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

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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3

Secretary of State Dulles said that, although he essentially agreed with the President's comments, he thought that "really important results" might be obtained by a seven to 10-day operation. He, nevertheless, questioned the long-term value of the results. DDCI Cabell replied that U-2 photographs would be useful much longer than the Secretary of State had implied because they would establish a reference bank of geographic and manmade features. Siding with Cabell, Admiral Radford pointed out the need for more intelligence to make estimates better.

President Eisenhower was not convinced by these arguments. Although willing to consider extensions of the radar-seeking ferret flights he had authorized along the Soviet borders, he remained opposed to penetration flights over the Soviet Union.

Events in Eastern Europe in the fall of 1956 helped to change the President's mind. In October the Soviet Union backed away from a confrontation with nationalist Communist leaders in Poland only to find itself facing a similar situation in Hungary, where mass demonstrations led to the formation of a new government under Imre Nagy on 23 October 1956. Soviet troops and tanks temporarily withdrew from Budapest while awaiting reinforcements. By early November, however, the Kremlin leadership decided that events in Hungary were getting out of hand—particularly when Premier Nagy announced his nation's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact—and ordered Soviet troops to suppress the Hungarian uprising. Although President Eisenhower deplored the Soviet intervention, he turned down CIA requests for permission to airdrop arms and supplies to the Hungarian rebels. In fact, the President forbid all overflights of that nation, including those by U-2 aircraft, and none was made. $ ^{60} $

Although President Eisenhower had not been willing to allow overflights during the Hungarian crisis, the Soviet Union's actions in Hungary convinced him to authorize renewed overflights of the Soviet Bloc, a decision that was made easier by his reelection by a large margin in early November. Initially, however, the President only authorized overflights of Eastern Europe and Soviet border regions, not the deep penetration overflights that had been requested by CIA. At a 15 November 1956 meeting with Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr. (John Foster Dulles was recovering from cancer