In late 1959, the CIA did not know how far the Soviets had advanced their satellite technology—whether they were capable of taking photographs from space yet. The CIA’s espionage concerns further complicated the radar work at Area 51. Each member of Lovick’s crew carried in his pocket a small chart indicating Soviet satellite schedules. This often meant working odd hours, including at night. “It also made for a lot of technicians running around,” Lovick explains. “Satellites passed overhead often. Getting an aircraft up on the radar test pole took eighteen minutes. It took another eighteen minutes to get it back down. That left only a set amount of time to shoot radar at it and take data recordings.” As soon as technicians were done, they took the aircraft down and whisked it away into its hangar.
What Lovick remembered most about life on the Ranch during this period, besides the work going on around the pole, was how intense the weather was. At night, workers needed to bundle up in heavy coats and wool hats. But during the day, temperatures could reach 120 degrees. “Once, I saw a coyote chasing a rabbit and they were both walking,” Lovick recalls.
In December of 1959, the president was briefed on the status of the A-12. Eager to move ahead, Eisenhower was also aware of the hundred-million-dollar check he would be writing to Lockheed from his discretionary funds for a fleet of twelve spy planes. Eisenhower told Bissell he had decided to request that Lockheed deliver results on a last proof-of-concept test, one that focused specifically on radar-evasion technology. Bissell had been informed that Lockheed’s A-12 would appear on enemy radar as bigger than a bird but smaller than a man. But he had not yet been told about a problem in the aircraft’s low observables that Lovick and the team had been unable to remedy while testing the mock-up out at Area 51. Lovick explains: “The exhaust ducts from the two huge jet engines that powered the aircraft were proving impossible to make stealthy. Obviously, we couldn’t cover the openings with camouflage coating. During testing, the radar waves would go into the spaces where the engines would be, echo around, and come out like water being sprayed into a can. We’d tried screens and metallic grating. Nothing worked.” Kelly Johnson believed the CIA would accept this design weakness. “Ike wants an airplane from Mandrake the magician,” Johnson told the team and added that the president would settle for something less. Johnson was wrong.
With the president’s final request on the table, settling for something less was no longer an option. On a final trip to Washington, DC, Kelly Johnson was going to have to explain to Bissell the exact nature of the design problem. “The meeting took place at an old ramshackle building in Washington, DC, inside a conference room with a mirrored wall,” Lovick remembers. “Killian and [Edwin] Din Land were there, so was ‘Mr. B.’” Kelly Johnson told the CIA about the problem with camouflaging the A-12’s engine exhaust, how it was a weakness in the airplane’s overall concept of stealth. “Bissell became furious. Throughout the process, I felt so comfortable working for Kelly, I don’t think I realized how serious the situation was until that meeting. Bissell threatened to cancel the entire contract if someone didn’t come up with a solution.” It was a tense moment. “I knew that more than a hundred men had been lost trying to look over the fence. Shot down over Russia, killed, or listed as missing in training missions. I became aware there was a serious problem of information gathering. Before that, most of my concerns were as a scientist in a lab. [In that moment] I realized how poorly things were going in the world outside the lab. How important this airplane was, and that problem with the engine exhaust needed to be solved.”