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

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gee1 et NOFORl'ii
Chapter 4
This statement had been prepared for a "best case·· scenario, that
is to say, one in which neither the pilot nor the plane and film sur­
vived. However, pilots had bailed out from extremely high altitudes
and survived, and there was even evidence from previous U-2 crashes
that much of the aircraft itself could be salvaged. The small destruc­
tive charge aboard the U-2 was not sufficient to destroy much more
than the camera. The tightly rolled film, which could reveal the exact
purpose of the mission even if the pilot and aircraft did not survive,
was very hard to destroy. Kelly Johnson later conducted an experi­
ment that revealed film taken out of a completely burned-out aircraft
could still provide usable imagery. 33 After almost four years of suc­
cessful U-2 missions, Richard Bissell and the rest of the Development
Projects Division had become overconfident and were not prepared
for the ··worst case" scenario that actually occurred in May I 960.
This failure played directly into the hands of Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev, who shrewdly decided to release information about the
downed U-2 a little at a time, thereby encouraging the United States
to stick with its vulnerable cover story too long. As he later wrote,
"Our intention here was to confuse the government circles of the
United States. As long as the Americans thought the pilot was dead,
they would keep putting out the story that perhaps the plane had acci­
dentally strayed off course and been shot down in the mountains on
the Soviet side of the border."'" The first word from the Soviet Union
came on Thursday, 5 May, when Premier Khrushchev announced to a
meeting of the Supreme Soviet that a US "spyplane" had been
downed near Sverdlovsk. He made no mention of the fate of its pilot.
Khrushchev's announcement aroused considerable interest in the
media in the United States, and that same day the State Department
and NASA issued another statement that continued the "weather
plane" cover story, adding that the pilot became lost during a routine
mission near the Caucasus Mountains. Soon afterward. the US
Ambassador to Moscow cabled a report to the State Department indi­
cating that the pilot might be alive after all. Two days later, on 7 May
1960. Khrushchev confirmed this report by revealing that the U-2 pi­
lot was alive and had admitted his mission of spying on the Soviet
Union.
" Geary intt!rview.
'" Khrushcht!v. Khrushchev Remembers: The Lase Teswmem. p. 507.
Sec1et