My tongue-in-cheek reference to the Doc’s space-time continuum theories may seem like a feeble attempt at humor, but in the case of FIA it would be very easy to go down the conspiracy theory rat hole over how it played out.
A few key questions or issues that remain somewhat mysteries of life include whether the FIA procurement was undertaken to finesse a lower bid out of Lockheed Martin (LMC)-or not-although it seems obvious, or maybe to exercise the NRO acquisition processes. After all-the funds were programmed and allocated and the chances of the NRO using them for anything but the procurement in the wake of the building disclosure was improbable at best.
Also, what is the actual backstory on the building? Who thought that would be a viable and workable idea? I’ve mentioned those issues previously.
Then there are the other leadership issues. I’ve mentioned the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenant a number of times in this series, as he was responsible for most of the decisions-short of the FIA optical cancellation and award to LMC-that took place after he retired (and were therefore made by the new DNI.)
The backstory that brought Tenet to be the DCI is a bit fascinating to an observer of life in this context as well, being another nod to Doc’s theory in my mind: it’s certainly a story of happenstance and being in the right place at the right time of the winky, winky variety.
He served nearly ten years in a number of staff positions within the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI,) culminating in Staff Director from 1988 to 1993: an important and powerful position. Tenet was part of President Clinton’s national security transition team in 1993 and was subsequently appointed as the Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council from 1993-1995.
Tenet was appointed as Deputy DCI (DDCI) in July 1995. Upon John Deutch’s abrupt resignation in December 1996 (the laptop classification issues would follow shortly thereafter,) Tenet suddenly found himself atop the IC as acting DCI. The next assumed DCI–Anthony Lake (a good read)–President Clinton’s National Security Advisor–could not get the support of republicans in the wake of a number of issues, not the least of which was the continued roiling on the hill of the hugely controversial CIA 1995 Ballistic Missile National Intelligence Estimate that was subsequently reviewed by separate commissions led by Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld.
With the new “sheriff” in town-President Clinton-the hill was wasting no time working to harvest the Strategic Defense Initiative funds, as well as a number of defense related plans and programs as part of the Soviet Union collapse peace dividend. Many of us were afforded the opportunity for Voluntarily Early Retirement after being passed over, qualifying for early retirement.
While Lake had nothing to do with any of it, the senate was simply not inclined to support his appointment.
When Lake acknowledged the inevitable and withdrew from consideration, Tenant quite suddenly and unexpectedly found himself as the next DCI on July 11, 1997-at the ripe old age of ~45 (in a position where the average experience over the years has been over 30 years,) in a unanimous vote by the senate (which is only strange if you think about the somewhat circuitous path Tenant followed from the SSCI (which some believe has Support CIA in the middle of it-well, me) to Clinton’s transition team, to program support for the NSC to DDCI and then DCI in a span of twelve years.))
That’s not a knock on him, but just a classic Washington “how did this happen” thing.
I think it would be interesting for dear reader to consider-once again-my nod to Doc’s theory here, as in the space of a few years the leaders of both the NRO and the DCI/CIA changed over from leadership by domain experts in the sciences (John Deutch-Lincoln Lab background) and the earth observation/optics fields (Jeff Harris-Kodak-Rochester optics and sensing,) to the former SSCI Budget Director (Keith Hall) and the former SSCI Staff Director (George Tenet.) Oh, my!
And what am I insinuating here? If you read through 4C100, The Untold Story of the NRO Headquarters Staff from 1962 through 1990 (with the office designation representing the very well-known (in the business) NRO Dep DIR Pentagon Office space, compiled by a good friend and great guy-USAF Col (Ret) Phil Datama,)) it tells the tale of how small and deliberately recruited the NRO staff was starting out and how increases in staff and oversight resulting from among other things-declassification-eventually produced tension from within and without, somewhat attributed to elitism and a bit of tribalism, as well as unhealthy competition over time between the programs, who were all competing-in effect-for pieces of the same “budget” pie.
The one continuous good news story throughout this time period-a veritable fountain of knowledge on programs and budget-was Jimmie D. Hill. Ms. Joanne Isham is mentioned herein as well, but was agency, involved in program security in the early days and less so in the NRO bureaucratic “doings” other than budget and policy (although that was most of it.)
Now were I one of the former programs (like B-CIA-you know who you are) who was still somewhat “smarting” over the amount of national resources that were eventually provided via Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities dollars (TENCAP)-later also Joint Military Intelligence Program (JMIP) and Defense Strategic Reconnaissance Program dollars (DSRP,) I might have been inclined to push for a FIA decision with an engineer focus less on a Swiss Army Knife approach with an “everyman’s satellite” as represented in the follow-on to the KH-9 synoptic capability, and more on an exquisite scientific and technology/research and development, high resolution point collector, a la the successor to the KH-8 design. Hell, we (Program B) could do economic reporting-crop and poppy estimates-off Landsat and much less capable systems all day long…
What does that mean in terms of our story? If I were a cranky former program entity at this point-but one that had strong support on the hill-I might not mind if somebody bid both capabilities in one telescope-and had difficulty producing one-as long as it (1) was not my requirement, anyway, and (2) the matter of priorities would be decided in my favor at the Mission Operations Center by the planned Mission Integration function short of outbreak of war almost every time.
