Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NQFORN
Chapter 2
83
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[figure]
*The Steuart Building, home of the Photo-Intelligence Division*
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flood of photographs that the U-2 would bring back, so in May 1955 the Directorate of Support (DS) authorized expanding PID to 44 persons. Soon afterward the division moved from its room in M Building to larger quarters in Que Building.
The Photo-Intelligence Division continued to expand in anticipation of large quantities of U-2 photography. Its authorized strength doubled in January 1956 when a new project known as HTAUTOMAT came into existence to exploit U-2 photography. All of the products from this project would be placed in the new control system. By the summer of 1956, the PID had moved to larger quarters in the Steuart Building at 5th Street and New York Avenue, NW. PID photointerpreters had already begun to work with U-2 photography following a series of missions in April 1956, when U-2s photographed a number of US installations that were considered analogous to high-priority Soviet installations. As a result of these preparations, PID was ready for the mass of photography that began coming when U-2 operations commenced in the summer of 1956.⁶⁶
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⁶⁶ For a more detailed history of photointerpretation in the CIA, see *The National Photographic Interpretation Center*, vol. 1, *Antecedents and Early Years*, Directorate of Science and Technology Historical Series NPIC-2, December 1972, pp. 171-194 (S).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25