American History

Phillip Taubman is the national security and intelligence reporter who worked for NYC for nearly two decades. He is really a meticulous investigator.

In his book, “Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage”, Taubman describes how US conducted aerial espionage on USSR during the cold war period the fact of which was not known to Congress and public. The invention and deployment of the U2 spy plane and the first space satellites in the 1950’s and in the early 1960 can be regarded as a technological feat which assisted to prevent a disastrous military conflict with USSR. This has also resulted in a complete transformation in spying process by abandoning the HUMINT (Human spying) and switching to reconnaissance espionage, which is being practiced by US even now.

In 1953, when President Eisenhower assumed office of the President, he got vexed with non-availability of adequate intelligence on the Soviet Union, particularly its missile and nuclear program According to Eisenhower; such lack of intelligence was extra-ordinarily perilous in a world envenomed by the Cold War which culminated in the atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Eisenhower did not want to wage a war with Russia even by mistake or to spend heavily on the acquisition of dangerous weapons that were not needed at all.

Taubman describes Eisenhower as the” father of the US satellite espionage.” But for his vision and support, the satellite and aerial based reconnaissance system would not have succeeded.

As a commander in World War II, Eisenhower was fascinated by the realities thrown open by government coordination with the science. Eisenhower vast experience on the battle field taught him the value of collection of crucial intelligence data in the war field.  What made him to concern much was that cold war apprehensions might push America into a status of war mongering state .Eisenhower organized a small group of engineers, scientists and businessmen and assigned the task of searching safe and reliable means to spy on the USSR from the sky. To maintain secrecy, Eisenhower assigned the operational parts of the clandestine program to the CIA. With the help of missionary gang members, a new way of spying was invented mainly through technological and scientific feats.

The outcome was the introduction of U2 and the latter the satellites and USA received many numbers of intelligence on the USSR that facilitated American President to take an effective decision as regards to conclude the arm limitation agreements.

Since 1950’s, USA has organized a secret mission of space borne and high altitude photographic reconnaissance, which was never been secret as claimed to be. With the help of publicly available various classified sources, briefs on the subject, through the list of confabulated documents, technical sources and statements, which had been detailed in about 18 pages, Phillip Taubman has narrated in his book “Secret Empire” the annals of strategic issues of this secret missions, personalities, politics and technologies that had driven the administration of USA’s to peruse this brilliant space reconnaissance competence. It is to be noted that much of his revelation in his book is new to the public domain.

In 1950’s, USA was handicapped in intelligent espionage of USSR capabilities about the number of nuclear warheads, tactical missiles, bombers.  Churchill commented in the 1950’s that Russia was “a puzzle enfolded in a mystery.”

There existed a threatening atmosphere; the Eisenhower government was trying to construct an unbiased defense strategy which could present an efficient cover against its enemy whose intentions and capabilities were not identified exactly. Eisenhower employed solid tactical information, reconnaissance oriented calculation of tactical stuffs –was the answer to the issue.

At that time, USSR was called as ‘denied area” where accession or spying in the USSR was really impossible. Though, US’s “RB-47s” and identical airplane investigated the boundaries of USSR but could not have deep access into the USSR. Moreover, US spy aircraft frequently wrecked in USSR provinces and there were a large number of casualties of the crew which created political discomfiture for the US administration.

Taubman narrates how US secret mission with the help of Kelly Johnson, head of Lockheed, Edwin Land of Polaroid , the CIA’s renowned manager, Richard Bissell , James Baker of Harvard and Arthur Lundhal of CIA was able to build U2 high-elevation spy  airplane and afterward the first ever imaging spy satellites , Corona.

Taubman portrays the above personnel’s as the true patriots placing their substantial scientific acumen and vision to their nation’s dire need. These men quickly understood need for finding new ways of spying that is distinct from traditional ones and had the outlook to visualize the challenges of novel technologies and their applications to the issue of aerial spying.

Taubman had done a wonderful assignment of understanding the importance of the scientific issues involved and how these young scientists found the solution to the issue. Earlier to U2 mission, an aircraft never functioned at the height of seventy thousands feet and with a range beyond three thousand miles. This is considered crucial as USSR had the ability to shoot spy planes within the range of fifty thousands feet only.

Johnson crafted the resolution from “Johnson Skunk Works “by designing U2, which is a kind of jet- catered sailplane. Kodak devised films that could encounter the severity of hotness witnessed at heights of seventy thousands feet; Baker developed cameras with elongated central heights that collapsed into stiff fuselage and satellite places; Lundhal managed analyzation of photographs to evaluate and obtain valuable information from the images.

