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    February 25, 1965

    MJH>RANDUM FOR. RECORD

    Recording events tha t took place on the afternoon o f 24 February during the closing hours 0, the meeting chaired by Dr. Land. At approximately 5:00 P . ~ 1 . , I received a message from Colonel Worthman report ing t ha t Mr. Levison of lTEK wished to ta lk to me a t once. I called Mr. Levison. '9.e said tha t the r.rEK; Corporation had made a. Corporate decision tha t he thought might be of importance to the del iberat ions then going on with Dr .. Landt s Committee.. He asked t ha t he be given an opportunity to speak to me and to Dr. Land privately. I urged him to caue to Dr. Land's office a t once.. Dr. Land r s secretary arranged for the use of a private room and Dr. Land and I met Mr. Levison and Mr. John t iolf in th is rOOlD..atabout 6:00 P.M. Mr .. Levison stated t ha t he had a Corporate decis ion to r epor t to us and wished to ma.k.e some preparatory remarks f : i .rst. He said tha t he wished to make c lear tha t the decis ion lTEK had made was a considered Corporate dec is ion . tha t it was no t po l i t i c a l l y motivated, tha t ITEK bad DO in ten t ion of seeking favor o r spec ia l t reatment of any kind as a r e s u l t of th is decis ion. Be then said tha t t ha t af ternoon he , Mr. Lindsay, M.r. Philbrick and other members of the ITEK management, someof whom he named ,had decided tha t they would not accept fromth e CIA any follow-on development contrac t to t he i r presentcontract on FULCImM. He said t ha t he was Dot sure what the l ega land moral obligat ions of ITEI. were in re spec t to a proposal nowbefore the CIA to continue the present FULCRUM ef for t fo r 30 daysmore.

    He sa id tha t th i s decis ion had been arr ived a t a t approximately4:00 P.M., tha t Mr. Lindsay had immediately t r ied to telephoneMr. McCone. Mr. Lindsay had been unable to reach Mr. McConeby telephone, but had communicated the substance of th i s decisionto Mr. Bross a t the time of his ca l l , 1. e . , approximately 4: 00 P. M.He fu r t he r sa id tha t Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Phi lbr ick were alreadyon t he i r way to Washington with the hope of seeing Mr. McConepersonal ly during the evening.

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    Subsequent discussion brought out a number of circumstancessurrounding the lTEK decision. Some of the s ignif icant pointsmade by Mr. Levison and Mr. Wolf were the following.

    1. ITEK fe l t that they could not maintain their "teclmica1integrity" i f they undertook a development project for FULCRUMwith as l i t t l e technical control over the project as they hadbeen allowed during the work up to this time.2. ITEK fe l t that the rotating optical bar techniqueto be used in FULCRUM could not be jus t i f ied unless there wasa firm requirement for scan angles of 1200 or more. ITEK had ona number of occasions expressed this judgment to the CIA, a tl eas t once in writing in a 1eeter from Mr. Levison to Dr. Whee10n,approximately 3 February. (This was the only specific citat ionof a written demur on this subject made in the conversation. Thestatement was made that other c o r ~ ~ s o o n d e n c e had also raised thesame question.)3. John Wolf stated that a t a meeting a t which a l l of theassociate contractors were represented, he had pointed out that

    ITEK believed that the rotating optical bar could not bejust i f ied unless the CIA validated a firm requirement for 1200scan. In response, Dr. Wheelon had successively queried Mr. Maxey,Mr. Derks and one other member of the CIA s ta f f whether "at anytime, ei ther verbally or in writ ing, they had stated to ITEK arequirement for 1200 scan." All three of these people addressedindividually with this question replied, "non. A fourth memberof the CIA s taff who entered the room during this conversationwas also queried. He pointed out that the requirement for the1200 scan was stated in the ITEK contract.

    4. Reference was also made to the fact that Mr. Derks,on the 23d of February, had specifically stated that the CtAwas considering both 1200 scan and 900 scan angles.5. Mr. Levison stated that in June of 1964, Mr. Philbrickhad asked Dr. Wheelon for permission to brief me on the FULCRUMproject . He stated that this permisSion wal denied protem andthat several other requests during the summer were also denied.

    He said that in August, Dr. Wheelan had finally told Mr. Philbrickthat Dr. Wheelan would be the point of cont ict between ITEK andme on the FULCRUM project .

