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

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144
Sec1 et NOFOAN
Chapter 3
U-2s flying well within international airspace above the Black Sea, as
was the case on 27 October I 957, when electronic intelligence equip­
ment on a U-2 flight over the Black Sea that never violated Soviet
airspace revealed 12 attempts at interception by Soviet fighters.'n
The sole U-2 overflight of 1958 was conducted by a dirty bird
from Detachment C. On I March 1958, mission 6011 overflew the
Soviet Far East and photographed the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
Sovetskaya Gavan', the Tatar Strait, and a strange installation at
Malaya Sazanka, which was eventually determined to be a structure
for mating nuclear devices with their detonators. This was the first
and only U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union staged from Japan.94
On 5 March 1958, the Soviet Union delivered a vigorous protest
concerning this mission, prompting President Eisenhower to tell
Colonel Goodpaster on 7 March to inform the CIA that U-2 flights
were to be "discontinued, effective at once." 95 This standdown was
to last more than 16 months, until July 1959. The Soviets had not
been fooled by the antiradar devices carried by mission 601 l, as was
demonstrated by the detailed information about the mission contained
in a Soviet aide-memoire delivered on 21 April I 958. It was clear that
dirty bird aircraft were not effective and that Soviet radar operators
had little difficulty in tracking them. At this point, the Agency aban­
doned the use of the antiradar devices on the U-2. As a substitute,
Lockheed began working to develop a paint with radar-suppressant
qualities, but this project also proved unsuccessful.
The U-2s were not the only cause for the Soviet protests that so
vexed the President. On 27 June 1958, an Agency C-118 on a courier
flight from Adana to Teheran strayed into Soviet Armenia and was
shot down; the Soviets captured two survivors, including one Agency
employee. Ten days later the Air Force began launching balloons de­
signed to fly across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This new
balloon project (known as WS-461 L) had been authorized by
President Eisenhower on 25 June after Deputy Secretary of Defense
Donald Quarles argued that a small number of balloons should be
'" Mission folder 4061 (27 October 1957), OSA records, job 67-B-972, bol\ 8 (TS
Codeword).
•• Mission folder 6011 (1 March 1958), OSA records. job 67-B-972, box 13 (TS
Codeword).
'" Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record, 7 March 1958, WHOSS, Alpha,
DDEL (TS, declassified).
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