Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
309
models. The Secretary of Defense rejected this recommendation, presumably because the SR-71 would not be operational by September 1966.⁶⁴
In July 1966, at the Bureau of the Budget’s suggestion, a study group was established to look for ways to reduce the cost of the OXCART and SR-71 programs. The study group consisted of C. W. Fischer from the Bureau of the Budget, Herbert Bennington from the Department of Defense, and John Parangosky from CIA. The study group listed three possible courses of action: maintain both fleets, mothball the A-12s but share the SR-71s between CIA and the Air Force, or mothball the A-12s and assign all missions to Air Force SR-71s. On 12 December 1966, four high-level officials met to consider these alternatives. Over the objections of DCI Helms, the other three officials—Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, Bureau of the Budget Director Charles L. Schultze, and Presidential Scientific Adviser Donald F. Hornig—decided to terminate the OXCART fleet. Concerned that this recommendation would strip the CIA of its supersonic reconnaissance capability, Helms then asked that the SR-71 fleet be shared between CIA and the Air Force.⁶⁵
Four days later, Schultze handed Helms a draft memorandum for the President requesting a decision either to share the SR-71 fleet between CIA and the Air Force or to terminate the CIA capability entirely. Having just received new information indicating that the SR-71’s performance was inferior to that of the A-12, Helms asked for another meeting to review this data. His concern was that the SR-71 could not match the photographic coverage that the A-12 could provide. Only one of the SR-71’s three camera systems was working anywhere near the original specifications, and that was its Operational Objective system which could only photograph a swath 28 miles wide with a resolution of 28 to 30 inches. The A-12’s Type-I P-E camera could photograph a swath 72 miles wide with a nadir resolution of 12 to 18 inches and oblique resolution of 54 inches. Thus, the A-12’s camera covered three times as much territory as the SR-71’s camera and did so with better resolution. In addition, the A-12 could fly 2,000 to 5,000 feet higher than the SR-71 and was also faster, with a maximum speed of Mach 3.1 compared with the SR-71’s Mach 3.0.⁶⁶
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⁶⁴ *OSA History*, chap. 20, p. 130 (TS Codeword); [redacted] “OXCART Story,” p. 30 (S).
⁶⁵ *OSA History*, chap. 20, pp. 130-133 (TS Codeword); [redacted] “OXCART Story,” pp. 30-31 (S).
[redacted] “OXCART Story,” p. 31 (S); *OSA History*, pp. 133-134 (TS Codeword).
Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25