Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
104
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detachment had four aircraft working and could average up to two flights per day, Bissell told the President that the crews were “ready and eager to go in beyond the satellites” and overfly the center of the Soviet Union.²³
Eisenhower replied that he thought it “urgent” to know whether the recent flights had been tracked by hostile radars. The President was obviously concerned that CIA estimates that the U-2 could fly virtually undetected were proving false. One of the reasons why he had approved the overflight program was the CIA’s assurance that the Soviet Union would remain unaware of the flights or—at the very worst—receive only occasional, vague indications.
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FIRST U-2 FLIGHTS OVER THE SOVIET UNION
The question of how well the Soviets could track U-2 flights had not yet been settled when the first overflights of the Soviet Union took place. On Wednesday, 4 July 1956, the U-2 known as Article 347 began the first flight over the Soviet Union. Final authorization for mission 2013 had come shortly before takeoff. Late on the evening of 3 July, Bissell went to project headquarters in the Matomic Building to give the “Go” or “No go” decision. Although the President had approved the overflight, the final decision to start a mission depended on a number of factors, especially the weather over the target area and at the takeoff and landing sites. Bissell made the decision just before midnight Washington time, which was six o’clock in the morning in Wiesbaden. This pattern of last-minute approvals continued for the duration of the U-2 overflight program.²⁴
When Wiesbaden received the “Go” signal, a U-2 equipped with an A-2 camera and flown by pilot Hervey Stockman took off on a course that took it over Poznan, Poland, where riots had occurred on 28-30 June. After Poznan, Stockman headed for Belorussia, where he turned north to Leningrad. The last leg of the mission took the U-2 over the Soviet Baltic states before returning to Wiesbaden. The main target of this mission was the naval shipyards in Leningrad, center of
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²³ Andrew J. Goodpaster’s handwritten notes on 2 July 1956 meeting, WHOSS, Alpha, DDEL (TS).
²⁴ Bissell interview by Welzenbach (S); Cunningham interview (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25