Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
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lenses. Since the university did not wish to continue manufacturing cameras and lenses after the end of the war, the optical laboratory moved to Boston University, which agreed to sponsor the effort as long as the Air Force would fund it. Baker decided to remain at Harvard, so his assistant, Dr. Duncan E. Macdonald, became the new head of what was now called the Boston University Optical Research Laboratory (BUORL). Baker’s association with the Air Force did not end with the transfer of the optical laboratory to Boston University, because he continued to design lenses to be used in photoreconnaissance.³⁷
The ISP first met at Boston University on 3 August 1953. To provide background on the poor state of US knowledge of the Soviet Union, Philip Strong informed the other panel members that the best intelligence then available on the Soviet Union’s interior was photography taken by the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Since the German photography covered only the Soviet Union west of the Urals, primarily west of the Volga River, many vital regions were not included. The ISP would, therefore, have to look for ways to provide up-to-date photography of all of the Soviet Union. Several Air Force agencies then briefed the panel members on the latest developments and proposed future projects in the area of aerial reconnaissance, including new cameras, reconnaissance balloons, and even satellites. Among the Air Force reconnaissance projects discussed were multiple sensors for use in existing aircraft such as the RB-47, RB-52, and RB-58; Project FICON—an acronym for “fighter conversion”—for adapting a giant, 10-engine B-36 bomber to enable it to launch and retrieve a Republic RF-84F Thunderflash reconnaissance aircraft; reconnaissance versions of the Navajo and Snark missiles; the high-altitude balloon program, which would be ready to go into operation by the summer of 1955; and the search for a new high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.³⁸
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³⁷ Baker interview (S). In 1957, after the Air Force decided to cut back its funding of BUORL, Duncan Macdonald and Richard Leghorn (by then retired from the Air Force) formed their own corporation—Itek—and purchased the laboratory from Boston University (Leghorn interview [S]).
³⁸ Memorandum for Robert Amory, Jr., Deputy Director, Intelligence, from Edward L. Allen, Chief, Economic Research, ORR, and Philip G. Strong, Chief, Operations Staff, OSI, “Meeting of the Intelligence Systems Panel of the Scientific Advisory Board, USAF,” 26 August 1953; Memorandum for H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director/Scientific Intelligence, from Chief, Support Staff, OSI, “Review of OSA Activities Concerned with Scientific and Technical Collection Techniques,” 13 May 1955, p. 6, OSI (OSWR) records, job 80R-01424, box 1 (S); Donovan interview, 22 May 1985 (S).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25