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

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Chapter 3
surgery). JCS Chairman Adm. Arthur Radford. DCI Allen Dulles, and
Richard Bissell, Eisenhower explained why he refused to allow over­
flights of the Soviet Union: "Everyone in the world says that, in the
last six weeks, the United States has gained a place it hasn't held
since World War fl. To make trips now would cost more than we
would gain in form of solid information." Hoover agreed and rnoted,
"If we lost a plane at this stage, it would be almost catastrophic."
Tom between his desire to maintain a "correct and moral" position
and his wish to know what the Soviet Union was up to. the Pres.idem
finally authorized several overflights of Eastern Europe and the
Soviet border, "but not the deep one," adding that the aircraft should
"stay as close to the border as possible." (>I
The first of these flights, mission 4016 on 20 November 1956,
was the first overflight of Soviet territory since IO July. This mission
left Adana and flew east over Iran, then reversed and flew west along
the Soviet-Iranian border to Soviet Armenia. where it crossed into the
Soviet Union and photographed Yerevan. An electrical malfunction
then forced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, to return to Adana. Soviet
interceptor aircraft made sev.eral unsuccessful attempts to reach this
U-2, and the Soviet Government sent a secret protest note to
h.
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Was ington. ­
On IO December. Bulgaria was the target of two U-2 missions.
one (40 I 8) from Detachment B at Adana and another (2029) from
Detachment A at Giebelstadt. Bulgarian fighter aircraft made lO dif­
ferent attempts to intercept the first mission. but the flight proceeded
without difficulty.
6
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The second flight came close to crashing but not through the ef­
forts of interceptors. The pilot of mission 2029 was Carmine Vito,
who had flown the first U-2 mission over Moscow on 5 July. He was
known co his colleagues as the Lemon-Drop Kid because he always
carried these hard candies in the knee pocket of his flight suit. Despite
•• Andrew J. Goodpaster. Memorandum of Conference with the President. ~ovember IS.
1956. WHOSS. Alpha. DDEL (TS): Ambrose. Eisenhower: The President. p. 374.
•' M ission folder 40 16. 20 November 1956. OSA records. job 67-8-972. bo)( 7 (TS
Codeword).
•·' Mission folders 1019 (IO December 1956) and 4018 (10 December 1956). OSA re­
cords. job 67-B-328. box 7 and job 67-B-972. box 7 (TS Codeword).
_secret