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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- Aerojet
- Aerojet Engineering Corporation
- Aerojet Engineering Corp.
- Aerojet Engineering Company
- Aerojet-General
- Aerojet-General Corporation
- Aerojet General
- Aerojet Rocketdyne
- Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings
- GenCorp
- GenCorp Inc.
tags:
- Organization
- Aerojet
- Rocketry
- JATO
- GALCIT
- GeneralTire
- GenCorp
- Rocketdyne
- L3Harris
- DefenseContractor
- Pasadena
- Sacramento
summary: "Rocket company incorporated in Delaware on March 19, 1942 by von Kármán, Malina, Parsons, Forman, Summerfield and Haley; bought by General Tire in 1945, merged with Rocketdyne in 2013, and acquired by L3Harris in 2023."
location: "Pasadena, California; Azusa, California; Sacramento, California"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Theodore von Kármán]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator and first president of Aerojet Engineering Corporation"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Frank Malina]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator, treasurer and director"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Jack Parsons]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator and vice president, solid-propellant development"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Edward Forman]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator and vice president"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Martin Summerfield]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator and vice president"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Andrew Haley]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-03-19
role: "incorporator, secretary and director"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Andrew Haley]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942-09-01
role: "president and general manager after release from Army Air Forces duty"
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[United States Army Air Forces]]"
start: 1942
role: "jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) rocket research and production"
fn: 2
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[United States Navy]]"
start: 1942
role: "ordered JATO motors from Aerojet in the summer of 1942"
fn: 5
- type: owned
with: "[[General Tire & Rubber Company]]"
reverse: true
start: 1945
role: "purchased Aerojet Engineering Corporation in 1945 and became its major investor"
fn: 6
- type: owned
with: "[[L3Harris Technologies]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-28
role: "acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings by merger at 58 dollars a share in cash"
fn: 17
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Lockheed Martin]]"
start: 1993
role: "major subcontractor for the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program (about 118 million dollars of 1993 sales)"
fn: 13
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Federal Trade Commission]]"
start: 2022-01-25
end: 2022-02-13
role: "Lockheed Martin merger agreement terminated on February 13, 2022 after the Commission filed suit on January 25, 2022"
fn: 16
created: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-05
---
Aerojet Engineering Corporation was incorporated in [[Delaware]] on March 19, 1942.[^1] The incorporators were the [[California Institute of Technology]] aerodynamicist [[Theodore von Kármán]], his former graduate student [[Frank Malina]], the Pasadena chemist [[Jack Parsons]], the machinist [[Edward Forman]], the Caltech researcher [[Martin Summerfield]], and the Washington attorney [[Andrew Haley]].[^1] The initial officers were von Kármán (president), Malina (treasurer), Haley (secretary), and Forman, Parsons and Summerfield (vice presidents); Malina described von Kármán, Haley and himself as the board of directors in a letter to his parents.[^1] In his autobiography von Kármán wrote that each founder agreed to contribute 200 dollars, that none of the Malina group had it, and that Haley agreed to advance 2,500 dollars to cover the cost of starting the company.[^1]
### Origins in the GALCIT project
The company grew out of the [[GALCIT Rocket Research Project]] (GALCIT Project No. 1) at Caltech. A 1,000 dollar study contract signed in January 1939 followed a December 1938 meeting of a Washington committee at which General [[Henry H. Arnold]] listed assisted takeoff with rockets for heavy bombers among the problems to be studied; in July 1939 Caltech received a 10,000 dollar contract to begin work on jet-assisted takeoff (JATO), described by the NASA historians Stephen Doyle and Michael Ciancone as the first governmental commitment of money for rocketry research at Caltech.[^2] The first JATO flight, in an Ercoupe aircraft, took place on August 12, 1941 at [[March Field]], flown by Army lieutenant Homer Boushey.[^3] Von Kármán wrote that, in considering whether to manufacture the rockets, he consulted [[Jack Northrop]], [[Clifford Garrett]] of the [[Air Research Manufacturing Company]] and "several friends at Hughes Aircraft" (see [[Hughes Aircraft Company]]), and that none thought a rocket company could survive with the government as its only customer. Malina told an interviewer in 1978 that Air Research had offered to take the group on as consultants if they gave up their patent rights, and that Haley, who had come to [[Pasadena]] at von Kármán's invitation in February 1942, answered: "Why don't you fellows set up your own company? I'd be willing to join you."[^4]
