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

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the People's Republic of China. This project had its ongms 10 a
RAND Corporation study from 1951. By the end of I 955, the Air
Force had overcome a number of technical problems in camera design
and recovery techniques and had manufactured a large number of bal­
loons for use in the project. President Eisenhower gave his approval
on 27 December 1955, and two weeks later the launches from bases
in Western Europe began. By the end of February 1956, the Air Force
had launched a total of 516 balloons.67
Project GENETRIX was much less successful than its sponsors
had hoped. Once launched, the balloons were at the mercy of the pre­
vailing winds, and many tended to drift toward southern Europe and
then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal­
loons therefore missed the prime target areas, which lay in the higher
latitudes. Large numbers of balloons did not succeed in crossing the
Soviet Union and China, some because they were shot down by hos­
tile aircraft, others because they prematurely expended their ballast
supplies and descended too soon. Only 46 payloads were eventually
recovered (one more than a year later and the last not until 1958)
from the 5 16 balloons that had been launched. In four of these pay-
Joads the camera had malfunctioned, and in another eight _the photog­
raphy was of no intelligence value. Thus, only 34 balloons succeeded
in obtaining useful photographs.""
The low success rate of the Project GENETRIX balloons was not
the only problem encountered; far more serious was the storm of pro­
test and unfavorable publicity that the balloon overflights provoked.
Although the Air Force had issued a cover story that the balloons
were being used for weather research connected with the International
Geophysical Year, East European nations protested strongly to the
United States and to international aviation authorities, claiming that
the balloons endangered civilian aircraft. The Soviet Union sent
strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations
from which the balloons had been launched. The Soviets also col­
lected numerous polyethelene gasbags, camera payloads, and trans­
mitters from GENETRIX balloons and put them on display in
9
Moscow for the world press.~
., P. G. Strong, Attachment to Memorandum for DCI Dulles. "Project GENETRIX
Summary." 15 February 1956 (S).
"' Final Report. Project I 19L. 1st Air Division (Meteorological Survey) Strategic Air
Command. 5 Mar~·h 1956. D-582, Genernl Summary (S. declassitic:d 1979).
"'' New Yr,rk Times, IO February 1956. p. I: Omaha World Herald, 11 February I 956, p. I.
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Chapter 2
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