OPEN SKIES Initiative:

Even before the development and deployment of the U-2 however, President Eisenhower’s thoughts had been focused on the possible use of the RB-36 in another role. After consulting with advisors, he envisioned a concept by which the U.S. and USSR could verify arms reduction with reconnaissance overflights of each other’s nation. At the Geneva Summit in July 1955, Eisenhower announced this initiative, which he called OPEN SKIES. He offered the USSR the use of U.S. airfields and facilities from which they could fly Soviet reconnaissance missions over the United States if the Soviets would give the U.S. similar facilities and rights in the USSR. (94)

Knowing their strategic and defense forces were far weaker than they claimed, the Soviets rejected this idea. In fact, Communist Party Secretary Nikita Kruschev’s forceful rebuke of the OPEN SKIES initiative was one of the first indications that he, not Prime Minister Bulganin, was the most powerful leader coming up through the Soviet political system to take Premier Stalin’s place after the latter’s death in 1953.

Not only did Secretary Kruschev understand the importance of keeping indications of Soviet weakness away from prying American eyes, he believed the U.S. was really proposing OPEN SKIES as a way to find and identify targets for strategic attack. Unbeknownst to Kruschev, President Eisenhower had a new tool in his bag – the development of the high-flying U-2 spyplane. In proposing OPEN SKIES, Eisenhower had a fallback plan. He stated, “I’ll give it [the Open Skies initiative] one shot. Then if they don’t accept it, we’ll fly the U-2.” (95)

While the execution of the GENETRIX and FICON programs did not live up to expectations, and the development of other aerial reconnaissance projects did not come to fruition, the U-2 stands as one of the major accomplishments of the Intelligence Community today. In an article published in the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence journal, the current Director of Central Intelligence, George J. Tenet said, “The U-2 was, indeed, one of the CIA’s greatest intelligence achievements. In fact, it may be one of the greatest achievements of any intelligence service of any nation. It was a triumph of government, great industry partners and courageous people.” (96)

Several factors led to the U.S. development of a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. The first was the Soviet’s postwar political statement and military actions concerning efforts to gain nuclear weapons and a strategic bomber force. Making this more threatening for Western leaders was that this military modernization was taking place within a closed society. Memories of Pearl Harbor were still fresh in the minds of military and civilian leaders alike and made even more threatening with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union with long-range bombers. The use of aerial reconnaissance was only one of the primary ways available to get answers to vital national security concerns. By early 1954, the Eisenhower administration was growing increasingly concerned about the Soviet capability to launch a surprise attack on the United States. (97)

In March 1954, Lockheed’s Kelly Johnson submitted his U-2 design (first called the CL-282) to the USAF in competition with other aircraft designers. In early April, the CL-282 design was presented to the Commander of the Strategic Air Command, General Curtis LeMay. According to participants in this meeting, General LeMay cut the meeting short, rejecting the glider-type design. Later in the year, Lockheed presented the U-2 to CIA officials who also hesitated about venturing into a “military” program. In November 1954, two of President Eisenhower’s intelligence advisors presented him the CL-282 design. One of these men was Massachusetts Institute of Technology President James R. Killian, who noted

After listening to our proposal and asking many hard questions, Eisenhower approved the development of the (CL-282/U-2) system, but he stipulated that it should be handled in an unconventional way so that it would not become entangled in the bureaucracy of the Defense Department or troubled by rivalries among the services. (98)

Thus, President Eisenhower assigned U-2 program management to the CIA and not the USAF. On 9 December 1954, the CIA, in turn, awarded Lockheed the development contract under the codename Project AQUATONE. ) (99) The U-2’s development, which entailed Lockheed, CIA and USAF participants, was conducted in the tightest secrecy. The glider-like design would allow the reconnaissance aircraft to fly over 70,000 feet high and take photographs over terrain 125 miles wide with cameras not yet developed when the project started. (100)

While the U-2 was under development, worldwide aerial reconnaissance missions continued unabated and even increased after several events took place which required increased intelligence. The first of these events was the perception of a U.S./USSR Bomber Gap. In May and July of 1955, the Soviets showcased their increasing strength in strategic bomber production. First, they unveiled their newest long-range bomber, the Tu-95 BEAR at the Moscow May Day parade. In July, they fooled Western observers into reporting they had scores of Mya-4 jet bombers (when in actuality they were flying the same groups around and around, making several passes in front of spectators).

The net effect of these two actions was that U.S. intelligence analysts increased the estimated number of Soviet bombers being produced – thus dramatically increasing the threat this posed to national security. While the CIA had published a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in May 1955 projecting the Soviets to have 600 long-range bombers by 1960, these Soviet events spurred analysts to more than double their original estimates. (101)

The other major event which increased the need for solid intelligence was the Soviet detonation of their first thermonuclear device in November 1955. This leap in technology came just nine months after the first U.S. test of a thermonuclear device. Combined with the fact that the Soviet weapon was dropped from a Tu-16 BADGER bomber, the detonation gave grave implications for a U.S. leadership already panicked about a perceived “bomber gap” and thinking with a “surprise attack” mentality.

In the hunt for intelligence collection which would reveal increased bomber forces and nuclear weapons testing, the U.S. increased aerial reconnaissance missions across the USSR’s northern and northwestern areas. From 21 March through 10 May 1956, General LeMay ordered SAC reconnaissance units to conduct Project HOMERUN. This was a massive aerial reconnaissance effort to probe, identify and track the entire northern frontier of the USSR.

For the effort sixteen RB-47E (PHOTINT) and five RB-47 (ELINT) aircraft were supported by 28 KC-97 refueling tankers. All of these aircraft, crews and support personnel were sent to Thule Air Base, Greenland (about 700 miles above the Arctic Circle) from where they staged daily reconnaissance missions. The RB-47E’s and H’s normally flew in pairs to optimize coverage and protection (much like earlier USAF RB-29 and USN PV2 flights in the Far East).

Project HOMERUN missions photographed and collected ELINT from the Soviet nuclear test facilities at Novaya Zemlya and the entire length of the USSR’s northern frontier. Some of these missions even entailed overflights into Soviet coastal and Siberian regions. Before the project ended, six RB-47E’s made a massed formation overflight taking photographs across a large area of the Northern USSR. (102)

Even though the USAF was using more enhanced jet aircraft (like the RB-47) to conduct these PHOTINT, ELINT and SIGINT missions, U.S. reconnaissance aircraft became ever more susceptible to Soviet air defenses. U.S. aerial reconnaissance losses continued on pace with those experienced during the Korean War. In addition to the three USAF and one USN reconnaissance aircraft lost in the Far East in the fall and winter of 1954, the Soviets scored their first shoot down of an RB-47 on 17 April 1955 during an ELINT mission off the Kamchatka peninsula. A USN P2V conducting a mission in the Bearing Straits was lost two months later (see Appendix C for entire list of Cold War aerial reconnaissance losses).

(94) Pedlow, 96.
(95) Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: The U-2 Affair (New York: Harper and Rob Publishers, 1986), 105.
(96) George J. Tenet, “The U-2 Program: The DCI’s Perspective,” Studies in Intelligence (Wash DC: National Technical Information Service, 1999), 1.
(97) In early 1954, a RAND Study warned that a Soviet surprise attack might be able to destroy 85 percent of the SAC bomber force.
(98) James R. Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower: A Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Boston: MIT Press, 1977), 82.
(99) Andrew Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conference with the President, 24 November 1954. Eisenhower Archives.
(100) Jackson, 107.
(101) Lashmar, 109.
(102) Hall, Colloquy, 19-20.