### Haley, the Army audit and the Navy
Haley held a reserve commission. On March 29, 1942, ten days after incorporation, he wrote to von Kármán that the Army had called him to active duty and that he must resign as secretary and director.[^5] In May 1942 the Army contracting office notified von Kármán that the JATO research contract, scheduled to end in June, would not be renewed. Doyle and Ciancone report an anecdote told to one of them in the early 1980s by an Aerojet official: Army auditors who asked to see the company books were offered von Kármán's personal checkbook. Von Kármán wrote that Colonel [[Benjamin Chidlaw]] told him at the Pentagon: "We like you very much Doctor, but only in cap and gown to advise us what to do in science. The derby hat of the businessman doesn't fit you."[^5] Von Kármán telephoned General Arnold and suggested Haley, then chief of the Military Affairs Division of the Office of the Air Judge Advocate; Arnold released Haley for work at Aerojet. In a memorandum of July 22, 1942, Haley listed his intended duties as including "maintaining liaison with the Army, Navy and aircraft manufacturing companies and coordinating on ordnance" and "making necessary financial arrangements." He took the position of president and general manager on September 1, 1942.[^5] On November 18, 1942 he hired as business manager William Zisch, formerly secretary to [[Robert Millikan]] and von Kármán. The Navy, according to Doyle and Ciancone, "joined the Air Corps in ordering JATO motors from Aerojet" in the summer of 1942.[^5]
### General Tire
General Tire & Rubber Company, an Akron, Ohio firm incorporated in 1915, "jumped into the aerospace and defense industry with the purchase of Aerojet Engineering Corp." in 1945, according to the corporate history published by [[L3Harris Technologies]] after it acquired the successor company. The same history states that the company was renamed Aerojet-General Corporation in 1953 on the merger of Crosley Motors.[^6] The annual report of GenCorp for fiscal 2000 states that Aerojet "was founded in 1942 by Dr. Theodore von Karman and initially produced Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) rockets for military aircraft," and that General Tire & Rubber, "GenCorp's predecessor, became Aerojet's major investor."[^7]
The Los Angeles Times of June 19, 1952 reported that Parsons, with five other original stockholders, "founded Aerojet Engineering Corp. in 1942, but sold out his interest three years later," and quoted Aerojet's secretary-treasurer T. E. Beehan: "He was a loner. He liked to wander. But he was one of the top men in his field." The article added that "many of the basic patents for JATO (jet assisted take-off) were obtained under Parsons' name" and that as a vice president he "headed the solid propellant development project."[^8] On August 20, 1946 Parsons wrote to [[Aleister Crowley]], "This will constitute my formal resignation in full from the Ordo Templi Orientis," the order whose California body, [[Agape Lodge]], he had headed.[^9] Malina, according to the Caltech historian Erik Conway, left Pasadena and rocketry in July 1947 for [[UNESCO]] in Paris after a job offer from its director Julian Huxley; Conway adds that Aerojet later adapted the WAC Corporal into the Aerobee sounding rocket, "ironically, with Navy money."[^10]
### The Zisch and Kimball episode
In 1950 FBI teletypes on [[Qian Xuesen]] (H. S. Tsien), then retained by Aerojet as a consultant but denied access to classified information by the Navy, recorded that Aerojet's general manager William Zisch had told an agent that Tsien planned to return to China at the end of August; that Zisch and the Aerojet scientist [[Fritz Zwicky]] believed him loyal; that Zisch regarded him as one of the twenty top scientists in the United States and in a position to furnish valuable information to the Russians if he were so inclined; and that Zisch had raised the matter with Navy Under Secretary [[Dan Kimball]], "formerly connected with the Aerojet Engineering Company," and planned to raise it again on August 2, 1950 in Washington. A later FBI memorandum recorded that Kimball directed the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] to interview Zisch, and that the office, after the interview, took no action and referred the matter to the Bureau.[^11]
### Hughes, Bermite and the propellant circle
Parsons worked from 1949 until September 26, 1950 for Hughes Aircraft in [[Culver City]], California, as group leader for propellants, propulsion and launching. In December 1950 he surrendered to the FBI seven Caltech reports of 1941 to 1944 on Army Air Corps jet propulsion that, he said, had been kept from his Aerojet and Hughes employment; a 1951 Air Force note in the file recorded that some of the unclassified papers involved proprietary processes of Aerojet and [[Thiokol]].[^12] He then spent a year, until June 13, 1952, as head of a rocket-propellant detonation and pyrotechnic short-interval delay project at the [[Bermite Powder Company]] in [[Saugus, California|Saugus]], a confidential research and development program.[^8]
### Sacramento and environmental litigation
GenCorp's annual report for 1993 lists Aerojet-General Corporation as one of three business segments and gives the former name of the registrant as General Tire & Rubber Co. It reports Aerojet sales of 872 million dollars (1,019 million in 1992), a contract backlog of 1.4 billion dollars, a role as major subcontractor to [[Lockheed Martin|Lockheed]] on the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program (118 million dollars of 1993 sales), exposure to budget cuts affecting the [[Minuteman]] missile, the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] and the SADARM munition, and a consent decree with the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] over chemical releases at Aerojet's Sacramento facility and at its inactive subsidiary Cordova Chemical Company.[^13] The fiscal 2000 report lists a series of groundwater suits against Aerojet-General Corporation, including actions brought by American States Water Company and Kiefer-Sunrise Associates.[^7]
