Fensch C.I.A. and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9908264-5-3
Verlag: New Century Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 265 Seiten

This is the formerly Top Secret record of the C.I.A. and the U-2 spy plane program. The U-2 was a spy plane that could fly at 70,000 feet, above the radar of any other country. To build such an aircraft was a daunting task. But on May 1, 1960, one U-2 was shot down over Russia; pilot Francis Gary Powers was put on a ''show trial' in Moscow. The incident fractured U.S. - U.S.S.R. relations. 265 pages, plus Bibliography.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fensch, Thomas

Leseproben

1 Searching for a System THE NEED FOR HIGH-ALTITUDE RECONNAISSANCE For centuries, soldiers in wartime have sought the highest ground or structure in order to get a better view of the enemy. At first it was tall trees, then church steeples and bell towers. By the time of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, observers were using hot-air balloons to get up in the sky for a better view of the “other side of the hill”. With the advent of dry film, it became possible to carry cameras into the sky to record the disposition of enemy troops and emplacements. Indeed, photoreconnaissance proved so valuable during World War I that in 1938 Gen. Werner von Fritsch, Commander in Chief of the German Army, predicted, “The nation with the best aerial reconnaissance facilities will win the next war.”1 By World War II, lenses, films, and cameras had undergone many improvements, as had the airplane, which could fly higher and faster than the primitive craft of World War I. Now it was possible to use photoreconnaissance to obtain information about potential targets before a bombing raid and to assess the effectiveness of the bombing afterward. Peacetime applications of high-altitude photography at first included only photomapping and surveying for transcontinental highways and mineral and oil exploration. There was little thought given to using photography for peacetime espionage until after World War II, when the Iron Curtain rang down and cut off most forms of communication between the Soviet Bloc of nations and the rest of the world. By 1949 the Soviet Union and the states of Eastern Europe had been effectively curtained off from the outside world, and the Soviet military carried out its planning, production, and deployment activities with the utmost secrecy. All Soviet strategic capabilities — bomber forces, ballistic missiles, submarine forces, and nuclear weapons plants — were concealed from outside observation. The Soviet air defense system, a prime consideration in determining US retaliatory policies, was also largely an unknown factor. Tight security along the Soviet Bloc borders severely curtailed the movement of human intelligence sources. In addition, the Soviet Union made its conventional means of communication — telephone, telegraph, and radio-telephone — more secure, thereby greatly reducing the intelligence available from these sources. The stringent security measures imposed by the Communist Bloc nations effectively blunted traditional methods for gathering intelligence secret agents using covert means to communicate intelligence, travelers to and from target areas who could be asked to keep their eyes open and report their observations later, wiretaps and other eavesdropping methods, and postal intercepts. Indeed, the entire panoply of intelligence tradecraft seemed ineffective against the Soviet Bloc, and no other methods were available. Early Postwar Aerial Reconnaissance Although at the end of World War II the United States had captured large quantities of German photos and documents on the Soviet Union, this material was rapidly becoming outdated. The main source of current intelligence on the Soviet Union’s military installations was interrogation of prisoners of war returning from Soviet captivity. To obtain information about Soviet scientific progress, the intelligence community established several programs to debrief German scientists who had been taken to the Soviet Union after the end of the war but were now being allowed to leave2. [approximately nine lines deleted] Interrogation of returning Germans offered only fragmentary information, and this source could not be expected to last much longer. As a result, in the late 1940s, the US Air Force and Navy began trying to obtain aerial photography of the Soviet Union. The main Air Force effort involved Boeing RB-47 aircraft (the reconnaissance version of the B-47 jet-propelled medium bomber) equipped with cameras and electronic “ferret” equipment that enabled aircrews to detect tracking by Soviet radars. At that time the Soviet Union had not yet completely ringed its borders with radars, and much of the interior also lacked radar coverage. Thus, when the RB-47s found a gap in the air-warning network, they would dart inland to take photographs of any accessible targets. These “penetration photography” flights (called SENSINT — sensitive intelligence — missions) occurred along the northern and Pacific coasts of Russia. One RB-47 aircraft even managed to fly 450 miles inland and photograph