Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
154
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become involved in the U-2 project in September 1956, when the United States supplied them with photography from U-2 missions. To handle U-2 material, the British created a new control system, which later merged with the US control system. By 1957 cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States had expanded to include frequent consultation between the requirements and photo-interpretation organizations of both countries. James Reber and Arthur Lundahl made periodic trips to the United Kingdom for discussions with Alan Crick’s UK Requirements Committee (generally known as the Crick Committee, later as the Joint Priorities Committee), the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center, and MI-6.¹⁰⁸
The idea of using British pilots in the U-2 program first arose in the spring of 1957, when Richard Bissell—upset that his aircraft had not been allowed to fly over the Soviet Union since the December 1956 standdown—was searching for ways to reduce the political risks of overflights and thus obtain more frequent authorization for missions over the Soviet Union. One of his proposals was to use non-US pilots—possibly British—to increase the possibility of plausible denial in the event of a loss. At a meeting with key CIA, Defense Department, and State Department officials on 6 May 1957, President Eisenhower approved the concept of British participation in the U-2 project.¹⁰⁹
During the next six months, Dulles and Bissell met with Sir Dick White, head of MI-6, and Air Vice Marshal William M. L. MacDonald, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff for Intelligence, on several occasions to discuss the proposal in general terms. At first the CIA did not push the proposal too hard because at the same meeting in which he approved British participation, President Eisenhower had consented to the resumption of U-2 missions over the Soviet Union, resulting in 10 overflights during the summer and early fall of 1957. But when flights ceased in October, the thought of British participation became more attractive. By early 1958, Bissell was pressing the British to begin training pilots in the U-2 even though no final political decision on their participation had been made. On 7 February 1958, Bissell instructed the [redacted] to ask Air Vice Marshal MacDonald if the RAF was prepared to
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¹⁰⁸ See, for example, the trip reports of the Ad Hoc Requirements Committee in the COMIREX records, IC Staff (TS Codeword).
¹⁰⁹ Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conference with the President, 6 May 1957 (TS); idem, “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