Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
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to do so because the Land committee was part of a panel commissioned by President Eisenhower to examine the nation’s intelligence community and recommend changes. The committee thus had a direct line to the White House through James Killian’s contacts there.
Early in November 1954, Land and Killian met with President Eisenhower to discuss high-altitude reconnaissance. Killian’s memoirs contain an account of this crucial meeting:
> Land described the [CL-282] system using an unarmed plane and recommended that its development be undertaken. After listening to our proposal and asking many hard questions, Eisenhower approved the development of the system, but he stipulated that it should be handled in an unconventional way so that it would not become entangled in the bureaucracy of the Defense Department or troubled by rivalries among the services.⁵⁸
The scientists from the advisory committees and the President were thus in agreement that the new reconnaissance program should be controlled by the CIA, not the military.
CIA and Air Force Agreement on the CL-282
Meanwhile Edwin Land and his Project Three colleagues were working to convince Allen Dulles that the CIA should run the proposed overflight program. On 5 November Land wrote to the DCI strongly urging that the CIA undertake the CL-282 project:
> Here is the brief report from our panel telling why we think overflight is urgent and presently feasible. I [Land] am not sure that we have made it clear that we feel there are many reasons why this activity is appropriate for CIA, always with Air Force assistance. We told you that this seems to us the kind of action and technique that is right for the contemporary version of CIA: a modern and scientific way for an Agency that is always supposed to be looking, to do its looking. Quite strongly, we feel that you must always assert your first right to pioneer in scientific techniques for collecting intelligence—and choosing such partners to assist you as may be needed. This present opportunity for aerial photography seems to us a fine place to start.⁵⁹
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⁵⁸ Killian, *Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower*, p. 82. The exact date of the meeting cannot be determined, but it occurred during the first half of November 1954.
⁵⁹ Letter, Project Three Panel to DCI Allen F. Dulles, 5 November 1954, in *OSA History*, chap. 1, annex 1 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25