the city of Igarka in Siberia. Such intrusions brought protests from Moscow but no Soviet military response3. In 1950 there was a major change in Soviet policy Air defense units became very aggressive in defending their airspace, attacking all aircraft that came near the borders of the Soviet Union. On 8 April 1950, Soviet fighters shot down a US Navy Privateer patrol aircraft over the Baltic Sea. Following the outbreak of the Korean war in June 1950, the Soviet Union extended its “severe air defense policy” to the Far East. In the autumn of 1951, Soviet aircraft downed a twin-engine US Navy Neptune bomber near Vladivostok. An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also a victim of Soviet fighters. The United States was not the only country affected by the new aggressive Soviet air defense policy, Britain and Turkey also reported attacks on their planes4. The Soviet Union’s air defense policy became even more aggressive in August 1952, when its reconnaissance aircraft began violating Japanese airspace over Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese home island. Two months later, on 7 October 1952, Soviet fighter aircraft stalked and shot down a US RB-29 flying over Hokkaido Aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Union and surrounding areas had become a very dangerous business. Despite the growing risks associated with aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Bloc, senior US officials strongly believed that such missions were necessary. The lack of information about the Soviet Union, coupled with the perception that it was an aggressive nation determined to expand its borders — a perception that had been greatly strengthened by the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 — increased US determination to obtain information about Soviet intentions and capabilities and thus reduce the danger of being surprised by a Soviet attack. New Approaches to Photoreconnaissance While existing Navy and Air Force aircraft were flying their risky reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union, the United States began planning for a more systematic and less dangerous approach using new technology. One of the leading advocates of the need for new, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was Richard S. Leghorn, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and employee of Eastman Kodak who had commanded the Army Air Forces’ 67th Reconnaissance Group in Europe during World War II. After the war he returned to Kodak but maintained his interest in photoreconnaissance. Leghorn strongly believed in the need for what he called pre-D-day reconnaissance, that is, reconnaissance of a potential enemy before the outbreak of actual hostilities, in contrast to combat reconnaissance in wartime. In papers presented in 1946 and 1948, Leghorn argued that the United States needed to develop such a capability, which would require high-altitude aircraft and high-resolution cameras. The outbreak of the Korean war gave Leghorn an opportunity to put his ideas into effect. Recalled to active duty by the Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Leghorn became the head of the Reconnaissance Systems Branch of the Wright Air Development Command at Dayton, Ohio, in April 19515. In Leghorn’s view, altitude was the key to success for overhead reconnaissance. Since the best Soviet interceptor at that time, the MIG-17, had to struggle to reach 45,000 feet,6 Leghorn reasoned that an aircraft that could exceed 60,000 feet would be safe from Soviet fighters. Recognizing that the fastest way to produce a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was to modify an existing aircraft, he began looking for the highest flying aircraft available in the Free World. This search soon led him to a British twin-engine medium bomber — the Canberra — built by the English Electric Company. The Canberra had made its first flight in May 1949. Its speed of 469 knots (870 kilometers per hour) and its service ceiling of 48,000 feet made the Canberra a natural choice for high-altitude reconnaissance work. The Royal Air Force quickly developed a reconnaissance version of the Canberra, the PR3 (the PR stood for photoreconnaissance), which began flying in March 19507. At Leghorn’s insistence, the Wright Air Development Command invited English Electric representatives to Dayton in the summer of 1951 to help find ways to make the Canberra fly even higher. By this time the Air Force had already adopted the bomber version of the Canberra, which the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company was to produce under license as the B-57 medium bomber. Leghorn and his English Electric colleagues designed a new Canberra configuration with very long high-lift wings, new Rolls-Royce Avon-109 engines, a solitary pilot, and an airframe that was stressed to less than the standard military specifications. Leghorn calculated that a Canberra so equipped might reach 63,000 feet early in a long mission and as high as 67,000 feet as the declining fuel supply lightened the aircraft. He believed that such a modified Canberra could penetrate the Soviet Union and China for a...