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Secret Empire
In the early days of the Cold War, the United States knew almost nothing about the Soviet's military capacity and had to risk the lives of hundreds of airmen in flights over Soviet airspace. Eisenhower, a five-star general, understood both that the human cost was too high and that the cost of not knowing how many missiles and bombs the Soviets had was even higher. He trusted a group of businessmen, engineers and professors -- including Polaroid's Edwin Land, Lockheed's Kelly Johnson and MIT's James Killian -- to help solve the problem.
Taubman, deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times, is a talented storyteller with an eye for good anecdotes. He spoke to dozens of the men who flew the planes and built the satellites, as well as those with an inside line to the thinking of the President himself. Although the story lacks the human drama of a tale like "The Right Stuff," it has more life than expected from a story where the heroes are machines. Even readers with background knowledge about the military or intelligence systems will learn a lot about what went on in the crucial first decades of the Cold War, when technology took spying to new levels and perhaps prevented World War III. The book is largely based on documentation that was declassified in the late 1990s, offering a fly-on-the-wall view of what went on in crucial, highly secret meetings. The writing transports readers through closed doors, allowing them the relive the urgency of the era.
A truly fascinating aspect of the book is how some of America's greatest scientific achievements and achievers were either unknown or had some of their work supressed during their lifetime for national security. These guys are heroes for their work and it's too bad they couldn't be recognized back in the 60s. It's great to do it now.
Secret Empire also is relevant to the current situation, and Taubman touches on spying in the post-Cold War world. Washington eventually became too dependent on satellites and technological spying, at the expense of human agents who are much more effective against bands of terrorists. Still, the book makes obvious that satellites have rightly become an essential piece of the nation's intelligence battery. The story of how they got there in the first place is fascinating, and Secret Empire is the first book with access to classified documents that does justice to the story.
FMI: see the website at www.secretempirethebook.com which has some really cool original documents from the book's research.
You can purchase Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA and the Hidden Story of America's Secret Espionage from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Hey may have had trust in these men but what he did was "entrust" them to solve the problem ...
tr.v. entrusted, entrusting, entrusts
1. To give over (something) to another for care, protection, or performance: "He still has the aura of the priest to whom you would entrust your darkest secrets" (James Carroll).
2. To give as a trust to (someone): entrusted his aides with the task. See Synonyms at commit.
The U2 was very slow. It's essentialy a jet propelled glider designed to fly at the edge of space. This is why the CIA/USAF developed the A-12/SR-71. It had altitude AND speed. It's still probably the fastest jet powered aircraft ever flown (depending on what kind of powerplant the still-secret Aurora really has).
It still amazes me to think of all of the technological leaps that were taken between 1947 and the early 60's. In less than two decades, we went from piston powered prop planes to aircraft that cruised at Mach 3 to the very edge of space (the U2 and SR-71 travel at such high altitudes that the crews wear suits adapted from the space program).
Thinking of the Blackbird, and especially North American's absolutely beautiful XB-70 Valkrie bomber (which cruised at mach 3 and used canards, which are only now coming into common use on aircraft designs), it's hard to be terribly impressed with today's aircraft. In many ways, modern aircraft are a step back.
All in all, it was an exciting time. Ironic, since much of it occured during the "boring" Presidency of Ike.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The US continued using them, though, which is what lead to the Gary Powers incident.
I think you mean continues. The US still uses them to a small degree. Although with the UAVs becoming more and more commonplace I suspect sooner or later it may be mothballed and only NASA will be using them.
....we also used an improved version called the TR-1, with better avionics and extended range. We still have some older U2's as well, and yes, NASA uses them for high altitude data-gathering.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Anyway, he did mostly hold the line on military spending. He was probably the only one who could have done so, being the most-respected military man of WWII.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
By the way, there is plenty of oil inside the nation now called "The Congo" and just off-shore.
None of the "war for oil" claims ever work. The united states goes to war in Yugoslavia, no oil there. Saudi Arabia actually cuts off oil in the 1970s. No oil there. The united states actually refuses oil from certain countries out of human rights/terrorism/etc concerns.
On top of that, the U.S. could have gotten cheaper oil with more oil-company profits with Saddam in Iraq than they ever will now.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.
I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
While mostly about the stealth F-117, the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich/Leo Janos contains a lot of anecdotal and interesting information about the U2 and SR-71 projects. Rich worked at the Lockheed Skunk Works through all three planes' lifecycles, and provides some insight into the quirks, challenges and personalities that surround the three aircraft.
Actually, the TR-1A got redesignated U-2R and U-2S during the 1990's after the Cold War ended.
Recently, the U-2R/S models got major upgrade with non-afterburning versions of the GE F404 engine (almost identical to the engines on the F-117A); with these new engines the plane could operate at high altitudes longer due to improved fuel consumption and also were much more tolerant of compressor stalls at high altitude.
There is a BBC documentary about the USS Liberty incident that claims a nuclear retaliation strike (using a A-4 bomber from the USS America) against Cairo was blown off at the last moment by SoD McNamara.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck