![]() ![]() The rigid secrecy of the Aurora project raises questions about the intelligence community's accountability to the military as well as to Congress. While secrecy still has its functions in the post-Cold War world, this is less apparently so in the case of an aircraft that is immune from direct attack. ![]() That may have been the right name then it is almost certainly not so now, but Aurora's real name is secret, as is the fact that it exists.Īurora will present President-elect Clinton with a test of his commitment to open government and of his willingness to confront the secretive, well dug-in and conservative intelligence community. Observers call it Aurora, because that name was inadvertently published in the 1985 Pentagon budget request. The SR-71 was, in fact, replaced by a new spyplane so fast and high-flying that no extant or practical surface-to-air missile (SAM) could touch it. It was hard to believe because it wasn't true. ![]() It was hard to believe that the pilot-dominated Air Force had walked away from a glamorous, relatively low-cost, peace-keeping manned-aircraft mission in favor of orbiting robots. Some reporters were told - off the record - that the SR-71 had been replaced by spy satellites. Officially, they were being grounded to save the $300 million a year that they cost to operate. ![]() IN FEBRUARY 1990, the Air Force retired its sleek, matte-black Lockheed SR-71 spyplanes. ![]()
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