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    6. I t was brought out that ITEK had never been givenany information from the associate contractors working onalternate film drives or alternate camera concepts. At thispoint I stated that I had never received any writ ten teehnicalinformation on the FULCRUM project except some copies ofbriefing charts that were used in Mr. Maxey's briefing to mein August 1964.

    I pointed out a t one time that in my judgment the NROcould never function effectively as long as people of thecharacter , and sharing the at t i tudes, of some of those whohad been promoting FULCRUM were in a position to interfere withthe conduct of the National Reconnaissance Program.

    I reminded Mr. Levison of the meeting that I had withhim in myoffice during the preceding week, a t which time Ihad told him that I fe l t that technically the Eastman Kodakgeneral search proposal was more satisfactory than either ofthose being pursued by ITEK, but tha t I fe l t that i t wasimportant that the lTEK pancake idea be pursued further tobe sure we were not overlooking important values and to besure tha t we had a backup should any diff icul t ies develop inthe Eastman approach. Mr. Levison agreed tha t our conversationhad covered these points and reminded me tha t he had disagreedwith technical judgment a t the time and that he s t i l ldisagreed. I noted that I had told him then, was repeating now,that it was precisely because I respected his disagreementthat I fe l t the ITEK should continue. I pointed out, but notin connection of this exchange of remarks, that i f ITEK didnot continue work on FULCRUM a number of highly competentpeople could be made available to support a more vigorouseffor t on the lTEK pancake concept. I found on occasion duringthe meeting to state tha t I had always been impressed by thepersonal courage and integrity of Mr. Levison, Mr. Wolf, andthat the events of the moment confirmed that impression.

    Land raised a general question as to how we could besure tha t the competence and resources of ITEK were preservedand made best use of by the Government. I said that I fe l tthere were a number of things very important to do includingfur ther work on general search systems to which ITEK couldc o n t r ~ b u t e effectively, but no details were discussed. There.

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    was some discussion of the manner in which ITEKt s announcementwould be made available to Dr. Land's panel, one of the principalquestions being whether Mr. Lindsay s ca l l to John Bross shouldbe considered adequate prior notice to the CIA, freeingMr. Levison to report to Dr. Land and me and, in turn , freeingDr. Land to speak to the panel. Mr. Levison stated tha t it waswith the fu l l knowledge of a l l of the Corporate Officers whopart icipated in this decision, that he was coming to Dr. Land and meand t ha t he personally fe l t and believed t ha t Mr. Lindsay so fe l ta lao, tha 1: Mr.. LiDdsay' 8 effor t to reach Mr. McCone const i totedadequate prior iDformation to the ClA and tha t as far asMr. Levison was coneerned, we were further to use this infoxmation.'lbe discussion closed a t approximately 7: 00 P.M.

    At l eas t twice during the discussions, Hr. LevisOII st:atedthat it was IT. s considered judgment that the decision towithdraw from FULCRDM was in the i r best Corporate in te res t andtha t it was his personal judgment tha t it was indeed in theGovernment's bes t in te res t . In elaborating on the Corporationin te res t , he noted tha t i f !TEK were to undertake a developmenton FULClUlM. they, as a Corporation, would be held responsiblefor the outcome and tba t he did not fee l that they could acceptthis responsibi l i ty without greater fraedCllD for technical decisionsthan they had been g ivan duriDg the study phase.

    Several technical diff1cul t ies t ha t might develop in tbeFULCRUM system were dis4USSed durina the _ t i n g e Jo1m Wolfemphasized the severe effects on vehicle motions that wouldre su l t from even s l ight amounts of unbalance in the largerotat:Lng parts . In part icular . he noted tha t an eccentr ic i tyof one inch in the balance of a ree l of film would probably beea tastrophie in the present design. Refereru:e was made todeta i ls on this pGint provided duriDg Tuesday's brief ings .Mr. Wolf pointed out tha t the eccentr iai ty of .003 inches, ci tedin the Tuesday brief ing, was the resul t of one measurement: ofone r ee l of f i lm.

    Early in the discussions, Mr.. LevisOD reci ted in some deta i lthe dialogue between him and Mr. McCone tha t took place af te r heand Mr. Herther had briefed Mr .. McCone and Mr. Vance on the i rpancake system on 2 February" He noted that a t tha t time he had

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