PENTAGON SEEKS BILLIONS FOR 'CLASSIFIED' PLANE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470050-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: February 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470050-4
are WASHINGTON POST
} ~~~ 8 February 1985
Pentagon Seeks Billions
For `Classified' Plane
Secrecy Cloak Slips Off Mystery Craft
By George C. Wilson
Washington Peel Staff Writer
The Pentagon has said in a public
document that it wants $2.3 billion
for an Air Force plane called Aurora
but responded yesterday that the
plane-if it really is a plane-is
"classified."
The secrecy cloak slipped off the
spending plans for Aurora when the
Pentagon compiled its unclassified
shopping list, known as the PI doc-
ument. The P stands for procure-
ment.
Spending for Aurora, according
to this public document, shoots up
from zero this fiscal year to $80
million in fiscal 1936 to $2.27 bil-
lion in fiscal 1987. Reminded that
Aurora has been put in the public
domain by the Pentagon, an Air
Force spokesman said his orders
still were to say only: ""It's a clas-
sified program."
The office of Pentagon spokes-
man Michael I. Burch would say
nothing further.
Other Pentagon sources, howev-
er, said that Aurora may have some.
connection with the Stealth plane-
to be designed to hide from enemy
-radar-but that the really big mon-
ey for Stealth is held in a different
secret account and goes far beyond
$2.3 billion a year when it enters
the production stage.
"If you think $200 million is high
for one BI [bomber]," one source
said, "wait until you see the price
tag for Stealth."
B1 bombers are coming off the
Rockwell International production
line in California, while Stealth is
expected to be delivered early in
the 1,990s.
Stealth is being designed to make
search radar beams slip over its
body rather than be reflected back
to gunners' . scopes. This has
prompted the Northrop Corp.,
builder of Stealth, to design almost
all equipment to be carried inside
the plane rather than present sharp
angled surfaces that would reflect
radar beams.
A number of lawmakers are con-
cerned that the Air Force will
starve the Stealth bomber, formally
called ATB for advanced technology
bomber, in favor of the B1 bomber
now in hand.
Air Force Secretary Verne Orr
tried to allay these fears by telling
the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee yesterday that "we have no
internal plans whatsoever to buy
the 101st [B1] aircraft." The Air
Force is seeking $5.9 billion for
fiscal 1986 to buy the last 48 of its
order of 100 Bls.
Orr added, "We seem to be mak-
ing good progress" on the Stealth.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470050-4