Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
260
altitudes of 80,000 to 90,000 feet but only at subsonic speeds, just enough to keep it airborne.¹
The slow-flying Northrop design did not solve the problem of radar detection, and in 1957 the emphasis switched to supersonic designs. In August 1957, the Scientific Engineering Institute (SEI), a CIA proprietary firm that had been working on ways to reduce the U-2’s vulnerability to radar, began to investigate the possibility of designing an aircraft with a very small radar cross section. SEI soon discovered that supersonic speed greatly reduced the chances of detection by radar.² From this point on, the CIA’s attention focused increasingly on the possibility of building an aircraft that could fly at both extremely high speeds and high altitudes while incorporating the best ideas in radar-absorbing or radar-deflecting techniques.
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THE EVALUATION OF DESIGNS FOR A SUCCESSOR TO THE U-2
By the autumn of 1957, Bissell and Gibbs had collected so many ideas for a successor to the U-2 that Bissell asked DCI Dulles for permission to establish an advisory committee to assist in the selection process. Bissell also felt that the support of a committee of prominent scientists and engineers would prove useful when it came time to ask for funding for such an expensive project. Edwin Land became the chairman of the new committee, which included some of the scientists and engineers who had served on previous advisory bodies for overhead reconnaissance: Edward Purcell, Allen F. Donovan, H. Guyford Stever, and Eugene P. Kiefer. The Air Force’s chief scientist, Courtland D. Perkins, was also a member. The committee first met in November 1957 and held six more meetings between July 1958 and the late summer of 1959. The meetings usually took place in Land’s Boston office and almost always included the Air Force’s Assistant Secretary for Research and Development, Dr. Joseph V. Charyk, and his Navy counterpart, Garrison Norton. Designers from several aircraft manufacturers also attended some of the meetings.³
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¹ Donovan interview (S).
² “The OXCART Story,” *Studies in Intelligence* 15 (Winter 1971):2 (S).
³ Clarence L. Johnson, Report No. SP-1362, “History of the OXCART Program,” Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA, 1 July 1968, p. 1 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25