Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 5
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were normal when the pilot made this report. Project managers presumed that the U-2 was downed by a direct hit or near miss by an SA-2 missile.⁵⁵
President Johnson ordered a standdown of overflights of the PRC. This standdown was welcomed by the Nationalist Chinese Government, which told the Taiwan Chief of Station that it wanted “to let some time go by” before more overflights were scheduled. The Nationalists pointed out that the only remaining qualified U-2 pilot had “disqualified” himself because of nervous tension. No new pilots could be qualified for U-2 flights before mid-August.
The Nationalists then demanded faster and higher flying aircraft as well as better antimissile equipment for the planes. This request led some CIA personnel to suspect that Nationalist China had learned about Project OXCART, the successor to the U-2 that was still undergoing testing. Despite the Nationalists’ request for better ECM equipment, the Defense Department remained reluctant to authorize the use of the System-XIII false-angle radar jammer on Project TACKLE U-2s. The Defense Department feared that the loss of this device with its highly advanced traveling-wave tube (TWT) would enable Communist Bloc technicians to devise countermeasures and also learn how to produce the highly efficient TWT themselves. As an incentive for the Nationalist Chinese to agree to more overflights, the CIA agreed to permit them to process the U-2 film on Taiwan and to use their own photointerpreters to exploit the film along with US photointerpreters.
To counter the shortage of pilots in Detachment H, DCI McCone suggested to the Special Group on 6 August 1964 that civilian CIA pilots be used to fly missions over mainland China. The group agreed that the matter should be taken up with President Johnson. On the following day, however, Presidential National Security Assistant McGeorge Bundy informed McCone that, because Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara opposed the idea, he would not take it up with the President.⁵⁶
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⁵⁵ *OSA History*, chap. 17, pp. 53-55 (TS Codeword); Mission folder C174C (7 July 1964), OSA records, job 66-B-664, box 7 (TS Codeword). Note: beginning in 1964 Nationalist Chinese mission numbers began with “C” instead of “GRC.”
⁵⁶ *OSA History*, chap. 17, pp. 58-59 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25