### Rocketdyne, Lockheed and L3Harris
In July 2012 GenCorp signed an agreement to buy the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne division from [[United Technologies Corporation]] for 550 million dollars; the annual report for fiscal 2012 describes the Rocketdyne business as the largest liquid rocket propulsion designer, developer and manufacturer in the United States.[^14] GenCorp completed the acquisition on June 14, 2013, with aggregate consideration to United Technologies of 411 million dollars in cash after adjustments, including 55 million dollars deferred pending a separate acquisition of a stake in RD Amross, LLC.[^15] The registrant's name changed from GenCorp Inc. to Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. in April 2015.[^14] Under an agreement of December 20, 2020, [[Lockheed Martin]] was to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne; the [[Federal Trade Commission]] filed suit on January 25, 2022 and Lockheed gave notice of termination on February 13, 2022.[^16] On December 17, 2022 Aerojet Rocketdyne entered a merger agreement with L3Harris Technologies, completed on July 28, 2023 at 58 dollars a share in cash; Aerojet Rocketdyne continued as a wholly owned L3Harris subsidiary and its stock was delisted from the [[New York Stock Exchange]].[^17]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Doyle, Stephen E., and Michael Ciancone, "Aerojet Engineering Corporation: Stimulation and Creation, 1935-1942," IAC-19-E4.2.1, 53rd IAA History of Astronautics Symposium (2019), section "Creation of Aerojet, Pasadena, California, 1942" (Delaware filing of March 19, 1942; officers; quoting von Kármán and Lee Edson, *The Wind and Beyond* (1967), p. 251; Malina's letter to his parents). https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190032336/downloads/20190032336.pdf
[^2]: Doyle and Ciancone, section "Research Enabling Super Aircraft Performance, 1939-1940." https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190032336/downloads/20190032336.pdf
[^3]: Conway, Erik M., "From Rockets to Spacecraft: Making JPL a Place for Planetary Science," *Engineering & Science*, Caltech, no. 4 (2007). https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/702/2/Spacecraft.pdf
[^4]: Doyle and Ciancone, quoting von Kármán and Edson, p. 256, and the Malina interview of 1978, p. 10. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190032336/downloads/20190032336.pdf
[^5]: Doyle and Ciancone, sections on Haley's letter of March 29, 1942, the May 1942 contract notice, "To Dayton and Washington, May 1942," Haley's memorandum of July 22, 1942 and his formal assumption of the presidency, quoting von Kármán and Edson, p. 259, and Shirley Thomas, *Men of Space*, vol. 7 (1965), p. 140. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190032336/downloads/20190032336.pdf
[^6]: L3Harris Technologies, "Aerojet Rocketdyne History: More Than A Century In The Making" (corporate history page). https://www.l3harris.com/en-it/aerojet-rocketdyne-history
[^7]: GenCorp Inc., Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2000, Items 1 and 3, SEC EDGAR accession 0000950152-01-001042. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/000095015201001042/l86383be10-k405.txt
[^8]: "Scientist's Fatal Blast Explained," *Los Angeles Times*, June 19, 1952, p. 4 (transcription). https://aleistercrowleytimeline.com/Articles/1952/1952-06-19-Los-Angeles-Times/1952-06-19-Los-Angeles-Times.html
[^9]: Parsons, John W., resignation from the Ordo Templi Orientis, extract, August 20, 1946. https://aleistercrowleytimeline.com/Correspondence/1946/1946-08-20-Parsons-to-Crowley.htm
[^10]: Conway, "From Rockets to Spacecraft" (note 3). https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/702/2/Spacecraft.pdf
[^11]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hsue-Shen Tsien file, Part 1 (FBI teletype reporting Zisch's statement; Zisch statement as summarized in a Los Angeles report; memorandum recording that Kimball directed ONI to interview Zisch), archive.org text FBIFile_Tsien_Part1_djvu.txt. https://archive.org/details/fbi-file-tsien-hsue-shen
[^12]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file 65-59589 (Los Angeles 65-5131), "John Whiteside Parsons," Parts 1 and 2 (statement of September 26, 1950; Los Angeles report of December 1950; Air Force memorandum of 1951). https://archive.org/details/JohnParsons
[^13]: GenCorp Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal 1993, SEC EDGAR accession 0000950152-94-000163. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/0000950152-94-000163.txt
[^14]: GenCorp Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2012, Item 1, SEC EDGAR accession 0001193125-13-049466; the name change is recorded in the SEC EDGAR submissions record for CIK 0000040888 (former name GenCorp Inc., to April 23, 2015). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/000119312513049466/d450004d10k.htm
[^15]: GenCorp Inc., Form 8-K, June 14, 2013, Items 1.01 and 2.01, SEC EDGAR accession 0000921895-13-001246. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/000092189513001246/form8k07319_06122013.htm
[^16]: Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., Form 8-K, February 14, 2022, Item 1.02, SEC EDGAR accession 0001193125-22-039134. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/000119312522039134/d310702d8k.htm
[^17]: Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., Form 8-K, July 28, 2023, Items 1.02 and 2.01, SEC EDGAR accession 0001193125-23-196927. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40888/000119312523196927/d533534d8k.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- Bermite Powder Company
- Bermite Powder Co.
- Bermite
- Whittaker-Bermite
- Whittaker Bermite
- Whittaker Bermite site
- Bermite Division
- Halafax Explosives Company
tags:
- Organization
- Bermite
- Whittaker
- Explosives
- Ordnance
- Pyrotechnics
- Saugus
- SantaClarita
- Perchlorate
- JackParsons
- Contamination
summary: "Saugus explosives and ordnance maker that employed Jack Parsons in the year before his death in 1952; owned by Whittaker from 1967, its 996-acre Santa Clarita site was sold in 1999."
location: "Saugus (Santa Clarita), California"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Patrick Lizza]]"
reverse: true
start: 1942
role: "established Golden State Fireworks in 1939; his company, as Bermite Powder, took over the former Halafax land, according to SCVHistory citing the California Department of Toxic Substances Control"
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Jack Parsons]]"
reverse: true
start: 1951-06
end: 1952-06-13
role: "head of a rocket propellant detonation and pyrotechnic short-interval delay project, a confidential research and development program"
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[J. H. Arnold]]"
reverse: true
start: 1952
role: "treasurer and superintendent in June 1952"
fn: 3
- type: owned
with: "[[Whittaker Corporation]]"
reverse: true
start: 1967
end: 1999-01-11
role: "purchased Bermite Powder Co. in 1967; operated the property to 1987; sold the 996-acre parcel on January 11, 1999"
fn: 2
- type: owned
with: "[[Santa Clarita, L.L.C.]]"
reverse: true
start: 1999-01-11
role: "purchaser of the 996-acre Santa Clarita parcel under a purchase agreement restated November 5, 1998"
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[United States Department of Defense]]"
start: 1942
end: 1987
role: "detonators, fuzes, boosters, flares and rocket motor components produced for World War II, Korean War and Vietnam-era needs, as described by SCVHistory citing the Department of Toxic Substances Control"
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-05
---
The Bermite Powder Company manufactured detonators, fuzes, boosters, flares and related ordnance on a parcel of about 1,000 acres in [[Saugus, California|Saugus]], now part of [[Santa Clarita, California|Santa Clarita]], from the early 1940s to 1967, after which the [[Whittaker Corporation]] operated the property until 1987.[^1] The site history compiled by the local historian [[Leon Worden]] at SCVHistory, which cites a 2004 account by the California [[Department of Toxic Substances Control]], gives the following sequence: [[Jim Jeffries]], the former heavyweight champion, took the helm of the L.A. Powder Co. (incorporated in 1915) and in 1917 set up a Saugus gunpowder plant on the future Bermite property; in the week of April 22, 1935 Halafax Explosives Co. opened a 250,000 dollar plant financed by the Oklahoma oil businessman [[Erle P. Halliburton]]; in 1939 [[Patrick Lizza]] established Golden State Fireworks on adjacent property while Halafax manufactured fireworks at its site from 1936 to 1942; and Lizza's company, as Bermite Powder, acquired the former Halafax land from the county after Halafax defaulted on its property taxes.[^2]
### Products
According to the Department of Toxic Substances Control as quoted by SCVHistory, Bermite "produced detonators, fuzes, boosters, coated magnesium, and stabilized red phosphorus from 1942 to 1967," and between 1942 and 1953 also produced flares, photoflash bombs and other explosives.[^2] SCVHistory adds that the Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, which entered production in 1953 at [[China Lake]], "used a Hercules/Bermite MK-36 solid-fuel rocket engine that would have been tested and manufactured at the Saugus plant," that Bermite built 50 two-bedroom bungalows on Walnut Street in [[Newhall, California|Newhall]] for workers in 1939, and that its subsidiary Golden State Fireworks tested and manufactured fireworks on the property in the postwar period.[^2] Whittaker's products there included ammunition rounds, detonators, fuzes and boosters, flares and signal cartridges, tracers and pyrophoric pellets, igniters and explosive bolts, power charges, rocket motors and gas generators, and missile main charges.[^2]
### Jack Parsons
The Los Angeles Times reported on June 19, 1952 that [[Jack Parsons]], who with five other original stockholders had founded [[Aerojet]] in 1942, "had been with the Bermite Powder Co. of Saugus for a year until last Friday," June 13, when he left intending to go to [[Mexico]] to do "further research with explosives and miniature special effects for motion pictures." At Saugus, the article states, he "headed one of the rocket propellant detonation and pyrotechnic short-interval delay projects, a confidential research and development program." J. H. Arnold, whom the article identifies as treasurer and superintendent of Bermite, said: "He stayed until Friday to finish his project. I tried to get him to stay for tests, but he was anxious to get to Mexico. He had been working hard." Arnold described Parsons as extremely safety-conscious, careful, and "scrupulously neat," was surprised that Parsons had explosives in a small makeshift laboratory near his room, in violation of the Pasadena fire ordinance, and said that Parsons had once had a powder magazine near [[Rialto, California|Rialto]] and had planned six or eight months earlier to go into the dynamite business.[^3] Pasadena police believed that the explosion that killed Parsons on June 17, 1952 resulted from his dropping a can of fulminate of mercury; the article reported that police had been told he was manufacturing small quantities of it for commercial purposes.[^3]
