Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 15. August 2013 / Timeline August 15, 2013
Version 3.514. August 2013, 16. August 2013
08/15/2013
The Secret History of the U-2
US Spy Planes Targeted China to Help India; Used British Crews to
"Confuse the Soviets" and Overflew French Nuclear Sites
Groom Lake/Area 51 Finally Declassified
Less Redacted CIA History Released Under FOIA
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 434
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2013 -- On 21 February 1955, Richard
M. Bissell, a senior CIA official, wrote a check on an Agency
account for $1.25 million dollars and mailed it to the home of
Kelly Johnson, chief engineer at the Lockheed Company's Burbank,
California, plant. According to a newly declassified CIA history of
the U-2 program obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by
National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson, the
Agency was about to sign a contract with Lockheed for $22.5 million
to build 20 U-2 aircraft, but the company needed a cash infusion
right away to keep the work going. Through the use of "unvouchered"
funds -- virtually free from any external oversight or accounting
-- the CIA could write checks to finance secret programs, such as
the U-2. As it turned out, Lockheed produced the 20 aircraft at a
total of $18,977,597 (including $1.9 million in profit), or less
than $1 million per plane. It was all "under budget," a miracle in
today's defense contracting world.
What the CIA released in response to a 2005 Freedom of Information
Act request is a substantially less redacted version of a history
of two key aerial reconnaissance programs. Written by agency
historians Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, and titled The
Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2
and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974, the study was published in
classified channels in 1992. Subsequently, a heavily redacted
version of the U-2 portion was published, in 1998, by the agency's
Center for the Study of Intelligence as a book, The CIA and the U-2
Program, 1954-1974, in conjunction with a CIA conference on the
U-2. The full study, in redacted form, had been released in
response to FOIA requests.
The latest release is notable for the significant amount of newly
declassified material with respect to the U-2 -- with regard to
names of pilots, codenames and cryptonyms, locations, funding and
cover arrangements, electronic countermeasures equipment,
organization, cooperation with foreign governments, and operations,
particularly in Asia. In addition, the release also contains newly
declassified on one manned and two unmanned aerial reconnaissance
efforts. Specifically, newly declassified material on:
* Numerous references to Area 51 and Groom Lake, with a map of the
area.
* Names of all the pilots who flew the U-2 missions that are
discussed in the history
* A table (Appendix D) which provides key data on all U-2 flights
over the Soviet Union -- date, mission numbers, pilot, airfield,
payload, and route. Maps show all the routes.
* Cryptonyms and codewords such as KWEXTRA-00, KWGLITTER-00,
OARFISH, HTNAMABLE, KWCORK, MUDLARK (the project to gather all
available information about the downing of Francis Gary Powers'
U-2), and HBJARGON (the U-2 base in Pakistan).
* More than three pages (pp. 153-157, previously deleted in their
entirety) on British participation in the U-2 program. The authors
note that President Dwight Eisenhower viewed British participation
"as a way to confuse the Soviets as to sponsorship of particular
overflights" as well to spread the risk of failure.
* An account (pp. 231-233, previously redacted in its entirety) of
U-2 operations from India, between 1962 and 1967, triggered by the
1962 Sino-Indian war.
* An account (pp. 222-230 ff., almost entirely deleted in the
previous release) of U.S.-sponsored Chinese Nationalist U-2
operations, including tables of the number of overflight and
peripheral missions each year.
* Details of Operation FISH HAWK (pp. 249-251), the employment of a
U-2, launched off an aircraft carrier in May 1964, to photograph
the French nuclear test site in the Pacific.
* Discussions of a manned low-altitude reconnaissance program,
STPOLLY, consisting of flights over China during the 1960s by
Chinese Nationalist pilots.
* An account (pp. 211-216) of U-2 operations in support of CIA
covert operations in support of the 1958 Indonesian rebellion and
the Tibetan rebellion against China.
* Accounts (in Appendix E) of two unmanned aerial reconnaissance
programs -- AQUILINE and AXILLARY.
The many books and articles written on the aerial reconnaissance
programs, particularly the U-2 and the OXCART (and its Air Force
variant, the SR-71), include much information about these topics,
often with significant accuracy. However, the newly released
material provides a combination of significant new material,
official confirmation of -- or corrections to -- what has been
written, and official acknowledgment that permits researchers to
follow up the disclosures with FOIA or Mandatory Declassification
Review requests that may produce even more information. Moreover,
like any historical study, the CIA history may include errors that
will require further scrutiny by researchers in the field.
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