Or in a more dysfunctional vein-which you can read in the above NRO history, and appreciate it all the “mo better” as a Deja Vue “all over again” action outlined in an earlier article: if organizational changes were made that did away with having a specific “piece of the NRO pie” dedicated to my service or agency as a “program,” but I remained in the business of creating projects that were not programs, that were initially funded out of the “spare change” collected out of the budget residue, couches and seat cushions and “stuff,” as the hill-although let’s call out the SSCI and later the ODNI for what they did-guilty of funding these projects as if they were programs at the expense of actual SSCI and DNI approved programs, which much like a weed you don’t pick, gets bigger and eats more as the years go by.
That 10 or 30 or 80M dollar project concept development money eventually grows up into a “real project” that takes real money over time: but that still doesn’t make it an approved program.
The above is what I labeled the absolute worst practice US government project and program management action imaginable. Kind of like my wife and I saved money all year for a new van, and I surprise her with a new truck or better yet a jet ski…Or maybe a free horse…
How could this happen in today’s fiscally conscious environment (he cried out loud to no one in particular, since everybody on the inside knows it’s an out-of-control crock of toa?)
This extract tells the story of how the building was contracted-but that is supposed to be so yesterday (from the history-emphasis added)
The NRO was granted a great deal of flexibility in budget planning and execution. From inception, it incrementally funded the satellite programs, avoiding large budget variations from year to year. This also enabled it to modify satellites in development to take advantage of advancing technologies or address evolving requirements. It also had the authority to carry forward any unspent budget from year to year. These authorities provided flexibility to address satellite failures in response to urgent requirements without the need to request a “new start” authority, supplemental funding or a reprogramming action, or to lose unspent budget due to expiring funds. The NRO’s budget was reviewed and approved through a very streamlined process.
Consider that-again, referencing the history-it had been nearly fifteen years since the idea of a real/near-real time system was undertaken in a serious way when the planning that ultimately led to the FIA procurement began.
I earlier mentioned the effort that took place at (then) the Engineer Topographic Lab, where maybe Bob Taylor and COL Chuck Solohub (in the 4C1000 history) and later the Director of the Army Space Program Office, DAMO-FD and other Army Space Program advocates undertook a project to figure out how best to work the human-machine interface for a softcopy exploitation system in a digital environment (see recent article with the picture of the Udgar Hazy Imagery Digital Exploitation System (IDEX,) the first digital softcopy workstation, with the above efforts leading to the deployment of the Digital Imagery Test Bed Demonstration System (DITB DEMONS) fielded to the 18th Airborne (Imperial) Corps at Rae’s Compound.
I also mentioned the satellite technical manual “compromise” that was documented in the “Falcon and the Snowman,” but certain phrases did not show up in the internet search-and I lost track of where the reference was, but here is an extract from the NRO history:
In the winter of 1977, Christopher Boyce, a TRW employee working on a classified program, was arrested for selling to the Soviets classified information on US intelligence collection capabilities. William Kampiles, a CIA clerk, obtained a manual on the NRO’s KH-11 imagery satellite. He travelled to Greece and sold the highly classified document to the Soviets. Kampiles was arrested a year after Boyce. These two espionage cases revealed extensive technical details about NRO intelligence collection capabilities.
I’ll take “How the relatively unsophisticated Soviets began producing such accurate “SATRANS” US satellite overhead warning messages in the late 70s for $1000, Alexa.”
My other premise throughout this series was the undercurrent of competition for satellite resources and a “dynamic tension”-to say the least-in the prioritization of requirements and the allocation process.
This was particularly true in the aftermath of the Gulf War in many-particularly CIA and State Department/National Security Council-minds, when so many tactical targets were collected at the expense of strategic and national targets amidst what later became the building disaster. Followed shortly thereafter by the FIA optical (disaster-or debacle,) in which efforts were undertaken to restore balance between what had settled out as the “towers,” now focused on intelligence disciplines, vice services or agencies, including Imagery Intelligence (IMINT,) Signals Intelligence (SIGINT,) Communications, and Launch.
A major effort to restore and provide more USAF control over aspects believed to be in their lane was undertaken as the Air Force, NRO Integrated Planning Group (ANIPG) tackled these issues led by Brig Gen Robert “Bob” Kehler for NRO DIR Peter B. Teets in an attempt to identify and split out USAF specific efforts. If the effort succeeded, it was a very modest and quiet result.
In light of a number of these issues and the lessons not learned over the last six decades about what a special skill and discipline this whole “space thing” is, and why a best practice sometimes results in a military career that seems more like an NRO career path than an USAF career, it is because that is what it takes to neck out subject matter experts who can lead launch, intel, communications or satellite programs.
It is difficult to view the standup of Space Force in a softer light as a better way to go about this specific topic, as we’ve seen decades of malfeasance from a space expertise standpoint from the services, with a loss of continuity, placement of officers that lack critical skills, knowledge and ability to handle jobs, and an overall degradation that belies the importance of the accounts they are placed in a position to lead.
One important aspect of this NRO history is how many times the best practice of unbiased and competitive analysis resolved and “necked-out” the best satellite implementation option. You can’t/don’t see that in situations where the politics or other non-performance issues cloud the judgement of decision-makers.
It is also impossible to do if you don’t have a truly performance-based modeling and simulation capability that keeps “political thumbs” off the analytic scales.
I’m not done with my bad program exemplars by a long shot, and, yes, I know it comes across as depressing or myopically pessimistic or cynical, but many of these lessons have not been learned because we seem to keep doing the same silly stuff over, and over, and over-to infinity and beyond-again.
Which is where we will pick up in the next article.
24 November 2022
LSMBTG: Lamestream media echo chamber (LMEC-L) social media (SM) big tech tyrants (BT) and government (G)
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN
Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
Parler: https://parler.com/AFNNUSA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA