Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
17
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Moreover, high-altitude reconnaissance of the Soviet Union did not fit well into Allen Dulles’s perception of the proper role of an intelligence agency. He tended to favor the classical form of espionage, which relied on agents rather than technology.²⁸
At this point, the summer of 1954, Lockheed’s CL-282 proposal still lacked official support. Although the design had strong backers among some Air Force civilians and CIA officials, the key decisionmakers at both Air Force and CIA remained unconvinced. To make Kelly Johnson’s revolutionary design a reality, one additional source of support was necessary: prominent scientists serving on government advisory boards.
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SCIENTISTS AND OVERHEAD RECONNAISSANCE
Scientists and engineers from universities and private industry had played a major role in advising the government on technical matters during World War II. At the end of the war, most of the scientific advisory boards were disbanded, but within a few years the growing tensions of the Cold War again led government agencies to seek scientific advice and assistance. In 1947 the Air Force established a Scientific Advisory Board, which met periodically to discuss topics of current interest and advise the Air Force on the potential usefulness of new technologies. The following year the Office of Defense Mobilization established the Scientific Advisory Committee, but the Truman administration made little use of this new advisory body.²⁹
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The BEACON HILL Report
In 1951 the Air Force sought even more assistance from scientists because the Strategic Air Command’s requests for information about targets behind the Iron Curtain could not be filled. To look for new ways of conducting reconnaissance against the Soviet Bloc, the Air Force’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Development, Maj. Gen. Gordon P. Saville, added 15 reconnaissance experts to an existing project on air
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²⁸ Powers, *Man Who Kept the Secrets*, pp. 103-104; Edwin H. Land, interview by Donald E. Welzenbach, tape recording, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 17 and 20 September 1984 (TS Codeword); Robert Amory, Jr., interview by Donald E. Welzenbach and Gregory W. Pedlow, Washington, DC, 22 April 1987 (S).
²⁹ For more information on the Air Force’s use of scientists see Thomas A. Sturm, *The USAF Scientific Advisory Board: Its First Twenty Years, 1944-1964* (Washington, DC: USAF Historical Office, 1967) (U).
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DCI Allen W. Dulles
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25