Reading Room

14 February 1955

SUBJECT: Operation 218 BRAVO-CHARLIE — Request for Supplemental Funding

TO: Richard M. Helms, Chief of Operations

Attention: , Asst. Director, OSI

Reference is made to memorandum of 7 November 1954, subject “Preliminary Findings — Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE,” and to the briefing conducted in the Offices of OSI on 12 January 1955.

This Division has, since the conclusion of the preliminary phase, continued its assessment of the technical feasibility of the operation in coordination with personnel acquired under Operation PAPERCLIP. The German specialists assigned to the facility have produced findings of considerable promise with respect to the chronometric displacement apparatus recovered from the incident of 1947 and subsequently reconstructed under the direction of Dr. . The Division is now of the opinion that a controlled field test of the apparatus is both warranted and necessary if further progress is to be made.

After extended consultation with the technical staff, this Division recommends that the initial field trial be conducted upon a marine vessel of modest displacement rather than upon personnel or aircraft. A watercraft offers the dual advantage of substantial mass for instrumentation while remaining recoverable should the displacement prove only partial. The vessel proposed is a converted patrol craft of approximately 95 feet, presently held in inactive status at .

The temporal coordinates proposed for the trial are the central Tyrrhenian Sea in the year 218 B.C., during the period of the Second Punic War. This period has been selected after considerable deliberation. The technical staff advises that an interval of not less than two millennia is required to permit margin for error in the displacement calculations, and the proposed coordinates place the vessel at a sufficient remove from populated coasts and established shipping lanes of the period to render observation by inhabitants of Rome or her adversaries highly improbable. Should the vessel be sighted, it is the considered opinion of the historical consultants attached to this Division that any such report would be assimilated into the augural and prodigial literature of the period and would present no risk of contamination to the present-day historical record. The Division has reviewed alternative coordinates, including several in the pre-Columbian Atlantic, and finds the proposed coordinates substantially preferable on grounds of both navigational charting and recovery logistics.

The estimated cost of the field trial, inclusive of vessel conversion, instrumentation, personnel, and contingency reserve, is set forth in the inclosed schedule. The figure exceeds the discretionary allotment presently available to this Division by a margin of , and accordingly the Division requests authorization for supplemental funding in that amount, to be drawn against the reserve identified in .

It is further requested that the Office of the Chief of Operations indicate whether briefing of the Director is to be undertaken by this Division prior to the trial or deferred until such time as recoverable data is in hand. The Division is prepared to proceed upon either basis.

Your early consideration of this request would be appreciated, as the technical staff has advised that the apparatus is subject to calibration drift and that any extended postponement beyond the second quarter of the present year would necessitate a renewed sequence of preparatory trials at additional expense.

W. SEATON

Division Chief, Western Europe

Inclosure: Schedule of Estimated Costs (under separate cover, )