Equipment from a WS-461L
balloon on display in Moscow,
11 October 1958
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Streret-NerreallL.
Chapter 3
146
Goodpaster on 29 July 1958 to tell the Air Force that "the project is
to be discontinued at once and every cent that has been made avail-
able as part of any project involving crossing the Iron Curtain is to be
impounded and no further expenditures are to be made."
Two days later Eisenhower followed up this order with a formal
memorandum to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy telling him that
"there is disturbing evidence of a deterioration in the processes of
discipline and responsibility within the armed forces." He cited, in
particular, "unauthorized decisions which have apparently resulted in
certain balloons falling within the territory of the Communist Bloc"
and overflights over routes "that contravened my standing orders." 99
On 2 September 1958, there was another violation of Soviet air-
space when an unarmed Air Force EC-130 on an electronic intelligence
collection mission crossed from Turkey into Soviet Armenia and was
shot down by Soviet fighter aircraft. Six of the men on board were
killed and the remaining 11 were never heard from again, despite State
Department attempts to get the Soviet Union to reveal their fate.""
" Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record. 29 July 1958, WHOSS, Alpha,
DDEL (S); Goodpaster interview (S).
" Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, pp. 475-476.
"US Representations to the Soviet Government on C-130 Transport Shot Down by
Soviet Fighter Aircraft," US Department of State Bulletin, 23 February 1959, pp. 262-271;
Beschloss, Mayday. p. 159.
UNCLASSIFIED