Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
188
became more formal as the National Security Council became involved. Henceforth, proposed missions had to be submitted to the National Security Council (NSC) Special Group for approval. In the early 1960s, the Special Group consisted of the DCI, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Under Secretary of State, and the Military Adviser to the President. After the Military Adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962, his place on the Special Group was taken by McGeorge Bundy, the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs.⁵⁰
Before requesting permission from the Special Group for a U-2 mission over denied territory, the CIA prepared a detailed submission giving justification for the proposed mission and maps showing the targets to be photographed, flight times, and emergency landing sites. Such submissions came to be known as “black books” because they were placed in black, looseleaf binders. The decision of the Special Group was generally final, although on occasion controversial issues were presented to the President for his decision.
This approval process did not come into play immediately after May 1960 because there was a long pause in U-2 operations as the detachments returned from overseas. It was not until late October 1960 that the next U-2 operation occurred, this time over Cuba. By this time the full approval procedure had been established, and the Special Group approved the mission (see chapter 5).
The approval process was not the only part of the U-2 program that changed after May 1960. The process for establishing requirements for overhead reconnaissance missions also became more formal. In August 1960 the US Intelligence Board took over the Ad Hoc Requirements Committee and merged it with the Satellite Intelligence Requirements Committee to form the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance. DCI Directive 2/7 tasked COMOR with the “coordinated development of foreign intelligence requirements for overhead-reconnaissance projects over denied areas.” The DCID defined “overhead reconnaissance” to include “all reconnaissance for foreign-intelligence purposes by satellite, or by any vehicle over
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⁵⁰ The Special Group, which had been created by NSC Intelligence Document 5412/2 in 1955 to oversee covert activities, was originally known as the 5412 Committee. Later the Special Group became known as the 303 Committee and then the 40 Committee. United States Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Foreign and Military Intelligence*, book 1, (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 48-53.
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25