Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NQFORN
Chapter 5
256
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U-2 in flight to its destination. The C-141 carried support equipment to the [redacted] In October 1969, the third of these exercises took place at a different location.
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No overseas deployment exercise was necessary in 1970, for elements of Detachment G actually deployed overseas to provide photography of the Middle East. At the time, President Nixon’s National Security Adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, was mediating between the Arabs and Israelis in order to obtain a cease-fire along the Suez Canal, where a virtual undeclared war was taking place. Once agreement was reached in August, Kissinger promised both sides that the United States would monitor the agreed upon 32-mile pullback from the waterway. Originally, Kissinger intended for photosatellites to do the monitoring. One satellite was tasked to photograph the Suez Canal area on 10 August, but the quality of its imagery lacked the detail needed to discover such small targets as gun emplacements and jeeps.
In early August, Kissinger asked the Air Force to provide U-2s to overfly the Canal, but the Air Force demurred, saying it would take several weeks to move a U-2 detachment from Del Rio, Texas, to the Middle East. At this point, DCI Helms told an NSC meeting that the Agency’s Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base could deploy aircraft to [redacted] and begin filming the Suez area within the week, and it did. In fact, the first U-2 arrived in [redacted] only 71 hours after receiving notification to deploy. Between 9 August and 10 November 1970, Agency U-2s flew 29 missions over the cease-fire zone as part of Project EVEN STEVEN. Most flights used the B camera, but 12 were equipped with the new, high-resolution H camera. The EVEN STEVEN U-2s also employed a dozen electronic-intelligence-collection packages, from System-X to System-XXIV. After 10 November 1970, Air Force SR-71s took over the task of photographing the cease-fire zone.⁷⁶
The Middle East was again the cause of a Detachment G deployment in October 1973, when another Arab-Israeli war broke out. Two U-2s deployed to the [redacted] on 7 and 8 October 1973, to be ready for possible coverage of the conflict. Detachment G received no such tasking, however, and the last of the aircraft returned to California on 13 November. The 1973 war did
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⁷⁵ Ibid., pp. 5-6, 10-11 (TS Codeword).
⁷⁶ Ibid., pp. 15-20 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25