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"Maps for America" is in some sense the cover story to disguise what
transpired with USGS topographic mapping in the 1960s. The success of
the TOP-SECRET CORONA program (high level code names and security
classifications were obligatorily capitalized) (1960-1972) which was a
system of several suites of cameras using special Kodak film shot in
near-Earth orbit, and jettisoned down in capsules captured by airplanes
off Hawaii,led to transformations through American cartography.
From about 1964 and on, "advanced CORONA" featured stereographic pairs
of panoramic photography, coupled to specialized optical-mechanical
rectifiers, which allowed the rectified imagery to be used in mapping
applications for areas all over the world, specifically "denied
territory" in the Communist Bloc,but also domestic applications in the
US. These included revisions to USGS' 7 1/2 minute series.
Building E-1, the first structure of the USGS national mapping program
at Reston, Virginia, was a TOP SECRET TEMPEST level laboratory, which
allowed USGS personnel who had TALENT-KEYHOLE clearances to access
CORONA photography for domestic mapping. The legends of the quads hinted
at matters: "Photo-revisions based on aerial photography and other
source data". Out of all this came the Civil Applications Committee
(CAC) the broker between the "nominally" unclassified federal government
and the Intelligence Community, traditionally chaired by a high official
in USGS. I say "nominally" unclassified federal agencies, because these
days there are classified installations, called SCIFs, virtually
everywhere. TALENT-KEYHOLE clearances are still extant, now just
abbreviated T.K.
"KEYHOLE" itself was utilized as a name by the Keyhole Corporation,
creators of KTML, which was an Intelligence Community commercial
start-up bankrolled by In-Q-Tel, which is essentially one of the venture
capitalist arms of the Intelligence Community. Keyhole was later bought
out, entirely, by Google, and the enterprise renamed Google Earth. All
closely associated with the clandestine processes set up in the 1960s
for USGS topo quads.
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John Cloud
Geographer/Writer/Editor
NOAA Central Library
1315 East-West Highway
SSMC-3, 2nd Floor, E/OC4
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-713-2607, ext. 126
[email protected]
aussi:
Chez Cloud Urbanique
1915 Kalorama Rd. NW
Apt. 603
Washington, DC 20009
202-277-4931
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