Parsons had left [[Hughes Aircraft Company]] on September 26, 1950; the FBI's Los Angeles office classified its inquiry into classified rocket-propellant documents he had taken from Hughes as "Espionage - IS," and the Justice Department declined prosecution on October 25, 1951.[^4]
### Whittaker, the 1999 sale and the perchlorate litigation
[[Whittaker Corporation]], reported that it owned a 996-acre parcel in the City of Santa Clarita, approximately 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles, "formerly used, until 1987, by the Company's former Bermite division, a discontinued technology unit."[^5] In September 1995 the city granted the entitlements needed to develop the land as a mixed-use residential, commercial and light industrial project; in February 1996 it approved a development agreement extending the ten-year life of the entitlements to more than twenty years; and in the fourth quarter of 1997 Whittaker wrote the carrying value down by 15.7 million dollars.[^5] The company stated that it had "clean closed" 13 of 14 facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act at the Bermite division and, until the January 1999 sale, was working to close the fourteenth and to complete an investigation of the whole property; cash expenditures for clean-up at the division were 4.0 million dollars in 1996, 2.6 million in 1997 and 1.4 million in 1998.[^5] On January 11, 1999 Whittaker sold the parcel and related rights for 10.0 million dollars in cash, a 5.0 million dollar promissory note and a contingent interest in any final profit from the development; the purchase agreement, restated as of November 5, 1998, was with Santa Clarita, L.L.C.[^5]
The water utility that succeeded the local agencies, SCV Water, states that perchlorate was first detected in groundwater wells in the Santa Clarita Valley in 1997 and attributes it to "improper storage, handling and disposal of perchlorate waste" at the former Whittaker-Bermite site south of Soledad Canyon Road; that large volumes of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene were also disposed of there; that the agency pursued Whittaker and its insurers; that under a 2007 settlement the defendants paid 5 million dollars toward a perchlorate treatment plant and 14 million dollars toward pipelines; and that a 2018 suit over volatile organic compounds in wells Saugus 1 and 2, V-201 and V-205 produced a jury award of approximately 66 million dollars, still on appeal as of January 2025.[^6] SCVHistory records that the site left more than 275 known contaminants, that in 1987 "the facility ceased all of its manufacturing, testing and storage of ordnance and explosive items" according to the Department of Toxic Substances Control, that a 2,911-unit residential development called Porta Bella was approved by the city council within two years and did not proceed, and that Whittaker sold the property to an Arizona investor group in 1999, just before Whittaker was itself acquired in a hostile takeover.[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Whittaker Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 1998, filed January 28, 1999, SEC EDGAR accession 0000898430-99-000295 (Item 1, "Discontinued Operations: Assets Held for Sale"), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/106945/0000898430-99-000295.txt; and the SCVHistory account at note 2.
[^2]: Worden, Leon, SCVHistory.com, "Bermite Powder Co. Security Badge" (image LW2107) and "Whittaker Bermite Service Award Pendant" (LW2751), narrative citing California Department of Toxic Substances Control (2004). Internet Archive copies of September 29 and 30, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw2751.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw2107.htm
[^3]: "Scientist's Fatal Blast Explained," *Los Angeles Times*, June 19, 1952, p. 4 (transcription). https://aleistercrowleytimeline.com/Articles/1952/1952-06-19-Los-Angeles-Times/1952-06-19-Los-Angeles-Times.html
[^4]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file 65-59589 (Los Angeles 65-5131), "John Whiteside Parsons," Parts 1 and 2 (employment at Hughes Aircraft; termination September 26, 1950; declination October 25, 1951). https://archive.org/details/JohnParsons
[^5]: Whittaker Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1998 (note 1), Items 1 and 3 and note on the sale of land, and Exhibit 10.18 index; and Form 10-K for fiscal 1995, SEC EDGAR accession 0000898430-96-000215 (entitlements and remaining parcel), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/106945/0000898430-96-000215.txt
[^6]: SCV Water (Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency), "Perchlorate and VOCs," status as of early 2025. https://www.yourscvwater.com/ja/node/4170

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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- Hughes Aircraft
- Hughes Aircraft Co.
