Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

he fished in his pocket for a cough drop and grabbed the cyanide pill instead and popped it into his mouth. He started to suck on it. Luckily he realized his mistake in a split second and spit it out in horror before it could take effect. Had he bit down he would have died instantly and crashed right into Red Square

We were issued the pill in case of capture and torture and all that good stuff, but given the option whether to use it or not

bending instability in flight known as aeroelastic divergence, a fancy way of describing wings flapping like a seagull’s and possibly tearing off.

was told by OSHA that no worker with a beard was allowed to use a mask while spray coating. Imagine if I told a union rep that the Skunk Works would not hire bearded employees—they’d have hung me in effigy.

I was challenged as to why I didn’t employ any Latino engineers. “Because they didn’t go to engineering school” was my only reply.

Some wags in my employ presented me with a bowling ball stamped TOP SECRET. The attached card explained it was the equivalent of the radar cross section of the Pentagon, once we diamond-shaped it.

The airplane itself had to be stamped SECRET on the inside cockpit door

“Okay, Ben,” he muttered, “I surrender. If that flat plate concept is really as revolutionary as that kid claims in terms of radar cross section, I don’t care what in hell it looks like, I’ll get that ugly son-of-a-bitch to fly.”

Before the year ended, General Curtis LeMay

Whatever you learn, see, and hear for as long as you work inside this building stays forever inside this building. Is that clear? You’ll tell no one about what we do or what you do—not your wife, your mother, your brother, your girlfriend, your priest, or your CPA.