THE TIME OF THE ANGEL THE U-2, CUBA, AND THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500110026-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 5, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: October 1, 1977
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Y? c 55 proved For Release 2001 /09 KT D 00
to 4o -so by his syndicate..He did not gc
newspapers that printed his column. He
:Alsop is one of. more . than' 400 American
years have. secretly carried out assignmen
according. to documents on file at CIA headquarters.
with the" Agency were tacit; some were explicit. They
overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandest
gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in C
their ' notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared- the
Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters whc
: n :1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of At
went to the Philippines to cover an .electii
Y _j~t alRL BE]
corresponc
helped the.
the derring
category, fi
In many in
perform to
America's 1
P-Kearns, Frank
P-Goodrich, Austin
CIA 4 China
CIA 1.04 Henze, Paul
P-Donovan, Hedley
P-Muir, Malcolm
P-Lindley, Ernest
SOC 4.01.1 Washington Post
P-Campbell, Robert H.
P-Jaffe, Sam
Rogovin, Mitchell
CIA 1.04 Elder, Walt
CIA 1.04 Bader, William B.
CIA 1.04 Bolton, aeymour
(orig under Bernstein)
STATI NTL_,
Alrop. The columnists performed a and the o}d Saturday Evening Port and New Yori Herald-Trib:4ne.
YQrieiy of undercover ryskr for the By far the most Valuable, of the nzcnriirinn. irrnr-J , ... ('TA
 he.: U-,2, CUbCl, and the CIA =.
n the still of the October night, the slender, birdlike plane
lifted into the sky from its base in California, climbed sharply
on a column of flame, and headed east through the darkness. Pilot
Richard Heyser, in the cramped, tiny cockpit, had good reason to
be apprehensive, but he had little time to worry. He was totally
occupied with the intricacies of navigation and with the exacting
task of keeping his sleek aircraft aloft; for this plane was so
specialized, so refined, that in the rarefied atmosphere that was
its element it hung in the sky only tentatively, as if suspended
from a wisp of spider's silk. As the plane climbed above fifty
thousand feet it entered a critical altitude level called the
"chimney." Once in the chimney, if the pilot flew a shade too slow,
the plane would go into a stall and a spin from which it would
never recover. If he flew a shade too fast, the fragile craft would
come apart in mid-air.
For several hours the aircraft arrowed across the continent,
gradually climbing higher and higher into the chimney. Periodi-
cally the pilot adjusted his airspeed, for as the plane climbed, the
razor's edge between stall and disintegration grew ever finer,
sharper. Dawn came, then sunrise. Now the Gulf of Mexico
shimmered below.
The island came into view, tropical green rimmed by bright
sand beaches. The pilot flew south of the island to a predeter-
minedpoint in space, then turned back north. Pursuit might come
at any time now, quick death slanting upward like an arrow.
There was aswitch an apanel athi8 right hand. He had already
thrown it from "off" to "stand by." Now as the plane passed high
over the island's shore the pilot-looked into his drift sight, a
periscopelike device that peered through the belly of the plane.
Then his hand moved once again to the switch on the panel...
D D uring a period of thirteen days in October, 1962, the United
States and the Soviet Union stood at the brink of war. In a
confrontation over Russia's placing nuclear-tipped strategic
missiles in Cuba, American aircraft, naval vessels, and assault
troops wenton alert and prepared forbattle, while in Cuba Soviet
technicians rushed to complete the installation of missiles that
could reach almost any point in the United States. During the
two-week crisis, President Kennedy estimated that the chance of
threatening stance and!
Khrushchev ultimately
dismantled and returnee
As the missile crisis u
certainty, beyond any :
were indeed being insta
shores. Kennedy was ci
imposing a blockade-ir
contemplate the even graver risk of launching an air strike
against Cuba, an act that might well have brought Soviet
retaliation. How could Kennedy have been so sure?
The answerlies in a secret airplane flight andin the technology
that made it possible-a technology of spying developed under the
aegis of the Central Intelligence Agency. This technology
wrapped American spies in a newcloak, endingtheMata Hari era
and ushering in an age of optics and electronics. The technology
alsogave the U.S. an enormous intelligence-gathering advantage
over the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. At times, as
in the missile crisis, this intelligence allowed the U.S. to antic-
ipate threatening moves by Russia. Equally important, the
intelligence also dispelled groundless fears about Russian mili-
tarysuperiority. Given the touchy temperamentof the times,had
the U.S. notpossessed such intelligence, eventsmight have taken
an even more frightening turn.
The development of sophisticated intelligence-gathering tools
began in the early 1950's, a time when the climate for such
development was very favorable. For one thing, the President of
the United States was a former general of the Army who had a
professional soldier's familiarity with photographic intelligence.
During World War II, aerial reconnaissance had been carried out
by ordinary bombers and fighters stripped down and equipped
with cameras instead of guns. These unarmed planes were highly
vulnerable and extremely unpopular with their pilots, whose
motto could be paraphrased as: "Get your pictures and get your
tail out of there." The recon planes had to fly at low altitudes in
turbulent air, since the cameras had no gyrostabilizing mech-
anisms to cushion them against shock, the quality of the photo-
graphs was generally poor, and even the quantity of information
was limited by the film, which had a thick, space-consuming
? . armed conflict vi~sl3'i~t~eEeb o~+ 4el S@ d0 f8~C~f :cpllllf@sRD~ 9 1 806054 '0111M9hertcomings, postwar analysis
that potentially catastrophic war did not occur. Kennedy took a revealed that some 80 per cent of all useful military intelligence