The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974

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Secret fdOFORN
Chapter 6
302
sufficient support. The JCS and the PFIAB supported the CIA's advo­
cacy of OXCART deployment. Top State and Defense Department of­
ficials, however, thought that the political risks of basing the aircraft
in Okinawa-which would almost certainly disclose it to the
Japanese-outweighed any gains from the intelligence the OXCART
might gather. On 12 August I 966, the divergent views were presented
to President Johnson, who upheld the 303 Committee's majority opin­
ion against deployment for the time being. 5'
The CIA then proposed an OXCART overflight of Cuba in order
to test the aircraft's ECM systems in a hostile environment. On 15
September the 303 Committee considered and rejected this idea on
the grounds that sending OXCART over Cuba "would disturb the ex­
isting calm prevailing in that area of our foreign affairs." 57
With operational missions still ruled out, proficiency training re­
mained the main order of business. This led to improvements in mis­
sion plans and flight tactics that enabled the detachment to reduce the
time requi~ed to deploy to Okinawa from 21 days to 15. Records con­
tinued to fall to the OXCART. On 21 December 1966, a Lockheed
test pilot tlew an A-12 for 16,408 kilometers over the continental
United States in slightly more than six hours, for an average speed of
2,670 kilometers per hour (which included in-flight refueling at
speeds as low as 970 kilometers per hour). This flight set a record for
speed and distance unapproachable by any other aircraft. 58
Two weeks later, on 5 January 1967, an A-12 crashed after a fuel
gauge malfunctioned and the aircraft ran out of fuel short of the run­
way. Pilot Walter Ray ejected but was killed when he could not
become separated from the ejection seat. To preserve the secrecy of
the OXCART program, the Air Force informed the press that an
SR-71 was missing and presumed down in Nevada. This loss, like the
three preceding crashes, did not result from difficulties caused by
high-speed, high-temperature flight but from traditional problems in­
herent in any new aircraft.
Proposals for OXCART operations continued to surface, and in
May 1967 the CIA forwarded a detailed request to the 303 Committee
to use the OXCART to collect strategic intelligence about a new
'• Minnich ...OXCART Story:· p. 23 (S): OSA History. chap. 20. pp. 110-111 (TS
Codeword).
"OSA History, chap. 20. p. 112 (TS Codeword).
"Minnich. "OXCART Story:· p. 24 (S).
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