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

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Chapter 3
Chordwise wire
/Spanwise wire
absorption devices for the U-2. Once these devices_ were install,ed on
the operational U-2s, he explained, the "majority of incidents would
be undetected."
73
Work on methods of reducing the U-2's vulnerability to radar de­
tection had begun in the fall of 1956 as the result of President
Eisenhower's disenchantment with the overflight program following
Soviet detection and tracking of the first series of U-2 missions. The
CIA proprietary firm Scientific Engineering Institute was condutcting
this research under a project codenamed RAINBOW. SEI Chief
Engineer Dr. Franklin A. Rodgers, formerly of MIT, converted the
theories of Harvard physicist Edward Purcell into systems that ,could
be used on aircraft. SEI's radar-deception system consisted of a series
of attachments to the U-2. First bamboo poles and later fiberglass
rods were attached to the wings. where they would not interfere with
the control surfaces. At the ends of these poles, completely circling
" Andrew J. Goodpaster. Memorandum of Conference with the President. 6 Ma:y 1957
(TS); .. Record of Action-Meeting of May 6, 1957," WHOSS, Alpha, DDEL (TS).
"Trapeze• antiradar attachments
to the U-2
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