When U2 replaced the satellite –born cameras, initially, there were technical issues. Readying and launching U2 into the orbit was really laborious. Selecting between returning exposed film and relaying television pictures from space was a delicate issue, and it demanded various technological alternatives. When film containers ejected from U2, it returned to the atmosphere, and it was carried by a parachute, and it was picked up a specially designed C-130, a specifically designed apparatus for this purpose.

Though, U2 episode may be viewed quite simple now but in the 1950’s, these were definitely pioneering technological achievements.
No doubt, strategic histories like this, too frequently, consider these critical technical feats so trivial.  However, Taubman gives much importance to the changing technologies and portrays their function and effect to the understandings of booklovers.

Taubman illustrates the outcomes of the pictures that U2 or Corona returned and the first U2 flight photographed a great volume of images extending enormous expanses of the unexposed interiors of USSR. These pictures revealed an important message to USA’s administration that there is nothing to worry about either Soviet Bison bombers or Soviet intercontinental missiles as they were very few and not in the state of readiness.

However, these revelations did not put a full stop to the Cold War or place the USA totally at ease. Moreover, it did fetch a little scope and balance to scheduling for US defense for the late 1950’s.  Critics alleged that the Eisenhower government had spent huge amounts on aerial spying and wasted billions of dollars on it. However, the snapshots from these aircrafts and satellites proved that amount spent of reconnaissance was worthwhile as it had exposed the weakness of Soviet missile status.

Taubman’s crucial point is that industrial– military cooperation did work for a long phase in the 1950’s. Due to ‘iron curtain” US comprehended very small about the USSR’s martial intention or strength.  It was not easy to infiltrate or spying the Kremlin in those days as Soviets were constantly brought down the US espionage airplanes. Further, US sporadically sent spy planes plunging over the Russian province with cameras fitted in their bomb howls. Hence, in the 1950s’, America had no spy arrangement to comprehend whether the Soviet was intending to invade or who would succeed if they attack?

To overcome the obstacles in spying, Americans indulged in space and high atmospheric spying through cameras’ that would make them to fly not within the range of Soviet firing target. Though, this project witnessed with high bureaucratic and scientific obstacles, the US innovative personalities accomplished it, mainly ahead of time agenda and within the financial plan.

The initial chapters of Taubman’s book portrayed the invention of the marvelous U2 project .At the initial stages, the project witnessed devastating technological barriers. At the occasion of U2 invention, MIG fighter jets of USSR attained heights of 50,000 feet and hence, US reconnaissance required to take off at about seventy thousands feet, an elevation where cameras seldom function, the paucity of oxygen minimizes the engine thrust, where human blood evaporates and the skeletal air makes it difficult to maneuver.

U2 had many unique features like its thin, lengthened wings, which facilitated to counterbalance the lack of lift, its unique outfits saved the pilots from exploding, and about eight kilometers length of film can be stored in an extraordinary camera with thirty-six–inch lens that can take a minute and clear picture of objects on the ground. U2 flew only 24 missions, and it was shot on its final mission in 1960s.  Taubman illustrates that U2 demonstrated that the missile fissure was a fable and removed the fallacy that awful USSR Bison bombers were plenty in numbers and highlighted that US witnessed no forthcoming danger from Soviet. Taubman recalls from Eisenhower memoirs’ writing that “U2 secret information denied Khrushchev of the most tactical weapon of communist’s conspiracy namely international black mail.

In the next session, Taubman describes about the invention of the Corona reconnaissance satellite.  It was planned to take photos from the orbit and then shoot down film canisters to American recovery teams through parachute. Coronas took photos of every Soviet ICBM complex and exposed an invaluable archive of Soviet’s weak military power.

In the concluding chapters, Taubman narrates the innovations in the last three decades. He describes about the Blackbird, a spy plane designed in 1970s, which can play the distance of Los Angeles to Washington in 70 minutes and the inventions of global positioning satellites.

Taubman also emphasizes on a contemporary familiar but a valid argument that US is heavily depending upon spy satellites, which offered a huge data that made CIA to place less reliance on human intelligence (spy or agents) which demonstrates many of the agency’s recent failures, like the debacle to prevent September 11 incidents and failure to pre warn about India’s nuclear test in 1998.

