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

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Seeret NOFORN
Chapter 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 oif the
American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, ob­
se_ryers 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 disposi­
tion 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."
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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 be­
fore a bombing raid and to assess the effectiveness of the bombing
afteiwarcl
Peacetime applications of high-altitude photography at first in­
cluded only photornapping and surveying for transcontinental high­
ways 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 fonns of communi­
cation between the Soviet Bloc of nations and the rest of the world.
' Roy M. Stanley II, World War I/ Photo Intelligence (New York: Scribners. 1981), p. 16.