Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
182
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Japanese Government, faced with growing anti-American sentiment and complaints in the press about the presence of “spyplanes” on Japanese territory, asked the United States to remove the U-2s. The very next day the CIA closed Detachment C; its U-2s were dismantled and returned to the United States aboard C-124s.³⁷
In the midst of the furor in Japan, on 1 July 1960, just six weeks after the Paris Summit, Soviet fighter aircraft shot down an Air Force RB-47 on an electronic intelligence collection mission over international waters near the Soviet Union’s Kola Peninsula. Two survivors were captured. The Soviet Union claimed that the aircraft had violated its airspace, while the United States denounced the Soviets for downing the plane over international waters. The acrimony exacerbated an already tense international atmosphere.³⁸
One additional blow to the U-2 program came in the summer of 1960. NASA, concerned about the damage to its reputation from its involvement in the U-2 affair and hoping to obtain international cooperation for its space program, decided to end its support of the cover story that U-2s were conducting weather research under its auspices.³⁹
These developments resulted in a complete halt to all U-2 operations from overseas bases for more than six months. Pilots and aircraft from Detachments B and C were consolidated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base, California, the unit formed after the CIA had vacated the Nevada testing site in 1957 as a result of AEC nuclear testing. Detachment G now comprised eight pilots from Detachment B and three pilots from Detachment C. Because Powers’ capture had compromised Project CHALICE, the Agency assigned a new cryptonym to the U-2 effort; henceforth, it was called Project IDEALIST.⁴⁰
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³⁷ *OSA Chronology*, p. 28 (TS Codeword).
³⁸ “Mystery of the RB-47,” *Newsweek*, 25 July 1960, pp. 36-37; “Nikita and the RB-47,” *Time*, 25 July 1960, pp. 30-31.
³⁹ At a meeting of high-level CIA, NASA, and State Department officials on 31 May 1960, NASA was willing to continue its association with U-2 flights for the time being, but the Administrator of NASA, Dr. Keith Glennan, believed that his agency “would be well advised to disengage from the U-2 program as rapidly as possible.” James A. Cunningham, Memorandum for the Record, “Telephone Conversation with Dr. Hugh Dryden, Deputy Director, NASA,” 1 June 1960, DPD chrono file #4553-60, OSA records (S).
⁴⁰ *OSA History*, chap. 12, pp. 47-49; chap. 16, p. 10 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25