: Thomas Fensch
: The C.I.A. and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974
: New Century Books
: 9780990826453
: 1
: CHF 8.30
:
: Geschichte
: English
: 265
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
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.

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 thes