- Hughes Aircraft Corporation
- Hughes Aircraft Division
- Aircraft Division of the Hughes Tool Company
- Hughes Electronics
- Hughes Electronics Corporation
- GM Hughes Electronics
- GM Hughes Electronics Corporation
- Hughes Research Laboratories
tags:
- Organization
- HughesAircraft
- HowardHughes
- HowardHughesMedicalInstitute
- GeneralMotors
- HughesElectronics
- Raytheon
- DefenseContractor
- CIA
- NRO
- Satellites
- CulverCity
summary: "Culver City electronics firm held by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1953, sold to General Motors in 1985, split with Raytheon in 1997; named in a 1971 CIA memorandum on nonofficial cover."
location: "Culver City, California"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Howard Hughes]]"
reverse: true
end: 1953-12-17
role: "owner through Hughes Tool Company; electronics division transferred to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute"
fn: 1?UNUSED
- type: owned
with: "[[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]]"
reverse: true
start: 1953-12-17
end: 1985-12-31
role: "held all of the stock of Hughes Aircraft Company"
fn: 1?UNUSED
- type: owned
with: "[[General Motors]]"
reverse: true
start: 1985-12-31
end: 1997-12-17
role: "acquired Hughes and its subsidiaries for 2.7 billion dollars in cash and 100 million shares of Class H common stock"
fn: 8
- type: owned
with: "[[Raytheon]]"
reverse: true
start: 1997-12-17
role: "merged with the Hughes defense electronics business spun off from General Motors"
fn: 12
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
start: 1962
end: 1964
role: "nonofficial cover arrangement with the Aircraft Division of the Hughes Tool Company, described in a CIA memorandum of May 20, 1971"
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[National Reconnaissance Office]]"
start: 1967
role: "HS-318 classified satellite program, identified by Dwayne Day and Nicholas Watkins as JUMPSEAT"
fn: 7
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[United States Air Force]]"
role: "operator under contract of a government-owned facility at Tucson, Arizona; TACSAT and other satellite programs"
fn: 10
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Jack Parsons]]"
reverse: true
start: 1949-05-08
end: 1950-09-26
role: "group leader for propellants, propulsion and launching, Research and Development laboratories; terminated September 26, 1950"
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[Rhea Hopper]]"
reverse: true
role: "vice president in charge of the Aircraft Division, named in the 1971 CIA memorandum as the principal cleared witting official"
fn: 5
- type: head_of
with: "[[Lawrence Hyland]]"
reverse: true
role: "vice president and general manager, according to Anthony Iorillo as quoted in 2020"
fn: 7
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Bill Turner]]"
reverse: true
end: 1991-04
role: "former employee who met Danny Casolaro in Martinsburg on August 9, 1991"
fn: 13
created: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-05
---
Hughes Aircraft Company, of [[Culver City]], California, was in its early decades a division of the [[Hughes Tool Company]], the holding company of [[Howard Hughes]]. In the Delaware litigation over the [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]], the Court of Chancery recorded that the institute "was funded by the transfer to it of the electronics division" of the Hughes holdings, through the Hughes Aircraft Company, "all of the stock of which latter company has since been held by the Institute."[^1]
### The Medical Institute
The institute was incorporated in Delaware on December 17, 1953; on that day its incorporators named Hughes as sole trustee, a position he held until his death on April 5, 1976, and Hughes established an executive committee with such powers as the trustee might designate.[^1] On July 3, 1968, Hughes allegedly caused to be adopted a "Resolution of Trustee" delegating to the executive committee the powers that Delaware law gave the board of a business corporation. After his death without naming a successor, the Delaware attorney general and William R. Lummis, the Delaware ancillary administrator of the estate, sought the appointment of a trustee; Chancellor Marvel's decisions of June 26 and October 26, 1979 addressed whether the institute should be managed by a trustee or by the committee.[^1][^2]
### Jack Parsons, 1949 to 1950
Aerojet's co-founder [[Jack Parsons]] told the FBI in a signed statement of September 26, 1950 that he was employed by Hughes Aircraft on May 8, 1949, and that his position was that of group leader in charge of the propellants, propulsion and launching group of the Research and Development laboratories; a Hughes personnel security questionnaire of April 11, 1949 is cited in the same file.[^3] Parsons said that in September 1950 he worked for Hughes Aircraft on a proposed rocket propellant loading plant that Hughes was to build, gathering data on processes and equipment costs, and that since October 1948 he had negotiated with a man in North Hollywood about a position in [[Israel]] involving plans for an explosives plant. An FBI teletype recorded that Hughes Aircraft advised the Bureau when his employment ended on September 26, 1950, and that seven California Institute of Technology reports dated 1941 through 1944, relating to Army Air Corps jet propulsion research and marked confidential, had been kept by him in a drawer at Hughes.[^3] The Department of Justice's Criminal Division in January 1951 found that the facts appeared to constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. 793 and possibly 794; the U.S. Attorney declined prosecution on October 25, 1951.[^3]
