The problems, severe enough to threaten the Black Shield schedule, were traced to poor Lockheed maintenance. On August 3, 1965, CIA Deputy for Technology John Paragosky met with Kelly Johnson. They had a "frank discussion" on what was needed to fix the shortcomings. Johnson decided he would have to personally supervise activities at Groom Lake on a full-time basis; the following day, he began working at the site. The official history said Johnson's "firm and effective management" put Black Shield back on schedule.
Four A-12s were selected to make the deployment. During the final qualification flights, the A-12 reached a speed of Mach 3.29 and an altitude of 90,000 feet. The maximum duration above Mach 3.2 was one hour and fourteen minutes. The total flight duration was six hours and twenty minutes.
On November 22, 1965, Kelly Johnson wrote: "Over-all, my considered opinion is that the aircraft can be successfully deployed for the Black Shield mission with what I would consider to be at least as low a degree of risk as in the early U-2 deployment days. Actually, considering our performance level of more than four times the U-2 speed and three miles more operating altitude, it is probably much less risky than our first U-2 deployment. I think the time has come when the bird should leave its nest."
The decision for the A-12 to "leave its nest" rested with the 303 Committee, the board that oversaw intelligence operations. On December 2, the 303 Committee received a formal request that the A-12 be deployed to Kadena.
The committee refused but ordered that a quick-reaction capability be established. This would allow the A-12s to deploy within twenty-one days of an order, any time after January 1, 1966.
The year ended on a sour note. On December 28, 1965, Vojvodich took off in Article 126 to make a check flight after major maintenance. Seven seconds after he left the ground, the plane went out of control. Vojvodich had no chance to deal with the problem and ejected at an altitude of 150 feet. He narrowly missed the fireball as Article 126 exploded, but he survived unharmed.[184]
The accident investigation board found that a flight-line electrician had reversed the connections of the yaw and pitch gyros, which reversed the controls. CIA Director McCone ordered the Office of Security to investigate the possibility that it had been sabotage. No evidence was found, but they discovered the gyro manufacturer had earlier warned such an accident was possible. No action (such as color-coding the connections) had been taken on the warning. As with Park's crash the year before, no word leaked out about the accident.[185]
Throughout 1966, there were frequent requests to the 303 Committee to allow the A-12 to be deployed. The CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board all favored the move, while the State and Defense Departments opposed it. The A-12's supporters argued that there was an urgent need for intelligence data on any possible Chinese moves to enter the Vietnam War. Those opposed to deployment felt the need was not sufficient to justify the risks to the aircraft, and the political risks of basing it on Okinawa. Japan had powerful left-wing groups who were protest-ing U.S. involvement in Vietnam. On August 12, 1966, the disagreement was brought to President Johnson, who refused to approve deployment.
As the 303 Committee debated, the Black Shield plan was further refined. The new plan cut the original twenty-one-day deployment time nearly in half. The first loads of personnel and equipment would leave Groom Lake for Kadena on the day deployment was approved. On the fifth day, the first A-12 would takeoff on the five-hour-and-thirty-four-minute, 6,673-mile flight. The second A-12 would follow on the seventh day, and the third on the ninth day. Two A-12s would be ready for an emergency overflight eleven days after approval was given. A normal mission could be flown after fifteen days. A Skylark mission over Cuba could be flown seven days after the go-ahead.
The A-12 also showed what it could do. On the morning of December 21, 1966, Park took off from Groom Lake. He flew north to Yellowstone National Park; turned east to Bismark, North Dakota, and Duluth, Minnesota; then flew south to Atlanta, Georgia, and on to Tampa, Florida. He turned west, flying across the country to Portland, Oregon, then south to Nevada.
He again turned east, flying to Denver, Colorado; St. Louis, Missouri; and Knoxville, Tennessee. He turned west, passing Memphis before finally landing back at Groom Lake. The flight covered 10,198 miles, involved four flights across the United States, several in-flight refuelings, and still had taken only six hours.[186]
But following this success, the Oxcart program had its first fatal accident. On January 5, 1967, Walter Ray was flying a training mission in Article 125. As he descended, a fuel gauge malfunctioned, and the plane ran out of fuel about seventy miles from Groom Lake.[187] Ray ejected, but the seat separation device failed when his parachute pack became wedged against the head rest. He died when the seat hit the ground.[188]
The air force made an announcement that an SR-71 on a routine test flight out of Edwards Air Force Base was missing and presumed down in Nevada. The pilot was described as a civilian test pilot, and newspapers assumed he was with Lockheed.[189] The wreckage was found on January 6, and Ray's body was recovered the next day. The A-12s were grounded pending an investigation of the fuel gauge and ejector seat failures.
The third and final group of CIA A-12 pilots began training at Groom Lake in the spring of 1967. They were David P. Young, Francis J. Murray, and Russell J. Scott. Scott was an Air Force Test Pilot School graduate (Class 62C and ARPS IV) while the others came from operational backgrounds.[190]
In May of 1967, the roadblock to the Black Shield deployment finally ended. Fears began to grow that surface-to-surface missiles might be introduced into North Vietnam. Aggravating matters were concerns that conventional reconnaissance aircraft lacked the capability to detect such weapons.
President Johnson requested a study of the matter. When told that the A-12's camera was far superior to those on the U-2, and that the plane was less vulnerable, State and Defense representatives who had opposed deployment began to reconsider. CIA Director Richard Helms submitted another proposal to the 303 Committee for A-12 deployment. He also raised the issue at President Johnson's "Tuesday lunch" on May 16. Johnson finally agreed to the deployment. The formal approval was made later that day. Black Shield was under way.[191]
The airlift to Kadena began the next day. On May 22, the first A-12, Article 131, was flown by Vojvodich from Groom Lake to Kadena in six hours and six minutes. Layton piloted Article 127 to Kadena on May 24, while Article 129 with Weeks as pilot, left on May 26. Following a precau-tionary landing at Wake Island, it continued on the following day. By May 29, 1967, the A-12 Oxcarts were ready to make their first overflight. After ten years of work, it was time.
Project Headquarters in Washington, D.C., had been monitoring the weather over North Vietnam. At the May 30 mission alert briefing, the weather was judged favorable, and the A-12 unit was ordered to make an overflight the next day. The alert message also contained the specific route it was to take. At Kadena, the message set events in motion. Vojvodich was selected as the primary A-12 pilot with Layton as the backup pilot. The two planes, a primary and backup A-12, were inspected, the systems were checked, and the camera was loaded with film. Like the CIA U-2s, these planes carried no national markings, only a black paint finish and a small five-digit serial number on the tail fins.
190
Stowe,