An early scheme was to package the aviation fuel in rubber bladders big enough to hold five hundred gallons each and drop them from aircraft to the refueling spot. Parachutes would slow the multiton blivits’ descent, and the forces aboard the choppers would then roll them into position to transfer the fuel with manually operated pumps. This would avoid the necessity of landing large fixed-wing aircraft in the desert, a risky maneuver.
It proved easier said than done. At a complete dry run of the mission staged in the Arizona desert outside Yuma at the end of November, Burruss was standing with General Phillip C. Gast, Fitch, and Boykin when a practice blivit-drop was attempted. It was a clear desert night with a full moon and they could clearly see growing black blobs against the dark blue sky as they descended. Major Schoomaker was looking up with night-vision goggles, expecting to see a neat row of pallets come flying out of the plane at intervals, then blossom with parachutes, and instead saw what looked like an airplane vomiting something off its back ramp. It was immediately apparent that some of the blobs were falling much too fast, plummeting actually. Something about their squishy bulk had played havoc with the rigging and their parachutes had failed to open. They streamered in, great black hurtling, truck-sized watermelons that hit the desert floor with a gigantic cracking sploosh! The air was suddenly pungent with the odor of splattered aviation fuel. More followed.
“Jesus Christ, I hope none of them is coming my way,” said Fitch.
Cigarettes were hastily extinguished.
It was sploosh! after sploosh! as the blivits crashed in. Three of the ten blivits landed safely, but moving them across the uneven desert ground proved more difficult than imagined. Eventually the riggers would lick the problem of landing the blivits softly, but the time it took to move them and pump fuel from them, along with the unforgettable experience of hearing them crack into the desert floor, permanently soured the mission planners on the method. So it was back to the drawing boards.
The dry run had disclosed other serious problems. The navy chopper pilots were especially unimpressive. They were accustomed to flying relatively low-stress minesweeping runs over water. This mission would call for something much harder. The choppers were going to be loaded right up to their maximum carrying capacity—Delta had carefully calculated how much ammunition and water each man could carry in order to make sure they stayed just under the limit—which made them difficult to maneuver in the best of circumstances. The pilots would be flying in blacked-out conditions wearing night-vision goggles, which were a technological miracle but which sharply reduced range of vision and could be worn for only thirty minutes at a time before causing severe eye strain. The pilots had to take turns wearing them on a long flight. Entering Iran stealthily called for maneuvering in darkness through mountain ranges flying low enough to avoid radar, which was often hair-raising. Landing and taking off in the desert stirred up dust storms that often meant flying blind. After the first dry run, one of the pilots begged off the mission. Beckwith wanted him court-martialled, calling him a “quitter” and worse, and though the pilot was not punished, he was forced to remain in isolation, for fear of leaking information. Eventually the entire navy squadron was replaced by marine pilots who lacked experience with the Sea Stallions but who had more experience flying missions over land, and in combat. This did not completely placate Beckwith and his squadrons, who had worked with veteran air force special-ops pilots whom they trusted and greatly respected. But this was a “joint op,” and the air force already had its piece of the mission, flying the fixed-wing aircraft. Beckwith suspected, rightly, that the marines were given the choppers to fly to satisfy their need for a role. The marines believed their pilots were at least as good as the air force’s, if not better, but there was no convincing “Charging Charlie.” As far as he was concerned, he was getting second-string pilots because the brass was less interested in success than in keeping things collegial in the Pentagon dining halls. This suspicion, that Pentagon politics was being given a higher priority than excellence, would continue to influence morale. Delta believed the men recruited to deliver them and fly them out were not in their league.
The biggest problem remained intelligence, specifically what in tactical parlance was called EEI (Essential Elements of Information). There was no CIA presence in Iran—the three agency officers were being held hostage. In a message to General Vaught after the Yuma exercise, Beckwith produced an alphabetized list of concerns.
My most critical EEIs remain unanswered. These are the vital questions which must be answered to reduce the current risk and accomplish our rescue mission: A. Are all the hostages actually in the embassy compound during the hours of darkness? B. Where and in what strength are check points along major routes in Tehran which lead to the embassy compound? C. What assistance and support can be provided to Delta by in-place assets? D. Who will drive the trucks if and when [they are obtained]? E. Are there any safe houses in the vicinity of the compound Delta could use prior to the actual rescue? F. What is the night time MO [modus operandi] of roving patrols and sentry posts in and around the compound? G. What is the strength of the enemy inside the compound during the hours of darkness? Can the enemy reinforce the compound? If so, in what strength?
As problems were identified, the number of mission planners at the Pentagon kept growing. They were crammed into a relatively small space, along with tables, chairs, filing cabinets, maps, and displays. Room 2C840 was off the chairman’s corridor, a ceremonial stretch of hallway lined with portraits of the lengthening line of men who had served as chairman of the joint chiefs. There was a cipher lock on the door to enter the outer office, and a second steel door inside with another cipher lock that led to the inner sanctum. It was a classic boiler-room environment, windowless, crowded, and noisy with conversation and ringing phones. The space was so cramped that it resembled the inside of a submarine, with exposed wires and pipes in the ceiling and wall-to-wall desks, safes, files, maps, and people. The air-conditioning didn’t work well, and about half of those in the room smoked. Briefings were held every morning and every afternoon for the chairman of the joint chiefs and the secretary of defense, Harold Brown, and in the afternoons Brzezinski usually sat in. Sometimes Hamilton Jordan stopped by. Brzezinski dominated the meetings, going on often at sometimes infuriating length about theoretical things that the nuts-and-bolts men in the room found irrelevant. The chairman, General Jones, was so soft-spoken and deferential that even when he spoke the men in the room sometimes couldn’t make out what he was saying. Brown would fiddle with his glasses and sometimes look at Jones imploringly, as if to say, Tell me what to do here. The goal was always to reach a point where Jones and Brown felt comfortable that the mission had a reasonable chance of success, and day after day it was clear that they were still a long way from that goal.