In 1954 Frank
Wisner of the Central
Intelligence Agency
placed Richard
Bissell in charge of developing and
operating the U-2 spy plane. The U-2 was designed by Kelly Johnson,
who had previously been responsible for the P-38 and the F-104 fighter
planes. It was essentially a glider with a jet engine. It was so light
it could fly at an altitude of 70,000 feet and travel over 4,000 miles.
It took two years and $19m to develop.
President Dwight
Eisenhower gave
permission for the U-2 to fly over Moscow and Leningrad for the first
time on 4th July, 1956. The U-2 was a great success and within two
years Richard Bissell was able to say
that 90% of all hard intelligence about the Soviet Union coming into
the CIA was "funneled through the lens of the U-2's aerial cameras".
This information convinced Eisenhower that Khrushchev was lying about
the number of bombers and missiles being built by the Soviet
Union. Eisenhower now knew that United States enjoyed a major
advantage over the Soviet Union and allowed him to control defence
spending.
As the end of his presidency
approached, Dwight
Eisenhower, decided
to take a decisive step towards ending the Cold
War by arranging a summit meeting with Nikita
Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet
Union. The two sides agreed to meet in Paris on 16th May, 1960.
On 1st May, 1960, a high-altitude
American photographic reconnaissance aircraft, a Lockheed U-2, was
shot down over the Soviet Union and the pilot, Gary Powers, was taken
prisoner. Six days later Khrushchev announced to the world what had
happened and demanded a full apology from the United States government.
President Eisenhower replied by admitting that the Central
Intelligence Agency had carried out these spying missions without
his authority. However, he argued that the United States government
had the right to protect its security by collecting the maximum of
information about Soviet military strength.
On 15th May Nikita
Khrushchev made another appeal to Dwight
Eisenhower
to apologize for carrying
out aerial spying on the Soviet Union. When he refused, the Soviet
delegation left Paris and the summit meeting never took place.
Gary Powers was returned
to the United States in February 1962 in exchange
for a high-ranking Soviet spy that had been arrested by the Americans.
Soviet cartoon showing Dwight
Eisenhower during the U2 Crisis (May, 1962)
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
