THE PENTAGON'S 'BLACK' PROGRAMS: A VAST INDUSTRY CONDUCTED IN SECRET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706980002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~ Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14 :CIA-
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The Pentagon's `bltiex
PHILAllELYHIH I~4~LIxER
9 June 193
RDP90-009658000706980002-3
programs: Avast industry
conducted in secret
By Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles TSmes
LOS ANGELES - A Soviet observa-
tion satellite flies over Los Anpe
Pac av to c ec out operations at
tiny of a half-dozen industrial plants
involved in military proiects that are
the Pentagon's most highly classi-
fied.
every day they count the cars in
my parking lot," said Ben Rich, a
Lockheed Corp. executive who has
presided over the production of
whole fleets of secret aircraft.
So, how many cars does Rich have
in his parking lot?
"I can't tell you that. lt's secret," he
replied.
But the Soviets already should
know that Lockheed has as many as
10,000 workers building a new fleet
of aircraft that utilize radar-evasive
Stealth technology.
Across town, TRW Inc. has 17,000
workers largely buildirie secret spy
satellites such as the one sent up in
the space shuttle early this year, ac-
cordint; to industry sources.
Fifty miles to the north, in Palm-
dale, an imposing iron structure is
rising off the Mojave Desert that
apparently will be the final assembly
center of the advanced-technology
bomber, another secret program.
These facilities and similar ones
throughout the nation are part of an
industrial network, almost a separate
economy, that serves arapidly -ex-
panding agenda of secret Defense
Department programs.
While almost every weapon in-
volves some classified information
- the range of a torpedo, for in-
stance - many of these programs are
se highly classified that their very
existence is:not acknowledged.. Even
in the case of the stealth bomber,
which has been officially disclosed,
its costs, quantities and production
timetable are top secret.
This so-called black world of mili-
tary programs has become a nearly
530 billion industry, based largely in
California, that encompasses tens of
thousands of employees working un-
der Pentagon clearances and beyond
public scrutiny.
Funding for secret Pentagon pro-
curement and research has in-
creased sixfold between 1980, the last
year of the Carter administration,
and the Reagan administration
budget for fiscal 1986, which begins-
Oct. 1.
And the proportion of the Defense
Department budget for procurement
and research that is classified has
doubled to 20 percent, according to a
former undersecretary of defense,
Richard D. DeLauer.
The growth of black programs is
part of an even broader trend toward
greater secrecy at the Pentagon,
which has restricted access to cer-
fain key budget documents that pre?
viously were open to the public, lim-
ited the exchange of academic
knowledge in U.S. colleges and uni-
versities and curtaileu exports of
commercial products on national-se-
curity grounds.
The Pentagon contends that
greater secrecy is necessary to ma~;:-
tain U.S. leadership in weapons that
rely on advanced technologies in
electronics, optics and materials.
With such .weapons becoming the
norm rather than the exception, the
nation is producing ever more major
systems in secret. Among them are
an intercontinental nuclear bomber,
a tactical jet fighter, a variety of
spacecraft and space weapons, cruise
missiles, computers, radar systems
and even some tactical missiles.
But the turn toward reater se-
crecy atthe Pentagon, critics say as
important implications fora demo-
cracy that depends on public over-
sight. The Pentagon is seeking to
avoid scrutiny, t ey contend, block-
ing t e pu is s access to in orma-
tion on programs that probably are
no secret to Soviet intelli>;ence.
Of direct impact to taxpayers, crit-
ics add, black programs are signifi-
cantly more costly because of stag-
gering security costs and limited
business competition.
?
Concern over such programs has
not been limited to traditional Penta-
gon critics. They include usually
staunch defenders of the Pentagon
and individuals responsible for ma-
jor contributions to the nation's
weapons technology.
"I believe we have classified too
much," said Edward Teller, the sci?
Pntist who played a key role in devel-
oping the hydrogen bomb and who is
a leading advocate of President Rea-
gan's "Star Wars" plan. "Secrecy is a
measure that hurts our opponents a
little and'us a great deal."
