To avert a surprise nuclear attack, some American intelligence analysts immediately after World War II believed that “pre‐hostilities reconnaissance” over potential enemy territory would be prudent. But since the Soviet Union, the only nation capable of threatening the United States, had few long‐range bomber aircraft and no nuclear weapons, American reconnaissance aircraft were ordered to respect Soviet air space.
The deepening Cold War and Moscow's growing inventory of nuclear weapons changed attitudes in the early 1950s. In 1954, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation began work on an aircraft that could fly above Soviet air defenses. Modifying an F‐104 interceptor fuselage and giving it a wingspan of almost 100 feet, Lockheed first tested the U‐2 aircraft in August 1955. Essentially a powered glider, the U‐2 could climb over 70,000 feet and had a range of 3,000 miles. The Central Intelligence Agency exercised operational management, but overflights of Soviet air space needed presidential approval. In all, the U‐2 flew twenty‐four missions over the Soviet Union.
In June 1956, American U‐2s began periodic flights over the Sino‐Soviet bloc, carrying cameras as their main sensors, supplemented by communications and electronic intercept equipment. The Royal Air Force also flew overflight missions under the authority of the British prime minister.
The overflights ended in May 1960 after the Soviets shot down a U‐2, but the U‐2's service continued. Several planes were given to the Nationalist Chinese for missions over the People's Republic of China. In October 1962, a U‐2 discovered Soviet offensive missiles in Cuba, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis. U‐2s flew missions during the Vietnam War, collected radioactive debris from other nations' nuclear tests, monitored the cease‐fire that ended the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and served in the Persian Gulf War. They will fly well into the next century.
[See also Intelligence, Military and Political; Satellites, Reconnaissance; U‐2 Incident (1960).]
Bibliography
- Chris Pocock, Dragon Lady: The History of the U‐2 Spyplane, 1989
