Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
170
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One of the reasons why Operation SQUARE DEAL had been selected for the 9 April flight was that mission planners believed that penetration from the Pakistan/Afghanistan area offered the greatest chance of escaping detection by the Soviet air defense system. Colonel Burke’s 14 March letter recommending SQUARE DEAL as the preferred route for the next overflight had stated, “There is a reasonable chance of completing this operation without detection.” Escaping detection had become important because, if the Soviet SAMs received sufficient advanced warning, they posed a major threat to the U-2.
CIA hopes that flights from Pakistan or Afghanistan might go undetected proved false. On the 9 April overflight, the U-2’s ELINT-collection unit (System VI) indicated Soviet tracking at a very early stage of the mission. Although the Soviets failed to intercept the U-2, their success at tracking it should have served as a warning against future overflights from Pakistan (or anywhere else, for that matter). On 26 April 1960, Colonel Burke informed Richard Bissell that “experience gained as a result of Operation SQUARE DEAL indicates that penetration without detection from the Pakistan/Afghanistan area may not be as easy in the future as heretofor.”²¹ Unfortunately, neither Colonel Burke nor Richard Bissell took the logical step of recommending the cessation of overflights now that the risks had increased substantially. The lure of the prospective intelligence gain from each mission was too strong, and the Soviets’ lack of success at interception to date had probably made the project staff overconfident. Furthermore, both DCI Allen Dulles and the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities were pressing for more photos of the Soviet Union in order to settle the missile-gap debate raging in the intelligence community and Congress.
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THE LAST OVERFLIGHT: OPERATION GRAND SLAM
Even before the 9 April overflight took place, President Eisenhower had consented on 28 March to an additional overflight during the month of April. His willingness to allow yet another overflight was
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²¹ Memorandum for Richard M. Bissell, Deputy Director (Plans), from Colonel Burke, Acting Chief, DPD, “Operational Priority of Proposed CHALICE Missions,” 26 April 1960, IC Staff, COMIREX records, job 33-T-123A, box 10, “CHALICE (General)” (TS Codeword).
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25