America's Secret Eyes in Space; The U.S. Keyhole Spy Satellite Program

New York: Harper & Row, 1990. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/very good. viii, 375, [1] pages. Illustrations. Glossary, notes, sources, chronology, appendix, index, DJ in plastic sleeve. Some ink notations observed. Traces the development of the U.S. spy satellite program, describes the types of information it gathers, and explains how spy satellites have helped shape foreign policy. Jeffrey Talbot Richelson (31 December 1949 - 11 November 2017) was an American author and academic researcher who studied the process of intelligence gathering and national security. He authored at least thirteen books and many articles about intelligence, and directed the publication of several of the National Security Archive's collections of source documents. Richelson was notable for his relentless Freedom of Information requests in order to further scholarship in intelligence and espionage. According to Bruce D. Berkowitz, Richelson was once avoided by the intelligence community as an outsider and a security risk, but gradually became trusted to the extent that he was invited to CIA sponsored conferences. Richelson grew up in the Bronx and earned his BA from the City University of New York. He completed a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Rochester in 1975 and went on to teach at the University of Texas, Austin and American University. Richelson was a senior fellow with the National Security Archive. As a member of the early 1980s informal SI-TK-Byeman group in Washington D.C., Jeff contributed documents and variable declassifications to the dynamic that led first Raymond Bonner of The New York Times, and then, most importantly, Scott Armstrong (of the Washington Post) to create the National Security Archive in 1985 as an institutional memory and permanent pressure group for open government. As a Senior Fellow of the Archive since the 1990s, Jeff was the founding director of the Cyber Vault project, supported by the Hewlett Foundation, to publish the primary sources of cyber security policy, many of them previously classified and only opened as the result of his FOIA requests. The Cyber Vault remains a permanent tribute to the Richelson legacy. Dr. Richelson authored an extraordinary series of essential reference books published by trade and academic presses.

The KH-11 KENNEN (later renamed CRYSTAL, then Evolved Enhanced CRYSTAL System, and codenamed 1010 and Key Hole) is a type of reconnaissance satellite first launched by the American National Reconnaissance Office in December 1976. Manufactured by Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California, the KH-11 was the first American spy satellite to use electro-optical digital imaging, and so offer real-time optical observations. Later KH-11 satellites have been referred to by outside observers as KH-11B or KH-12, and by the names "Advanced KENNEN", "Improved Crystal" and "Ikon". Official budget documents refer to the latest generation of electro-optical satellites as Evolved Enhanced CRYSTAL System. The Key Hole series was officially discontinued in favor of a random numbering scheme after repeated public references to KH-7 Gambit, KH-8 Gambit-3, KH-9 Hexagon, and KH-11 satellites. The capabilities of the KH-11 are highly classified, as are images they produce. The satellites are believed to have been the source of some imagery of the Soviet Union and China made public in 1997 and images of Sudan and Afghanistan made public in 1998 related to the response to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.