Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
129
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[figure]
- Chordwise wire
- Spanwise wire
- Ferrite beads
- Fiberglass member
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absorption devices for the U-2. Once these devices were installed on the operational U-2s, he explained, the “majority of incidents would be undetected.”⁷³
> “Trapeze” antiradar attachments to the U-2
Work on methods of reducing the U-2’s vulnerability to radar detection had begun in the fall of 1956 as the result of President Eisenhower’s disenchantment with the overflight program following Soviet detection and tracking of the first series of U-2 missions. The CIA proprietary firm Scientific Engineering Institute was conducting this research under a project codenamed RAINBOW. SEI Chief Engineer Dr. Franklin A. Rodgers, formerly of MIT, converted the theories of Harvard physicist Edward Purcell into systems that could be used on aircraft. SEI’s radar-deception system consisted of a series of attachments to the U-2. First bamboo poles and later fiberglass rods were attached to the wings, where they would not interfere with the control surfaces. At the ends of these poles, completely circling
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⁷³ Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conference with the President, 6 May 1957 (TS); “Record of Action—Meeting of May 6, 1957,” WHOSS, Alpha, DDEL (TS).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25