The preceding decade connected the two companies in another way. [[Theodore von Kármán]] wrote that when he and [[Frank Malina]] were considering a rocket manufacturing company in early 1942, he took advice from "several friends at Hughes Aircraft," who did not think a rocket company could survive with the government as its sole customer; the group incorporated [[Aerojet]] on March 19, 1942.[^4]
### The 1971 CIA memorandum
A CIA memorandum for the record of May 20, 1971, by a former agency employee who had been introduced to the president of [[Intertel]], states: "Some time in the early 1960's Maheu closed his D. C. office, picked up Hughes as a sole client and moved to Los Angeles. The undersigned is aware of this because he was in touch with him during the period 1962-1964. Simultaneously the undersigned was working out the details of a nonofficial cover arrangement with the Aircraft Division of the Hughes Tool Company in Culver City, California. Mr. Rhea Hopper, Vice President in Charge of the Aircraft Division was the principle cleared witting official. It is doubtful that details of this arrangement ever reached Mr. Hughes himself but because of Maheu's significant role he was cut in as a pickup for insurance. The undersigned did this himself."[^5] The same memorandum records the engagement of Intertel by the Hughes Tool Company to investigate the activities of [[Robert Maheu]], and states that a source ("Pease") said an attorney, [[Edward P. Morgan]], had been "making noises to certain unnamed Hughes Tool Company officials to the effect that they had better take it easy on Maheu because of the past involvement with CIA in covert operations."[^5] The memorandum is classified Secret and was released under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act on March 18, 2025.[^5]
### Satellites and the National Reconnaissance Office
The Space Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft built Syncom 2, the first geosynchronous communications satellite, in 1963, and Intelsat I (Early Bird), according to Dwayne Day and Nicholas Watkins in *The Space Review* (December 21, 2020).[^6] Drawing on a recollection by the Hughes engineer Anthony Iorillo, they report that after Hughes won the Air Force's TACSAT contract it won a classified [[National Reconnaissance Office]] contract designated HS-318, probably awarded in 1967, and the Intelsat IV contract; that the HS-318 work was called the "green" program from the color of the badges worn by staff, and that Iorillo described the satellite as "a multi-mission vehicle carrying an electro-optical precision pointed payload and a very wide band ELINT payload with large steerable receive and downlink antennas." Day and Watkins identify HS-318 as JUMPSEAT, the first of which was launched in March 1971 into a Molniya-type orbit.[^7] They state that Hughes vice president and general manager Lawrence "Pat" Hyland was among the officials who chose TACSAT as the target.[^7]
### General Motors
Effective December 31, 1985, [[General Motors]] acquired Hughes and its subsidiaries for 2.7 billion dollars in cash and cash equivalents and 100 million shares of GM Class H common stock, estimated at 2,561.9 million dollars, "which carried certain guarantees"; the purchase price exceeded net book value by 4,244.7 million dollars, of which 500 million was assigned to patents and related technology.[^8] On February 28, 1989 General Motors and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute agreed to terminate GM's guarantee obligations on the institute's Class H holding; the institute received put options at 30 dollars a share for 20 million shares on March 1, 1991, 10 million on March 1, 1992, 10.5 million in 1993 and 15 million in 1995, and exercised the first three, while GM held call options at 35 dollars (37.50 dollars for the last 15 million).[^8] Redemption of the institute's put options cost GM 315.0 million dollars in 1993, 300.0 million in 1992 and 600.0 million in 1991.[^8]
[[Kit Green]], who in 1985 left the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] after sixteen years, began at General Motors in March 1985, according to his curriculum vitae, as head of Automotive Safety and Health Research at the company's North American Operations Research and Development Center in Warren, Michigan, a post he held until September 1993. The same document lists, among his earlier CIA activities, "Life Science space reconnaissance officer to the national space tasking effort (1969-1979)" and "his work on the Glomar Explorer project" (see [[Project Azorian]]); Green wrote the document himself.[^9] GM Hughes Electronics Corporation reported a backlog of 13.4 billion dollars in defense and commercial contracts at the end of 1993, and the corporation's annual report counted 33 major plants, offices and research facilities relating to the operations of Hughes Aircraft Company.[^10]
