Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
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select a group of pilots for the U-2 project. MacDonald agreed to Bissell’s proposal and began recruiting RAF pilots to fly the U-2.¹¹⁰
In June 1958, representatives from the British Air Ministry came to project headquarters for an orientation and then sat down with CIA officials to work out an agreement on plans and procedures for the joint project. The two sides decided to establish a small RAF contingent that would be integrated into and supported by Detachment B at Adana. The British missions would be operationally controlled by CIA project headquarters. Soon afterward four British pilots began training in Texas. One of these pilots, Squadron Leader Christopher H. Walker, died in a training accident in July 1958. Because of the addition of RAF officers to the program, Project AQUATONE received a new codename, CHALICE. By the end of November 1958, three RAF pilots and a flight surgeon joined Detachment B at Adana with Turkish approval.
Formal approval by the political leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States had come several months earlier. On 27 August 1958, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave his approval to British participation in the project as long as he had the right to approve or disapprove all operational flights by RAF pilots. On the same day, President Eisenhower gave his approval in principle for the joint project.¹¹¹
Both sides stood to gain from the joint nature of the U-2 project. For Richard Bissell, British participation was a means to gain an additional source of authorization for overflights of the Soviet Union. Six months earlier, Bissell had cabled to [redacted] that he wanted British participation because it would “facilitate operations by them at times or under circumstances beyond the scope of authority accorded by US political authorities.”¹¹²
President Eisenhower viewed British participation as a way to confuse the Soviets as to the sponsorship of particular overflights and also to spread the risk in the event of a loss. Furthermore, he was used
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¹¹⁰ *OSA History*, chap. 13, pp. 1-2 (TS Codeword).
¹¹¹ Ibid., pp. 5-6 (TS Codeword).
¹¹² Ibid., p. 1 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25