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

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19
Sec. et NOFOAN
Chapter 1
document on 15 June 1952, the BEACON HILL Report advocated
radical approaches to obtain the information needed for national intel­
ligence estimates. Its 14 chapters covered radar, radio, and photo­
graphic surveillance: examined the use of passive infrared and
microwave reconnaissance; and discussed the development of ad­
vanced reconnaissance vehicles. One of the report's key recommenda­
tions called for the development of high-altitude reconnaissance
aircraft:
We have reached a period in history when our peacetime knowl­
edge of the capabilities, activities and dispositions of a poten­
tially hostile nation is such as to demand that we supplement it
with the maximum amount of information obtainable through
aerial reconnaissance. To avoid political involvements, such
aerial reconnaissance must be conducted either from vehicles
flying in friendly airspace, or-a decision on this point
permitting-from vehicles whose performance is such that they
can operate in Soviet airspace with greatly reduced chances of
detection or interception. 1J
Concern About the Danger of a Soviet Surprise Attack
The Air Force did not begin to implement the ideas of the BEACON
HILL Report until the summer of 1953. By this time interest in recon­
naissance had increased after Dwight D. Eisenhower became
President in January 1953 and soon expressed his dissatisfaction with
the quality of the intelligence estimates of Soviet strategic capabilities
and the paucity of reconnaissance on the Soviet Bloc. 11
To President Eisenhower and many other US political and mili­
tary leaders, the Soviet Union was a dangerous opponent that ap­
peared to be moving inexorably toward a position of military parity
with the United States. Particularly alarming was Soviet progress in
the area of nuclear weapons. In the late summer of 1949, the Soviet
Union had detonated an atomic bomb nearly three years sooner than
US ex.perts had predicted. Then in August 1953-a scant nine months
after the first US test of a hydrogen bomb-the Soviet Union deto­
nated a hydrogen bomb manufactured from lithium deuteride, a tech­
nology more advanced than the heavy water method used by US
'' BEACON Hill Report, pp. 164, 167-168 (C). This section of the report was written by
Allen Donovan and Louis Ridenour.
'' Lundahl and Brugioni interview (TS Codeword).
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