Later, wondering why the meeting had taken place, I guessed it was simply because Dulles wanted to meet the spy who had given him so many headaches.
I had a problem, which became clearly obvious just as I was to appear before the board of inquiry. With few exceptions, most agency personnel I had come into contact with since my return home were people I had never met previously. Most of them—such as the security men who kept me in “protective custody” at the “safe” houses—had no connection with the U-2 program. This meant that they were not cleared for such information, and I couldn’t discuss the more sensitive aspects of the operation with them.
I knew nothing about Prettyman himself. It had been reiterated, a number of times, that the hearing was merely a formality, in order to give something to the press, that, insofar as the agency itself was concerned, I had already been completely “cleared.” Obviously it would help my case, put me in a far more favorable light, if I could reveal exactly what I had withheld from the Russians. Yet some of it, such as that portion pertaining to the “special” missions, no hint of which had ever appeared publicly, was still political dynamite. Any leak, even at this late date, could have tremendous international repercussions.
“How much should I tell Prettyman?” I asked one of the agency representatives. His suggestion: “Use your own discretion.” It was not exactly a carte-blanche reply.
Obviously the “special” missions were not to be mentioned: those missions that began on September 27, 1956, in Turkey, when Colonel Perry instructed me to fly over the Mediterranean, watch for and photograph any concentration of two or more ships.
The assignment, the first of many such “special” missions, gave me an increased respect for the effectiveness of American intelligence. In July, 1956, Egypt had seized the Suez Canal. In late September, a full month before the first shot was fired in the Sinai, the United States was aware not only that Israel intended to invade Egypt but also that preparations were being made for France and Great Britain to come to her aid.
The ships U.S. intelligence was looking for were British, French, and Israeli.
I flew the mission, going as far as the island of Malta, and returning, caught sight of several ships and photographed them. From the air I could not identify the registry; however, later, when the photographs had been developed and studied, I was told the mission had been successful. Although I was in a very real sense spying on the vessels of three friendly nations, I felt no compunctions about my action. In our atomic age, any war, no matter how isolated, how small, how seemingly insignificant, could blossom into a nuclear holocaust. It seemed to me then—and still does—far more important that we know exactly what was going on and do nothing about it, as in this case, than plunge in and try to do something, with no real idea of what was happening, as had been the case on more than a few other occasions.
After that the “special” missions became frequent occurrences. Because I had done so well in navigation during my training at Watertown, Colonel Perry assigned me many of these flights. A great number of them during this period were over Israel and Egypt. On such missions I would usually first overfly Cyprus, at that time still under British rule, with cameras on, primarily to see if a fleet was being assembled there, then on to Egypt and Israel. One does not realize, until seeing it from the air, just how small Israel is. A few passes, a few miles apart, and it could be photographed in its entirety. By comparison, Egypt is a mammoth presence.
On these missions several places merited special attention. The Suez Canal, of course, was one. Another was the Gulf of ’Aqaba, then as now a source of contention. Here, in close proximity, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all had ports, Israel’s port being its only link with the Red Sea. Another was the Sinai Peninsula. There are few more desolate places than the Sinai. Against it, the deserts of the American Southwest look like oases. For miles and miles there is absolutely nothing but bleakness.
Yet, on a flight on October 30, 1956,1 looked down and spotted something. Black puffs of smoke—what must have been the first shots fired in the first daytime battle of the Sinai campaign.
With the outbreak of the war, flights were stepped up, photo interpreters on the alert at Adana to process and study films the moment a plane returned. It would be safe to say that American intelligence probably possessed a clearer overview of the entire war than many of the battlefront commanders. Within hours we could verify or disprove the intelligence reports of the combatants.
After the war, flights continued, but on a random basis, chiefly to watch for new military buildups along the borders.
Nor were we interested only in Egypt and Israel. If there was a trouble spot in the Middle East, the U-2s observed it. If a spot turned hot, we’d overfly it, frequently. Once it had cooled down, there would be only occasional missions, to watch for unusual activity. We checked on Syria, whether there was an outbreak of hostilities or not, to keep an eye on its critical oil pipelines. Iraq, another trouble spot, received periodic attention, as did Jordan. Saudi Arabia was of lesser interest. However, since it was along the way, we overflew it also, our route taking us over both the capital, Riyadh, and Mecca. Skirmishes between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots were silently witnessed, as was the heavy fighting between Lebanese Army troops and Moslem rebel forces in 1958. During 1959, when disorders broke out in Yemen, I flew a mission there. It was a memorable flight, not only for the distance covered—it was about as far from Turkey as the U-2 could fly and return—but also because I encountered several varieties of trouble en route. One was a violent thunderstorm, the worst I had ever seen, which obscured our objective. For a while I was unaware whether I could fly above it, it extended so high. The other occurred on the way down. My flight line called for me to remain over the land side of the Arabian coast; on looking in my mirror, however, I saw condensation trails behind the aircraft, until that time unheard of at our altitude. Realizing I could be spotted from the ground, I moved out over the Red Sea, over what I presumed could be claimed as international waters. Then, by slowing down, I managed to climb a little higher to see if the contrails would go away. To my relief, they did.
These were the “special” missions. They began in the fall of 1956 and continued into 1960. If any of the U-2 flights merited the label “milk runs,” it was these. Such flights lacked the tension of the overflights. No one was shooting at us. Presumably no one was aware of our presence. Had we been forced to crash-land, we could always explain that we had been flying over the Mediterranean and had come down in the closest place, a believable story so long as the equipment and photographic films weren’t examined. Fortunately, there were no crash landings.
The primary mission of the U-2s was overflying Russia. This was the enemy, the greatest threat to our existence. In importance, the overflights—infrequent as they were—outranked anything else we did, and were the major reason for our presence in Turkey. The border surveillance and the atomic sampling, though vital, were secondary. Although they made up the bulk of our flying, in intelligence value the “special” missions took last place.
In terms of propaganda value to the Russians, however, the order was exactly reversed. We were fairly sure they knew about most if not all of the overflights. What they had no knowledge of were the “special” missions. Of all the information I withheld, this was the most dangerous, because of what the Russians could do with it.
It requires little imagination to conceive the devastating effect on America’s foreign relations had Khrushchev been able to reveal that the United States was spying not only on most of the countries in the Middle East but also on her own allies.