The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974

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Although the photo intelligence gained from Project GENETRIX
was limited in quantity, it was still some of the best and most com­
plete photography obtained of the Soviet Union since World War IL It
was referred to as "pioneer" photography because it provided a base­
line for all future overhead photography. Even innocuous photos of
such things as forests and streams proved valuable in later years when
U-2 and satellite photography revealed construction activity.
Of still greater importance to the U-2 program, however, was the
data that US and NATO radars obtained as they tracked the paths of
the balloons-whose average altitude was 45,800 feet-over the
Soviet Bloc. This data provided the most accurate record to date of
high-altitude wind currents, knowledge that meteorologists were later
able to put to use to determine optimum flightpaths for U-2 flights.
One
completely
fortuitous
development
from
Project
GENETRIX had nothing to do with the cameras but involved a steel
bar. This bar served a dual purpose: the rigging of the huge polyethyl­
ene gasbag was secured to the top of the bar and the camera-payload
_and automatic-ballasting equipment was attached to the bottom. By
sheer chance, the length of the bar-91 centimeters-corresponded to
the wavelength of the radio frequency used by a Soviet radar known
by its NATO designator as TOKEN. This was an S-band radar used
by Soviet forces for early warning and ground-controlled intercept.
The bar on the GENETRIX balloons resonated when struck by
TOKEN radar pulses, making it possible for radar operators at US
and NATO installations on the periphery of the Soviet Union to locate
a number of previously unknown TOKEN radars.
These radar findings, coupled with other intercepts made during
the balloon flights, provided extensive data on Warsaw Pact radar net­
works, radar sets, and ground-controlled interception techniques.
Analysis of these intercepts revealed the altitude capabilities and
tracking accuracy of radars, the methods used by Warsaw Pact nations
to notify each other of the balloons' passage (handing off), and the
altitudes at which Soviet aircraft could intercept the balloons. All of
this information could be directly applied to future U-2 missions.'~
'' Final Report. Project l 19L, 1st Air Division (Meteorological Survey) Strategic Air
Command. 5 March 1956. D-582, General Summary (TS, declassified 1979).
Seeret NOFOAN
Chapter 2
i,eeret