Skunk Works

I knew there were several powerful enemies of the Skunk Works on Lockheed’s board who would close us down in a flash. They resented our independence and occasional arrogance, and suspected us of being profligate spenders hiding our excesses behind screens of secrecy imposed by our highly classified work. These suspicions were fueled by the fact that Kelly usually got whatever he wanted from Lockheed’s board—whether it was costly new machinery or raises for his top people. Nevertheless, Kelly actually was as tightfisted as any beady-eyed New England banker and would raise hell the moment we began dropping behind schedule or going over budget.

Knowing that I didn’t have much time to find new business, I flew to Washington, hat in hand, with a fresh shoeshine and a brave smile. My objective was to convince General David Jones, the Air Force chief of staff, of the need to restart the production line of the U-2 spy plane. It was a long-shot attempt, to say the least, because never before in history had the blue-suiters ever reopened a production line for any airplane in the Air Force’s inventory. But this airplane was special. I have no doubt that fifty years from now the U-2 will still be in service to the nation. The aircraft was then more than twenty-five years old and remained the mainstay of our airborne reconnaissance activities. It needed to be updated with a more powerful engine and fitted with advanced avionics to become even more effective flying its tactical missions around the world. That meant adding a capability to perform reconnaissance coverage via optical systems that used radar camera images from half a world away.

But airplanes are like people. They tend to gain weight as they get older. The first time the U-2 took off to overfly Russia back in 1955, it was a svelte youngster at 17,000 pounds. Now it had ballooned in middle age to 40 percent over the original model and bent the scales at 40,000 pounds. I had been trying for years to get the Pentagon to update the U-2. In the 1960s, I had a meeting with Alain Enthoven, who was head of Secretary of Defense Bob McNamara’s vaunted systems analysis group—the so-called Whiz Kids, many brought with him from Ford to work their competitive cold-bloodedness on the Department of Defense. Enthoven asked, “Why should we buy more U-2s when we haven’t lost any?” I explained that it was cheaper to buy and update the airplane now rather than wait for crashes or losses, because in ten years costs rise by a factor of ten. He just couldn’t see the logic. So I told him the story of the kid who proudly tells his father that he saved a quarter by running alongside a bus rather than taking it. The father slapped the kid on the head for not running next to a taxi and saving a buck fifty. Alain didn’t get it.

During his reign, Kelly insisted on dealing with all of the top Pentagon brass himself, so by necessity I nibbled around the edges for years, cultivating bright young majors and colonels on the way up who were now taking command as generals. I had gone to the Pentagon many times as Kelly’s chart holder while he briefed the brass. Once we briefed McNamara, seated behind the big desk that had belonged to General “Black Jack” Pershing, the World War I Army general, on our Mach 3 Blackbird spy plane, which we wanted to convert into an interceptor. It was a great idea, but we were fighting an uphill battle. McNamara was intent on buying a costly new bomber, the B-70, and was deaf to any other new airplane projects. I set up the charts while Kelly made the pitch during McNamara’s lunch hour. “Mac the Knife” sat concentrating intently on his soup and salad, while skimming a report of some sort, and never once looked up until we were finished. Then he wiped his lips with a napkin and bid us good day. On the way out I teased Kelly, “Never try to pitch a guy while he’s eating and reading at the same time.”

Now the situation was more propitious for eating and pitching at the same time. General Jones invited me in for lunch and was very favorably disposed to my idea for a new fleet of spiffy U-2s. I told him I’d give him a good price, but that he had to buy the entire production line of forty-five airplanes. Jones thought thirty-five would be more like it and said he’d study our proposal. “By the way,” he said, “I’d want the U-2 designation changed. No spy plane connotation that would make our allies shy about letting us use their bases.”

I said, “General, I believe in the well-known golden rule. If you’ve got the gold, you make the rules. Call it whatever you want.”

The Pentagon ultimately renamed the U-2 the TR-1. T for tactical, R for reconnaissance. The press immediately called it the TR-1 spy plane.