbury biography, Air Commander, Detachment 1 of the 1129th U.S. Air Force Special Activities Squadron at Groom Lake, Nevada; Roadrunners Internationale official Web site.
15. a pitot tube had in fact caused the crash: Interview with Collins; Parangosky, The Oxcart Story, 11.
16. monitoring phone conversations: Briefing Note for the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, 10 March 1964. Attachment 1 to BYE2015-64, “Project Oxcart Awareness Outside Cleared Community.” The Agency also had a system in place to monitor air traffic chatter during Oxcart test flights to see if any commercial or military pilots spotted the plane.
17. increasingly suspicious CIA: Col. Redmond White, Diary Notes, September 27, 1963, Secret. White was the CIA’s deputy director/support and his notes include a second reference to the disclosure to Aviation Week as well as a notation that CIA director John McCone said, “OXCART is going to blow sooner or later.”
18. the Air Force ordered not one but three variants: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central Intelligence Agency, 33.
19. letters stood for “Reconnaissance/Strike”: Memorandum, Secretary of the Air Force Eugene Zuckert to General Bernard Schriever, April 8, 1963, w/att: Procurement and Security Provisions for the R-12 Program, Top Secret.
20. eight hundred million dollars developing the B-70 bomber airplane: Marcelle Size Knaack, Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems, Post-World War II Bombers, 559. The XB-70A had its genesis in Boeing Aircraft Corporation’s Project MX2145. Also see Ball, Politics and Force Levels, 216-18.
21. the President was astonished: Rich, Skunk Works, 228. 22. “unnecessary and economically unjustifiable”: President
Kennedy, Special Message to the Congress of Urgent National Needs, delivered in person before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961.
23. Congress cut back its B-70 order even further: House Armed Services Committee, Authorizing Appropriations for Aircraft, Missiles and Naval Vessels for the Armed Forces (1961), 569, see FY 1962, 1564-65, 1577.
24. “Johnson, I want a promise out of you”: Rich, Skunk Works, 231.
25. LeMay promised to send Lockheed: Robarge, Archangel, 52. The Air Force initially envisioned a fleet of as many as a hundred YF12s, designed to intercept a Soviet supersonic bomber rumored to be in the works.
26. At the Ranch, it was business as usual: Interview with Colonel Slater.
27. finally delivered to the Ranch: Robarge, Archangel, 17. The J57 engine could reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a maximum height of 40,000 feet; interview with John Evans of Pratt and Whitney.
28. An X-ray showed the outline of a pen: Interview with Ed Lovick. 29. new set of challenges: Pedlow and Welzenbach, Central
Intelligence Agency, 38.
30. F-101 chase plane had run off the airstrip: Interview with Don Donohue.
31. Lyndon Johnson would be briefed: CIA Memo, Meeting with the President, Secretary Rusk, Secretary McNamara, Mr. Bundy and DCI. Re: Surfacing the OXCART, 29 November, 1963, 1.
Interviews: Jim Freedman, Colonel Slater, T. D. Barnes, Stanton Friedman
1. “I heard it was in Area 22”: Interview with Jim Freedman. In contemporary maps of the test site, Area 22 is located down by Camp Mercury. In the 1950s and 1960s, many of the quadrants were numbered differently.
2. 354,200 feet — almost 67 miles up: Jenkins, Hypersonics Before the Shuttle, 119. The Kбrmбn line, commonly used to define the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, is at an altitude of approximately 328,000, or 62 miles above sea level. The U-2 flew at 70,000 feet, or approximately 13 miles; the A- 12 flew at 90,000 feet, or approximately 17.5 miles.
3. “on 30 April, A-12 was in air”: Priority Secret Classified Message to Director from—2219Z Classified Message Secret 15 May 62, ZE19C “Oxcart Secure Ops.”
4. commercial pilots would report sightings: Interview with Colonel Slater; Annie Jacobsen, “The Road to Area 51,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 5, 2009, 26–28, 77.
5. Walter Cronkite hosted a CBS news special report: The report can be viewed online, “From the Vault,” CBS Reports.
6. Dr. Robertson appeared on a CBS Reports: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 74.
7. House Armed Services Committee held hearings on UFOs: “Congress Reassured on Space Visits,” New York Times, April 6, 1966.
8. Air Force laying blame for the cover-up on the CIA: Walter L. Mackey, executive officer, memorandum for DCI, “Air Force Request to Declassify CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO),”
September 1, 1966.
9. According to CIA historian Gerald Haines: Haines, “CIA’s Role.” 10. journalist named John Lear: Lear, “The Disputed CIA
Document on UFO’s,” Saturday Review, September 3, 1966.
11. One of the more enigmatic figures: Hillenkoetter took over amid negotiations on May 1, 1947, of what would be the National Security Act of 1947, so when the CIA came into being on September 18, 1947, he was
