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

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Chapter 4
deployed SS-6 site because it could provide exemplars for
photointerpreters to use in searching subsequent overhead photogra­
phy for similar installations.13
The two proposed overflights that would cover the northern rail­
road lines received the strongest consideration. Both plans contained
new features. Operation TIME STEP called for a U-2 to take off from
the USAF base at Thule, Greenland, which would be the first over­
flight staged from this base. The aircraft would then fly over Novaya
Zemlya on its way to cover the railroad lines from the Polyamyy Ural
Mountains to Kotlas. The return flight would be over Murmansk with
the landing to take place at either Bodo or Andoya on Norway's
northeast coast. The other proposed overflight, Operation GRAND
SLAM, was the first U-2 mission planned to transit the Soviet Union;
all previous missions had penetrated not more than halfway and then
left in the general direction from which they came. GRAND SLAM
proposed to fly across the Soviet Union from south to north, departing
from Peshawar, Pakistan, and landing at Bodo, Norway. The mission
would overfly Tyuratam, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Kotlas, Severodvinsk,
and Murmansk.
The two preferred missions both required the use of the airfield
at Bodo, which had been authorized by senior Norwegian intelligence
and military officers. Because the Bodo airfield was involved in
NATO maneuvers taking place in the Barents Sea area, Bissell in­
formed the White House that neither mission could be flown before
19 April. Once the maneuvers ended, bad weather over the Soviet
Union kept the mission from taking place when it was originally
scheduled. Richard Bissell, therefore, asked President Eisenhower for
more time. and, on 25 April, General Goodpaster relayed the
President's instructions to Bissell that "one additional operation may
be undertaken, provided it is carried out prior to May 1. No operation
is to be carried out after May l. " 14 The President did not want to fly
missions any later than that because the Paris Summit was scheduled
to begin on 16 May 1960.
By this time, CIA planners were concentrating on Operation
GRAND SLAM as the most likely route for the proposed mission be­
cause it offered the best chance of photographing suspected locations
'·' OSA Hi.1·tory, chap. 12. pp. 35-36 (TS Codeword).
" Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, p. 569; Beschloss, Mayday, p. 10.
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