Skunk Works

“For as long as you work here, this is your gospel,” Dick said. Then he told me we were working with the folks at Pratt & Whitney to modify a regular jet engine to fly higher by at least fifteen thousand feet than any airplane had ever before flown. There were some inlet problems that I would be addressing. I knew the Russians were mediocre engine builders, at least a generation behind us. I figured we were building a radically new high-flying long-range bomber. But then I was shown a drawing of the airplane and I let out a whistle of surprise. The wings were more than eighty feet long. It looked like a glider.

“What is that thing?” I exclaimed.

“The U-2,” Boehme whispered and put a finger to his lips. “You’ve just had a look at the most secret project in the free world.”

6 PICTURE POSTCARDS FOR IKE

THE FULL WEIGHT of government secrecy fell on me like a sack of cement that first day inside Kelly Johnson’s guarded domain. Learning an absolutely momentous national security secret just took my breath away, and I left work bursting with both pride and energy to be on the inside of a project so special and closely held, but also nervous about the burdens it would impose on my life.

I hadn’t been inside the Skunk Works two minutes before realizing that everything that happened there revolved around one man—Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. Kelly’s assistant, Dick Boehme, wasn’t about to brief me or tell me my duties. That was up to the boss himself, and Dick dutifully escorted me down the hall to Kelly’s corner office and stood by while Kelly, in shirtsleeves behind a behemoth-size mahogany desk, half hidden by an impressive stack of blueprints, welcomed me with neither a smile nor a handshake, but got to the point immediately: “Rich, this project is so secret that you may have a six-month to one-year hole in your résumé that can never be filled in. Whatever you learn, see, and hear for as long as you work inside this building stays forever inside this building. Is that clear? You’ll tell no one about what we do or what you do—not your wife, your mother, your brother, your girlfriend, your priest, or your CPA. You got that straight?”

“Yes, sure,” I replied.

“Okay, first read over this briefing disclosure form which says what I’ve just said, only in governmentese. Just remember, having a big mouth will cost you twenty years in Leavenworth, minimum. Sign it and then we’ll talk.”

He then continued, “I’m going to tell you what you need to know so that you can do your job. Nothing more, nothing less. We are building a very special airplane that will fly at least fifteen thousand feet higher than any Russian fighter or missile, so it will be able to fly across all of Russia, hopefully undetected, and send back beautiful picture postcards to Ike.”

I gulped.

“That’s its mission. Edwin Land, who designed the Polaroid camera, is also designing our cameras, the highest-resolution camera in the world. He’s got Jim Baker, the Harvard astronomer, doing a thirty-six-inch folded optic lens for us. We’ll be able to read license plates. And we’ve got Eastman Kodak developing a special thin film that comes in thirty-six-hundred-foot rolls, so we won’t run out.”

He handed me a large folder crammed with papers. “I’ve got a guy working on the engine inlets and exit designs. Here’s his work so far. I want you to review it carefully because I don’t think he’s up to speed. I also want you to take over all the calculations on what we’ll need for cabin heating and cooling, hydraulics, and fuel control. I don’t know how long I’ll need you here: maybe six weeks. Maybe six months. I’ve promised to have this prototype flying in six months. That will mean working six-day weeks. At least.”

He dismissed me with the back of his hand, and a few minutes later I was squeezed into an empty desk in a room jampacked with thirty-five growling, snorting designers and engineers, many of whom I had worked with on the F-104 Starfighter. Dick Fuller, an aerodynamicist who had come over from the main plant only the day before, was seated on one side of me, and a stability and control specialist named Don Nelson was on the other side. Our desks touched. We could put our arms around each other without even stretching. In Kelly’s tight little island, there was a yawning chasm between secrecy and privacy.

That first night I got home two hours later than usual, and Faye was not exactly delighted to see me. She had bathed our two-year-old son, Michael, put him to bed, and had eaten alone. Up until now I had always been able to share my day with her, and she enjoyed hearing about office gossip and some of the airplanes I worked on, even though I spared her the eye-glazing technical details of my work. I was one engineer who knew how damned boring other engineers could be when we talked shop at parties.

“Well, how did it go?” Faye asked.