Scientists and academics argue
that economic and technological de-
velopment in capitalist economies
has always depended on the flow of
information and the exchange of sci-
entific knowledge.
"It is open communication that
tests ideas and exposes the bad .
ones," said Robert Rosenzweig, presi-
dent of the Association of American
Universities, which has fought Pen?
tagon efforts to restrict the exchange _
of even unclassified information. "It
is not the case that we are smarter
than the Russians. Our advantage is
in the way we are organized and in
our system."
High-technology weapons deve]-
oped under extraordinary secrecy
are also among the most expensive,
according to sources who are either
involved in the work or who have
studied it closely from- the outside.
Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. in
Sunnyvale, Calif., for exam~ile, is be-
lieved to be but ding a massive p oto
reconnaissance satellite called the
12 at a cost of 51 billion, which
would make it the most ex ensive
satellite ever, acco ink t
Pike, an analyst for the American
Federation of Scientists in Washing-
ton.
STAT
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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706980002-3
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706980002-3 ~}
Although an exhaustive analysis of
such programs is impossible because
of their secrecy, reliable and respect-
ed figures in the defense industry
say the Pentagon's black programs
are far more expensive to operate
than more open, or "white," pro-
grams.
The B-f bomber, which is being
produced openly by Rockwell Inter-
national Curp., would cost twice as
much as the current 5200 million per
aircraft if it had to be produced in
secrecy, according to Sam lacobellis,
president of Rockwell International
Corp.'s North American Aircraft Op-
erations.
There are staggering costs for site
security, personnel security clear-
ances and loss of efficiency because
of "compartmentalization," a stand-
ard policy in black programs that
permits only a few top managers to
know all the details about a product,
or even what the product is.
Secret military business is never
conducted in ordinary buildings.
Black buildings have highly secure
rooms, surrounded by walls up to
one foot thick that seal in conversa-
tions and cannot be penetrated by
sensors. These buildings usually are
without windows; if a building has
windows, they are made of special
glass that is impervious to radio
waves.
Scrambler telephones that trans-
mit signals in code are needed to
discuss secrets. Even special sprin-
kler systems are needed, because
standard metal sprinkler systems act
as antennae that spies can use to tap
into computer and communications
systems.
"You see that mail box two blocks
away?" asked one top executive at a
defense firm, pointing through an
unsecure window. "With the right
equipment, I could sit out there and
listen to every word we are saying
and every word that is being typed
into computers in this building."
Rich, president of Lockheed Ad-
vanced Aeronautics Co., said in a
recent interview that he fires or
transfers an average of 100 employ-
ees each year out of his secret pro-
grams as potential security risks.
Drug abuse, excessive drinking and
even family disputes are the reasons.
The military itself is compartmen-
talized and h.as different lines of au-
thority for managing its white and
black programs. The Air Force Space
Division in nearby El Segundo, for
instance, has two separate organiza-
tions, a white one. that reports
through normal military channels
and a black one that has its own two-
star general who reports directly to
the assistant secretary of the Air
Force, according to James Schultz, a
former government employee at the
division.
?
Some industry executives say
.black programs operate with less
competition in the awarding of both
prime contracts and subcontracts,
thus tending to drive up costs. But
industry executives are reluctant to
publicly criticize the level of secrecy
because of the Pentagon's sensitivity
to any discussion about such pro-
, grams. Some executives, however,
are clearly opposed to current
trends.
"Black programs are the military
industrial complex at its worst," said
a corporate officer of a major Los
Angeles defense firm. "All the nor-
mal instincts in a democracy - com-
petition and exchange of ideas -
just vanish completely."
Such views may be gaining accep-
tance in Congress, which is increas-
ingly concerned with the loss of pub-
lic oversight in defense spending.
"As the Pentagon has been given
freedom in the last decade to get into
these highly classified programs,
there has been abuse," said Anthony
Battista, a staff member of the House
Armed Services Committee who is
one of the top congressional experts
on the Pentagon. "They are throwing
a lot of things under the national-
security umbrella just to prevent a
rigid congressional review dnd Ito
escape the tteed- to present budget
numbers publicly."
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706980002-3