Finally Speaking Secrets From The Cold War

By Kendra Bobowick

Looking back more than 40 years as if the days were yesterday, Oscar Berendsohn, 87, finally told secrets he had been keeping since 1967.

The engineering work he did decades ago was “completely and totally black, secret, and not acknowledged,” he said. Information about the Hexagon program — a reconnaissance satellite project at Perkin-Elmer, now Goodrich, in Danbury was only recently declassified. Just speaking the name “could have landed me in prison,” he said. He described the work as a “massive contribution to national security,” adding, “believe me, it was one of the biggest things at the time, but I couldn’t talk to anyone.”

In a brief letter to The Bee Mr Berendsohn explained, “Our program at the time had number one priority in the country and our Danbury plant was the locale and center of a huge, but cloaked effort.” He wrote, “The entire plant was built for this specific program.”

He recalls building film-returning satellites, noting, “We covered about 90 percent of the world, took thousands of photos ...” The project cost billions, he said.

The US relied on satellite data during a period of Cold War years to keep a close watch on the soviet missile and troop movements. Mr Berendsohn explained, “The priority was to prevent a miscalculation of Russian movements.” Any misunderstanding could have resulted in shots fired, which would have “sparked an atomic world war.”

The program also aimed to “find out about the Russian missile bases, and third, to gauge military activity.”

Regarding his work at Perkin-Elmer, he said, “We knew from the beginning of the secrecy. We knew it was big and ultrasecret,” he said. “I was a materials specialist, specifically metallurgy, welding, brazing, and testing. We designed and assembled system parts and tested them. Assembled pieces were manufactured elsewhere,” he said.

 

Background

“The Hexagon program was initiated because of a huge intelligence gap at the time,” Mr Berendsohn said. This was after the capture of the American reconnaissance U2 aircraft pilot. The planes regularly flew over Cuba and Russia, he said. “We thought their missiles could not reach them,” said Mr Berendsohn, until one pilot went down. Gary Powers was the U2 pilot who had survived, but his purpose became clear to the Soviets. Mr Berendsohn described the event as “a propaganda victory for the Soviets and it meant the end of [the use of] U2.” Concerns grew that the Soviets could become aggressive. “We had to do something to make sure they weren’t doing something against us.” Unknown troop movements and missile placement were “a powder keg,” he said.

Maintaining intelligence “was vital to US security, they made that abundantly clear,” he said when he worked on the Hexagon program. Considering the film canisters retrieved by the government from the satellites, he said, “I am sure that the information on the film was helpful, but we were not privy to it.”

Each mission took about 100,000 spherical pictures. The program ran for about 20 years and Mr Berendsohn worked from 1967 through 89 as the senior staff engineer.

“For most of us this was one of the most marvelous professional experiences — so many new situations to work on. We had the money and time to develop knowledge and we gave them results. If you did that, you had no problem.”

Artifacts

Settled in his living room in early October and catching the sun pouring in a bay window, he held small items up to the light. In his fingers he pinched a small spring — part of the mechanics he helped to design and test for use in a camera on a reconnaissance satellite.

The piece took perseverance to perfect. He recalled, “In the engineering field you’re allowed small mistakes in a blue moon, but something major would have you out the door.” The government “gave you plenty of time and money to think about it.” In other words, he tested, retested, visited materials manufacturers, and arrived at the right metal and design for a spring that could last up to as many as 100,000 activations without suffering malfunction due to fatigue.

From his end table he lifted a scrap of shrapnel, noting that the satellites were meant to disintegrate upon reentry to earth, with only the film canisters remaining.

The program built roughly one satellite a year for 19 years, all the missions were a “super success,” except for the last, which blew up at launch, he said.

Declassified

Top-secret policies surrounding the Hexagon program have recently changed under President Barack Obama’s administration. Mr Berendsohn received an invitation from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to attend a declassification event in Virginia on September 17. He noted, “I was one of only a handful of persons invited … most of my colleagues have no idea that the program has been declassified and [that] they may finally speak openly.”

“I feel great. It’s like a load off [my] chest,” he said. Until recently, those involved with the project “could not pass this information to anyone.” A widower now, Mr Berendsohn said that at the time his wife did not know anything. “I could talk about metallurgical problem, etc. She knew I was dong something top secret,” but he could not discuss anything else.