### Litigation and investigations under General Motors
In September 1973 Hughes sued the United States in the Court of Claims over the "Williams Patent" on velocity control and orientation of spin-stabilized satellites; in late 1983 the Federal Circuit held the patent valid and infringed by the government, and in 1993 the Court of Claims was still determining compensation and whether additional government satellites infringed.[^11] General Motors reported in 1993 that Hughes was cooperating with a federal grand jury investigation in [[Boston]] into the delivery and quality of components of two missile guidance systems, and that "Hughes has been advised that it is a target of the investigation."[^11] Hughes also faced class actions in Arizona alleging that toxic substances disposed of at a government-owned facility in [[Tucson, Arizona]] which Hughes operated under an Air Force contract had migrated into the city's water supply; an earlier settlement (Valenzuela) was funded by insurers with 70.7 million dollars and by Hughes with 13.8 million.[^11] In 1992 Hughes acquired the missile business of General Dynamics for 21.5 million shares of Class H stock and 62.8 million dollars in cash.[^11]
On January 16, 1997 General Motors and Hughes announced the spin-off of the Hughes defense business to holders of GM stock and its merger with Raytheon Company, the transfer of Delco Electronics to GM's Delphi Automotive Systems, and the recapitalization of Class H stock into a tracking stock for the Hughes telecommunications and space business.[^12] General Motors reported the completion of the transactions on December 17, 1997.[^12]
### Bill Turner and Danny Casolaro
A Department of Justice document in the INSLAW files describes [[Bill Turner]] (William Turner) as having been "an employee of the Hughes Aircraft Corporation" who "apparently had been fired," and states that Turner "was never a 'whistleblower,' as some have described him." It records that Turner claimed to have met [[Danny Casolaro]] in the parking lot of Casolaro's hotel in Martinsburg on Friday, August 9, 1991, the afternoon before Casolaro died, that no one witnessed the meeting, that his accounts of the documents involved varied, and that on September 13, 1991 Turner pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a false statement to the Veterans Administration.[^13]
### Footnotes
[^1]: *Wier v. Howard Hughes Medical Institute*, 404 A.2d 140 (Del. Ch. 1979), decided June 26, 1979 (Marvel, Ch.), Harvard Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/a2d/404/cases/0140-01.json
[^2]: *Wier v. Howard Hughes Medical Institute*, 407 A.2d 1051 (Del. Ch. 1979), decided October 26, 1979. https://static.case.law/a2d/407/cases/1051-01.json
[^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file 65-59589 (Los Angeles 65-5131), "John Whiteside Parsons," Part 1 (signed statement of September 26, 1950; teletype on termination; report quoting the April 11, 1949 questionnaire) and Part 2 (Department of Justice memorandum, January 1951; declination, October 25, 1951). https://archive.org/details/JohnParsons
[^4]: Doyle, Stephen E., and Michael Ciancone, "Aerojet Engineering Corporation: Stimulation and Creation, 1935-1942," IAC-19-E4.2.1 (2019), quoting Theodore von Kármán and Lee Edson, *The Wind and Beyond* (1967), p. 256. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190032336/downloads/20190032336.pdf
[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the record, "Robert D. Peloquin, President, International Intelligence, Inc. (INTERTEL)," May 20, 1971, signed John G. Southard, 6 pages, NARA record number 104-10122-10288, pp. 2, 4 and 5. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10122-10288.pdf
[^6]: Day, Dwayne A., and Nicholas W. Watkins, "From TACSAT to JUMPSEAT: Hughes and the top secret Gyrostat satellite gamble," *The Space Review*, December 21, 2020. https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4096/1
[^7]: Day and Watkins (note 7), quoting Anthony Iorillo's newsletter for Hughes Space Division alumni. The identification of HS-318 as JUMPSEAT is the authors' own.
[^8]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1993, notes on acquisition of Hughes and stockholders' equity, SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-94-000002. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-94-000002.txt
[^9]: Green, Christopher Canfield, *Curriculum Vita*, November 20, 2007, sections "GM NAO Research & Development Center, 3/85 - 9/93" and pre-1985 activities; the CV's own account of his career, sole source for the passages so cited. https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/DrGreen_Article.pdf
[^10]: General Motors Form 10-K for fiscal 1993 (note 9), Item 2 (properties) and Item 1 (backlog).
[^11]: General Motors Form 10-K for fiscal 1993 (note 9), Item 3 (legal proceedings) and notes on acquisitions.
[^12]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed April 14, 1997 (announcement of January 16, 1997), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-97-000015, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000015.txt; and Form 8-K filed December 18, 1997 (completion on December 17, 1997), accession 0000040730-97-000037, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000037.txt
[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, report excerpt in the "INSLAW files of John C. Dwyer, Deputy Associate Attorney General," section "William Turner," DOCID 70002067, pp. 133-134, Internet Archive item INSLAW-Casolaro. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro