THE FAMILY JEWELS, another non-classified human-interest tidbit about early Area 51.

An Excerpt from The Archangels – Book Two of the CIA Chronicles by TD Barnes

In June 2007, the CIA declassified and released what has long been termed “The Family Jewels.” The release included an account about a CIA technician’s arrest while bugging comedian Dan Rowan’s room at the request of Chicago mob boss Sam “Momo” Giancana. Giancana suspected his girlfriend, singer Phyllis McGuire of the McGuire Sisters, of seeing Rowan while performing on the Las Vegas Strip. 

Fortunately, the Family Jewels release didn’t reveal our family jewels hidden in our Groom Lake closet. Here’s the straight poop.

They came from various backgrounds and were the first 30 CIA guards, commo, and admin officers assigned to Area 51. The government recruiter had the pleasant task of traveling thru the Northeast section of Pennsylvania, where he recruited about 25 of the 30 officers. From the various last names and photos, you can see that they are not third-world power, just honest, sound, clean-cut people who liked a shot and beer after work.

Living in Las Vegas, the Area 51 station’s Agency commo, admin, and security officers hung out at one end of the 140-foot bar in the mob-ran Las Vegas Stardust Hotel and Casino, the cash cow of the mob and home of the seafood restaurant Moby Dick, the Polynesian hotspot Aku Aku, and the Lido de Paris, the first topless French revue production.  The mobsters such as John “Jake the Barber” Factor and Moe Dalitz hung out at the other end of the bar. 

In 1958, Babette DeCastro, a Cuban performer from the Hawaiian headliner show at the Stardust Lounge, got married and left the act. About the same time, one of the Agency’s Area 51 officers, an electronics tech in commo, met Connie Smith (not the famous one), who was filling in until a Cuban cousin could join the act.

Smith used the name deCastro, including driver’s license, bank checks, etc., but was born in the States to a career army father. Fast forward to when the commo officer and Babette decided to get married in Las Vegas when his tour was up in August 1964. On the day of the wedding, CIA Area 51 commander Warner Weiss & the Site security officer called a meeting at the station and told all of the staffers that it would be a security violation if they attended the Las Vegas wedding that night.  Weiss and the head of CIA security thought Smith was a Cuban citizen and that the commo officer was marrying a foreign national without approval. Tom Lantz left the station after dark to come into town and let the wedding party know why no one had shown up.

The bride continued singing with the DeCastro Sisters for several more months, Reno & Tahoe stints, and then quit the business. The marriage lasted 21 years. 

The Agency security officer staffing at Area 51 remained faithful to their oaths long after the CIA began declassification.  Kudos to the Agency for its excellent personnel selections. There were no bad apples or hippies. 

If you are a Roadrunner, you knew and loved Tom Bolich, affectionately referred to as “Mr. Warmth.” Tom and his brother, Bob, both worked for the CIA providing security for Area 51 during Project OXCART. The small display of individuals in the photos represents the very early Security Staff and some of the Agency Admin, Finance, and Commo personnel.

The restaurant pictures are of the Blue Danube located at the time on East Charleston in Las Vegas. If you could eat their 18 oz steak, you got the second one free. The casinos offered a 24-hour breakfast of two eggs and a ham that covered your plate for 49 cents. 

There are pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Shultz’s wedding in which a few of the girls from the local brothel attended. There is a photo of Charlie White and his wife Betty, who attended. He was the first Security Officer assigned to the area by the Agency.

The various vehicles along the road depict how our cars often overheated going out the Back Way (Caliente Road) when the main road to the test site was closed due to atomic bomb testing. Cars did not come with air conditioners at that time.

 Bear in mind, this was the time of the wooden A-12 Article prototypes, and as we brought the operational planes up from Burbank in the very early sixties. Unfortunately, history has treated the Agency’s security, administrative, and communications personnel as the forgotten cadre. The CIA built the station around them, and through them, the CIA had great success in keeping the area UNKNOWN for almost 50 years. A real tribute to every person that ever associated with Area 51.

B&N ISBN: 9781987016703
Amazon ISBN-13: 978-1547084876
Smashwords ISBN: 9781370283231
Apple ID 1447815807
402 pages
The combination of the shootdown of the U-2 over Russia in 1960, Russia’s moving into Cuba, and the war in Vietnam placed a heavy load on the Central Intelligence Agency to develop a replacement spy plane, unlike anything the world had ever seen before. The CIA established its station at Area 51 under the CIA’s new Directorate of Science and Technology where it developed America’s first stealth plane, the A-12 Archangel. Designed with slide-rule technology, the CIA produced what is still today the fastest and highest-flying manned air-breathing aircraft ever.
The A-12 plane spent 18 months on a pylon situated on the dry Groom Lake during RCS, radar cross-section evaluations by the CIA’s special projects team at Area 51. It flew 2,850 secret flights out of Area 51 during the flight tests known as Project OXCART. From Area 51, CIA Director Helms deployed people and three planes to a CIA outpost in Kadena, Okinawa where the CIA operationally overflew North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and North Korea during Operation BLACK SHIELD before the Air Force replacing it with the SR-71, the fourth member of the Blackbird family.

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