MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD - CONSULTATION WITH DR LORENZ
22 September 1955
SUBJECT: Memorandum for the Record — Consultation with Dr. Lorenz, Facility, Afternoon of 22 September 1955
TO: The File
The undersigned prepares the present memorandum for the record in respect of a consultation with Dr. Lorenz, principal technical officer, conducted at the facility upon the afternoon of 22 September 1955 in the period following the Second Field Trial. The consultation was conducted privately between the undersigned and Dr. Lorenz, in the office attached to the facility’s administrative wing, with the door closed and without other persons present. No record of the consultation was kept by the parties. The substance of the consultation is reserved from the present memorandum save in such particulars as bear upon the dispositions arising. The dispositions are set forth below for entry upon the file.
The consultation followed the identification, in the course of the trial morning, of a passage in the published transcription of the Tulli papyrus consistent with the article dispatched by the Second Field Trial in every particular save in the matter of the coordinates, and consistent further with the report by the historical consultant that the said record describes the multiplication of similar phenomena in the days following the initial appearance. The undersigned is of the view, and Dr. Lorenz concurs, that the multiplication described in the record is to be understood as a response by the agency referred to in prior documents of the program, to a strike conducted by the program against that agency. The response was disproportionate to the strike. The response was visible, in numbers and over a duration, and was recorded.
The undersigned and Dr. Lorenz are accordingly of the view that the operational situation of the program has changed in a manner not previously contemplated. The agency, whatever its nature, was not aware of the program prior to the conduct of the May trial. It may or may not have been aware following the May trial; the record does not permit a determination. It is now aware. It has been struck. It has responded. The program is in a posture which the undersigned characterizes as one of confrontation, and the confrontation is not of the program’s choosing alone.
The undersigned and Dr. Lorenz are further of the view that the agency, having responded once in numbers, must be presumed capable of further response, and that the further response may be directed not against the program’s articles in the manifold but against the program itself, against the apparatus, against the personnel, or against such targets in the four-dimensional manifold of ordinary experience as the agency may select. The agency’s capabilities in this regard are not characterized. They cannot be characterized in advance. They must be presumed sufficient to warrant the program’s preparation against them.
The dispositions arising from the consultation are accordingly as follows.
First, this Division will undertake, with immediate effect, a program of investigation and preparation directed to the development of countermeasures against the agency. The program is to be conducted under the technical direction of Dr. Lorenz and will draw upon such resources of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, of the Office of , and of such further offices and departments as may be required, as the undersigned shall in due course arrange. The program will be conducted in such compartmentation as the matter requires.
Second, the operational cover for the program will be such as to characterize its work as directed against the principal adversary of the United States in the present international situation. The undersigned has weighed the question whether the true purpose of the program may be communicated to the persons whose cooperation will be necessary to its conduct, and has determined that it may not, at the present moment, be so communicated. The cover story is to be understood as a working necessity and not as a representation of the program’s substance. The undersigned will, in such forums as require it, characterize the program as a contribution to the deterrence of Soviet aggression and to the consolidation of the position of the United States in such areas of the Eastern bloc as remain contested. The substance of the program, which is the development of capability for use against the agency, will not be communicated outside the persons specifically read in.
Third, the apparatus is to be retained in operational condition and the technical group is to be maintained at strength. The undersigned anticipates that further trials of the apparatus will be required in the course of the program’s work, and that the trials will be of a character not contemplated by the operational planning hitherto. The trials will be conducted under the direction of Dr. Lorenz and upon such planning as he and the undersigned shall in due course develop.
Fourth, the historical consultant, Professor , is to be retained in his present capacity and his work upon the compilation of the list of further records of agency activity in the ancient corpus is to be encouraged. The list, when in a state Professor considers fit for transmission, will be received by the undersigned and will be considered for such further dispositions as it may suggest.
Fifth, the matter of the absence of the previous principal technical officer is to be regarded, for the purposes of the present program, as closed. The Office of Security is to be informed of the closure in such terms as the undersigned shall arrange.
The undersigned observes, in committing the foregoing to the record, that the dispositions described represent a substantial enlargement of the program in scope and a substantial revision of its purpose. The undersigned is conscious that the enlargement and the revision exceed the authority presently vested in this Division by the directive of the Chief of Operations of 4 May 1954, and that the matter is one upon which further authorization will properly be sought. The undersigned proposes to seek that authorization in due course and through such channels as the matter requires. In the interval before the authorization is obtained, the undersigned will proceed under the present dispositions upon his own responsibility, in the considered view that the operational situation does not admit of delay.
The undersigned further observes, in committing the foregoing to the record, that the consultation with Dr. Lorenz was conducted in a spirit of considerable accord. The undersigned had not, prior to the consultation, formed a complete view of Dr. Lorenz as a colleague. He has now formed such a view. He records, for the file, that Dr. Lorenz is a man of unusual qualities, that he sees the operational situation with a clarity the undersigned has not previously encountered in a technical officer, and that the undersigned considers his appointment to the program one of the more fortunate dispositions of the past period.
Dr. Lorenz remarked, in the course of the consultation, that he considered the events of the morning to mark a turning of the program from one phase to another. The undersigned recorded the remark and concurred in it. The undersigned considers the program to have entered, with the events of the morning, the phase in which it will conduct its principal work.
W. SEATON
Division Chief, Western Europe