Taubman also appreciates the role played by Air Force in initiating, managing and recovering the payloads from the overhead spy missions like Corona and U2. In writing this book, Taubman trusted heavily on one-side versions of erstwhile CIA officials what they narrated in their book. The Taubman contributions could have been more interesting had he included a few more of the old satellite missions as some of the original contributors are still there to exchange their memories.

Though, Taubman has fairly well documented but the end notes were rather clumsy devise of pulling out short quotes instead of employing numbers to recognize the sources.

The most exciting parts of Secret Empire by Taubman are its excellent outline of major contributors to the design and manufacture of overhead investigation including their association with each other and the establishment they worked for. Taubman gives illustrious pictures of various players of the project U2 and Corona like Clearance ‘Kelly” Johnson, James Plummer, Edwin Land of Polaroid and James Killian of MIT. These stalwarts whom were the part of U2 and Corona mission were trusted by Eisenhower as his trusted advisors on intelligence and scientific sectors.

Taubman’s book is based on the existing sources, corroborated by many numbers of interviews by himself to illustrate how the Corona and U2 were designed so swiftly despite massive, institutional and technical confronts.

The well guarded secrecy was opened by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 that America had a secret reconnaissance satellite program.  Johnson revealed that US spent about $35 to $40 billion on space espionage. Johnson acknowledged that US gained the knowledge of space photography and opined that it would be worth of 10 fold what the complete program would have costed. Johnson clarified that satellites regularly surveyed the USSR, assuring American leaders that USSR military assets was ascertainable, recognized and at rest. This confidence permitted the two military powers to survive the balance of terror without blemishing each other into a war that neither dared to tread on.

Taubman reveals that the strata of secrecy still hovering with the American public and a complete comprehension of the cold war.  Eisenhower maintained a black budget and even after a year of U2 successful mission, even a single member of congress knew about its existence. Further, since it is a secret mission, Taubman could not substantiate President Johnson’s claim about U2 benefits and costs. He has portrayed some of the bureaucratic tussles between the CIA, Air Force and the National Reconnaissance office. He also offers a tantalizing but necessarily incomplete hint of the human toll of the cold war reconnaissance as the many numbers of pilots have lost their lives in the provinces of the Communists' bloc and in the Soviet Union.

Taubman’s book can be considered as double worth –primarily, for its chronological progress of worth and effect of tactical spying and subsequently for its brainstorm into the part of expertise and technical experts in drafting tactical military strategy.

Taubman was able to give a broad account mostly based from oral history archives, gathered from earlier assorted documents and number of consultations with the top officials who served Eisenhower government. During the Eisenhower era, there was a necessary for secure means to espionage on the USSR as many pilots had been either lost or killed in aerial spy assignments. Taubman emphasizes that Eisenhower secret mission served as a peace keeping mission by eradicating the allusion of an unexpected war.  CIA analysts were able to determine through U2 program that the USSR was neither excelling the US in the production of “long-range” missile nor positioning many numbers of intercontinental missiles as envisaged. This book acts as a narration of science and the engineering , policy decision and research behind the Corona and the U2, but it also acts as a best social narration about the Cold War that was in force in 1950’s and early 1960’s.  It is really a page-turner too, markedly with Taubman’s descriptions of the first U2 flight, the Sputnik, and the firing of Francis Gary Power’s U2 over the USSR province and the consequential setback to Eisenhower government’s standing. Taubman discusses about an epoch where the US Congressmen were constantly held in the dark about other spy agency and CIA maneuvers.

Though, U2 and Corona offered excellent intelligence on USSR military capabilities, but it made the US government to fail in the Humint sector. Taubman is of the view that intelligence revolution that occurred in the 1950s’ made the US too reliant on satellite reconnaissance. It made the CIA to completely neglect the HUMINT (Human Intelligent), i.e. collection of information through spies. Though satellites reconnaissance is more powerful, it may not reveal much information what the nation requires to know, since the war on terrorism needs intelligence of a very different sort. As CIA has completely disregarded the HUMINT, it was possible for Al-Qaida to wage an unimaginable attack on US on September 11.

In a nutshell, Secret Empire tells a lot about different America that existed in 1950s than what we see today. During those days, the private sector was ethical and honest, Washington functioned and the President Eisenhower comprehended well that technology and science could greatly influence national security. However, in the last two decades, though there was an expansion in the military but there were misplaced priorities, which have compelled US present president to crush their adversaries in a variety of tiny wars. The perceptiveness achieved of a generation ago somewhat much more significant. They, in fact, assisted us to circumvent a third world war.