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

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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4

As concern about Soviet missile progress increased, even the interruption in Soviet ICBM testing was seen as evidence of a Soviet advantage. Although the CIA correctly reasoned that the Soviets were experiencing difficulties in developing an operational ICBM, the Air Force assumed that the Soviets had halted testing because the missile was ready for deployment. $ ^{4} $

The controversy intensified early in February 1959, when Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy testified before the Senate Preparedness Investigating Committee on Soviet missile capabilities for the next few years. McElroy told the Senators that in the early 1960s the Soviet Union might have a 3 to 1 advantage over the United States in operational ICBMs. McElroy stressed that the gap would be temporary and that at its end the United States would enjoy a technological advantage because it was concentrating on developing the more advanced solid-fueled missiles rather than increasing the number of obsolescent liquid-fueled missiles, but it was his mention of a 3 to 1 missile gap that made the headlines. Administration critics such as Senator Stuart Symington quickly charged that the actual gap would eventually be even larger. $ ^{5} $

Faced with rising public and Congressional concern about the missile gap, Defense Department officials pressed President Eisenhower to authorize renewed overflights to gather up-to-date information about the status of the Soviet missile program. Following a National Security Council meeting on 12 February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Twining, Secretary of Defense McElroy, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Quarles stayed behind to talk to the President about overflights. They hoped that the need to refute criticism of the missile gap from Symington and other Democratic Senators would persuade the President to loosen his policy on the use of the U-2. McElroy pointed out that no matter how often Allen Dulles briefed these critics, they would not believe his reassurances about the absence of a missile gap without positive proof such as photographs. More overflights would be needed to obtain the kinds of photographs required.

The President was not swayed by these arguments. Noting that the reconnaissance satellite project was "coming along nicely," he stated that U-2 flights should be "held to a minimum pending the