Minutes of Briefing Conducted in the Offices of OSI
17 January 1955
SUBJECT: Minutes of Briefing Conducted in the Offices of OSI, 12 January 1955 — Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE
TO: The File
Copy furnished: , Asst. Director, OSI; W. Seaton, Division Chief, Western Europe
A briefing was conducted in the Offices of the Office of Scientific Intelligence on Wednesday, 12 January 1955, commencing at 0930 hours and concluding at 1545 hours, with a recess of one hour for the noon meal. The briefing was held pursuant to the OSI memorandum of 7 November 1954 and addressed the findings of the preliminary phase of the above-captioned program and such matters arising therefrom as required the joint consideration of the two Offices.
Present on behalf of OSI were , Asst. Director, presiding; Dr. , principal technical officer; and of the technical group; and , liaison officer to the Division. Present on behalf of the Western Europe Division were W. Seaton, Division Chief; , liaison officer to OSI; , operational planning; and Professor of , engaged by the Division as historical consultant under the security provisions of the working agreement of 19 May 1954. The presiding officer opened the proceedings with the customary reminder as to the classification of the matter under discussion and as to the handling of the cryptonym.
The morning session was given over to a technical exposition by Dr. upon the findings set forth in the memorandum of 7 November and upon such further work as had been conducted at the facility in the interval since the rendering of that memorandum. Dr. reported that two additional bench trials had been undertaken in the month of December for the purpose of further characterizing the anomalies referred to in the memorandum, and that the results of those trials had in his judgment confirmed the reproducibility of the phenomenon and had not disclosed any consideration militating against the conduct of a field trial at the earliest practicable date. In response to inquiry from the Division, Dr. stated that the apparatus, in its present configuration, was capable of displacing a body of mass substantially greater than any thus far tested, but that he was not prepared at the present time to state the upper limit of that capacity with precision. He further stated, in response to inquiry from the presiding officer, that the apparatus was subject to a measurable drift in its calibration over time, and that extended postponement of the field trial beyond the second quarter of the present year would in his estimation necessitate a renewed sequence of preparatory trials before the field trial could safely be undertaken.
A question was raised by of the Division as to the nature of the deterioration of organic materials referred to in the memorandum of 7 November. Dr. responded that the deterioration was at present incompletely characterized, and that he was not in a position to advise upon the suitability of the apparatus for the displacement of personnel; he reiterated, however, the view of the technical group that the question of personnel displacement was not at issue in the contemplated field trial, which was to be conducted upon an inanimate object, and that further investigation of the question of organic deterioration could properly be deferred to a subsequent phase of the program.
The afternoon session was given over to the question of the object to be employed in the field trial and to the question of the coordinates to which it was to be displaced. Upon the first matter, W. Seaton presented the recommendation of the Division that a marine vessel of modest displacement be employed, for the reasons that such a vessel offered substantial mass for the carriage of instrumentation, that it was capable of recovery by its own means in the event of partial displacement, and that the Division was in a position to procure a suitable vessel from inactive stocks without the necessity of acquisition from open sources. The recommendation was discussed at some length and was accepted by the presiding officer, subject to the technical group being afforded opportunity to inspect the proposed vessel prior to its commitment to the trial.
Upon the second matter, Professor presented to the meeting a preliminary survey of candidate coordinates prepared by the Division pursuant to the working agreement of 19 May. Three principal candidates were considered. The first, in the pre-Columbian North Atlantic, was rejected upon the representation of the technical group that the navigational charting of the period was inadequate to permit confident calculation of the displacement coordinates. The second, in the South Pacific in the period preceding Polynesian settlement, was rejected upon the representation of Professor that the recovery logistics were unfavorable. The third, in the central Tyrrhenian Sea in the year 218 B.C., during the period of the Second Punic War, was accepted by the meeting after extended discussion. Professor offered the view that any inadvertent observation of the vessel by inhabitants of the period would in all probability be assimilated into the augural and prodigial literature of the Roman state and would present no risk of contamination to the present-day historical record, and that the period was in any event one of considerable maritime activity, such that the vessel would not appear wholly anomalous in its setting. The presiding officer requested that Professor furnish to the Division in writing, in due course, a more detailed appreciation of the historical considerations bearing upon the selection of the coordinates, and Professor undertook to do so.
A discussion followed as to the funding of the field trial. W. Seaton observed that the estimated cost of the trial, including the conversion of the vessel and the instrumentation required by the technical group, would exceed the discretionary allotment available to the Division by a margin yet to be determined with precision, and that the Division would in due course submit to the Chief of Operations a request for supplemental funding in such amount as proved necessary. The presiding officer noted the same and indicated that the Office of Scientific Intelligence would furnish to the Division such estimates of the instrumentation costs as the technical group was in a position to provide.
The presiding officer summarized the conclusions of the meeting as follows: that the conduct of a field trial was warranted and was to be proceeded with at the earliest practicable date; that the trial was to be conducted upon a marine vessel of modest displacement to be furnished by the Division; that the temporal coordinates were to be the central Tyrrhenian Sea in the year 218 B.C.; that the Division was to submit in due course to the Chief of Operations a request for supplemental funding; and that the further authorization contemplated in the directive of the Chief of Operations of 4 May 1954 would be sought upon the submission of the said request. The meeting was thereupon adjourned.
These minutes have been prepared from the contemporaneous notes of the undersigned and have been reviewed by the presiding officer and by the Division Chief prior to circulation. Any correction or addition is to be addressed to the undersigned within ten days of the date of the present memorandum.
Liaison Officer to the Division
Office of Scientific Intelligence