REDUCTION OF A-12/SR-71 FLEETS

Created: 12/29/1966

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Kail IU KT CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

washington, d.WCE Of DEPUTY DIRECTOR Of CENTRAL INTEUIGENCE

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6

MEMORANDUM FOR: THE DIRECTOR

Reductionleet!

I. After numerous meetings between BoB and our people, the following throe options were presented to the President by the Director of the Budget on either the afternoon ofecember or the morning ofecember:

both2 and theleetsbases and reduce the total fleetircraft, (Estimated savings

illion; five year0 million.) elms for this.

Retain only theircraft andf them io CIA to bo operated from the CIA airEstimated savingsillion; five yearne for this.

Retain only theircraftingle base undor Air Forco management with possible use of some civilian crews for covert missions. (Estimated savingsillion; five yearind Schultse for this (Hornig indicated for this in longer attachment to BoB memo but not in basic memo itself.)

2. The Memorandum for the Presidenttated that Mr. Vance and Mr. Schultae recommendednd that you recommended alternative 1. The Memorandum also stated that you, Vance, Hornig and Schultao all agreed that the total fleet size should be reduced toircraft.

DATE: ! B-66

Upon seeing the draft of the Memorandum on Tuesday afternoon and being unable to reach Schultze oralled Walt Rostow to inform him that the Memorandum did not fully reflect our reservation as set forth inrote and checked with Bross, While and Duckett, Tho essence of this reservation is that, in your opinion, thend2 cannot yet be considered interchangeable for operational purposes. Mr. Rostow confirmed that the memorandum was sent to the Ranch in the late afternoon ofecember (Washington time).

I was informed by Mr. Fisher via John Bross in mid-morning,ecember, while in General Taylor's office on another matter, that the President had electedut would listenccluma from you if you wished to come down to the Ranch on Thursday,ecember, to make one.

After discussion with interested parties here in the Agency and consultation with Walteclined to go to the Ranch on your behalf or to inform you,o informed Mr.easoned that we stood to lose more than wc might gain byeclama since we would have only two grounds upon which to basene, that the DCI should keep the sponsorship of this asset and, two, that thead not yet proven itself an equivalent aircraft for this purpose although projected performance characteristics, if achieved, would eliminate any significant differences. Since these two points had already been made, not having any additional argument to present, and knowing that tho President isevere budgetid not feel that the Agency should risk tarnishing its image with the President on what appeared to me toosing propositionard one to justify to him anyhow.

While in General Taylor's office on the morning ofas asked by Pat Coyne the status of our discussions on this issue and gaveun-down on the situation as it then was. He expressed great interest and asked to have full information in writing for the benefit of the PFIAB. eceived John Bross's call relaying Fisher'ssked John to sendopy of the draft Memorandum to the Presidentopy of my memorandum to Walt Rostow. Having donenformed Coyne that afternoon

of the President's decision and of my own decision not to reclama,

suggesting at the same time that Clark Clifford might be interested

in this matter. Coyne callod me later that afternoon to inform me that

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ho had discussed the matter with Clark Clifford who felt that it would be counter-productive for him or the PFIAB lo get into itthia stage and thai he agreed with my decision not to reclama. Coyne added however that the PFIAB would be very interested in this matter and would discuss it at their forthcoming meeting in early February. Ho also indicated that meanwhile Clark Clifford would discuss the matter with the President at an earlier date.

7. What follows from here on is background as to how this all came about. On Saturday morning,ecember, Henry Rowen callad mc to say that he had understood agreement had been reached late Friday,d, to the effect that differences between performance of2 andere not significant. Ho said he was in the process ofemorandum for the President, the wording of which he would like to make sure met with ournformod Rowen that we had not arrived at any such agreement. Even though we had narrowed the gap, ii was still sufficiently significant to impel us to urge retention of2 on the grounds of lack of demonstrated performance ofnd the need to preserve the demonstrated capability oflso reminded Rowen that onecember, Dr. Hornig had written the Director of the Budget advising him of Dr. Hornig's withdrawal of his previous concurrence until the facts on performance could be sorted out. Rowen informed mo that he had Hornig's concurrenceater found out not to be the case since Dr. Hornig was out of town and Dr. Steininger had specifically pointed out that Dr. Hornig could not now be included amongst those who recommended option 3. Shortly after noon on Saturdayh, Rowen called me to say that they wouldn't be able to finish the draft on Saturday but would take it up againaid this was fine with me,ould be available and wanted to emphasize that our position contered around demonstrated capability.

fi. eceived no call from Rowan on Monday, either at the Agency or at homeept the Watch informed of my whereabout It was not until mid-day Tuesday that it became clear that the draft Memorandum had been completed without any further consultation with us and was on its way lo the Ranch. an only conclude that Rowen either misunderstood me or neglected to solicit our comment on the final draft under the assumption thai our telephone conversation was adequate for the purpose, esitate to believe that his actions were deliberate although that is possible.

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Tha following ia my general opinion. On them inclined to think that thia decision should not be contested by you or the PFIAB even though it creates considerable difficulties for us in maintaining an interim capability and there is some nek of losing altogether the capability of relatively invulnerablehink the degree of this latter risk is difficult to demonstrate at this stage. Of course, thisore-runner for gelling you out of any sort of manned reconnaissance activities over denied territory thus adding to the political complications when we get caught at it. This need not necessarily be bad as long as we retain the capability to compel prompt delivery to us of results. hink wo can do that (assuming this type flighthich I'm inclined to doubt).

r

u. s, wavy irector

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Original document.

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