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

Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3

airspace because of compass error compounded by a slight error in the pilot's dead reckoning. Because of heavy cloud cover, the pilot, James W. Cherbonneaux, did not realize he was over the Soviet Union until he saw Soviet fighters attempting to intercept him. These attempts at interception once again demonstrated the Soviets' ability to track the U-2 and their inability to harm it. $ ^{69} $

At this point in early 1957, the U-2 program was in limbo. Although the President would not allow U-2s to fly their primary mission of reconnaissance of the Soviet Union, he did not cancel the program and continued to authorize flights along Soviet borders. The CIA's overhead reconnaissance program also faced a renewed bid by the Air Force, which now had its own growing U-2 fleet, to gain control of the overflight program in the spring of 1957. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the project made planning and budgeting extremely difficult. In April 1957, Richard Bissell asked the DCI and DDCI to push for a decision on whether the U-2 program was to continue in civilian hands and what its scope was to be. In briefing papers prepared for the DCI, Bissell argued for maintaining a nonmilitary overflight capability, which could "maintain greater security, employ deeper cover, use civilian pilots, keep the aircraft outside military control, and, therefore, make possible more plausible denial of US military responsibility in the face of any Soviet charges." In urging the resumption of overflights, Bissell stated that four U-2 missions over border regions of the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe had been detected by the Soviets without causing any diplomatic protest. He also noted that the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities had unanimously recommended the resumption of overflights.70

All of these issues were discussed on 6 May 1957, when President Eisenhower met with Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles, Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining, Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, and three CIA officals—DCI Dulles, DDCI Cabell, and Richard Bissell. The President expressed concern about the impact of overflights on US-Soviet relations and about possible Soviet responses such as closing off access to Berlin. Although