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Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA and Cold War Aerial Espionage

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The Cold War was in many ways a war of shadows,where intelligence and espionage played a very important part in this ideological conflict between the superpowers.The United States lacked serious human assets who could have supplied intelligence to the policy-makers.It was this defficiency which led to the development of Sigint and its allies.One of these was aerial intelligence.

According to Dino Brugioni's new book,President Eisenhower made more than extensive use of intelligence in order to find out as much as possible about the intentions and capabilities of America's adversaries.Brugioni served as a senior analyst in the CIA and was involved in many classified projects.He has written a very important and fascinating tale about how Eisenhower was a hands-on president who took a very active part in making sure that the latest technology was harnessed to gather aerial intelligence.Because Brugioni was a founder and a senior officer of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center,he was one of the few who had immediate access to the president and as an insider,he provides us with a superb story about the development and use of aerial intelligence during the fifties of the previous century.Many key leaders "of our country were far from convinced that acquiring photographs from balloons,airships,aircraft,or satellites was worth the cost in dollars and lives.Eisenhower had to deal with these attitudes as he rose through positions of leadership in the militay and afterward as president". The importance of imagery reconnaissance grew from Eisenhower's early years as a staff officer through WW2.As Supreme Allied commander in Europe,he knew the importance of intelligence in military decision making and did not hesitate to approve new methods of gathering intelligence- even those with risks-and he pursued them with fervor.

The first chapter of the book gives a detailed survey about the beginnings and development of photo intelligence throughout history to the end of WW2.The story then commences to describe the various sources which served the American President.Among them there were:WW2 Luftwaffe aerial photos;POW information;displaced Russians;Allied WW2 aerial photos;General Reinhard Gehlen's files and many other sources,like intelligence coming from military attaches,defectors and ex-Nazi scientists.In the early 1950s there was no coordination of military reconnaissance activities;theater commanders conducted independent activities.

The first overflight of Soviet territory took place in January 1951.Brugioni states that hundreds of crewmen were shot down while flying recoinnassance missions during the 1950s and 1960s.This this not deter Eisenhower who was determined to ensure the United Staes never again suffered another Pearl Harbor.Not everyone displayed such an enthusiasm for aerial intelligence.One of the chief opponents was General Curtis LeMay who"had a deep suspicion of the CIA and he thought scientists were interfering with his business"(p.97)Allen Dulles was a skeptic ,too, but later became an adherent of CIA aerial intelligence, especially after the U-2 was the baby of his men.The main protagonist of this project was Richard Bissell, who was a brilliant economist and had excellent abilities to coordinate and administer this mammoth and extremely costly project.The maiden flight of the U-2 was on August,4,1955 and months later,pilots were reaching 70000 feet and breaking altitude records.We get a very good description about the pilots' ordeal before, during and after their flights.

In another detailed chapter, Brugioni tells us about the missions of the U-2 during the Suez War and the Soviet invasion of Hungary,while another part of the book tells a fascinating tale abouth nine flights over the USSR whose purpose was to find out as much information about the Soviet nuclear capabilities as possible.Nuclear test centers and atomic energy compounds were photographed too and the risks were extremely high.

The 1950s were a period when the USA was more than certain that a missile gap between the two super-powers existed.However,the U-2 and many other less known secret -but declassified- projects showed clearly that this notion of a gap was a myth.

Eisenhower supported the use of aerial intelligence in the Lebanon, Tibet,Indonesia, and East Germany crises and authorized flights over Dimona in Israel and Malta.He sent Brugioni's colleagues to the European allies to demonstrate the ability of the U-2 capabilities and encouraged the development of the Corona satellite project.De Gaulle and Adenauer were mostly impressed with what they had seen and the French President did not hesitate to berate Khrushchev after Gary Powers' plane was shot down.Indeed,the theory about the missile gap was again demolished after the Soviet spy Penkovsky proved-in his many papers he smuggled out of the USSR-that the Soviets were bluffing and just bragging about their real nuclear and missile capabilities.Eisenhower hid this piece of information from the future president of the USA John.F.Kennedy during his campaign against Nixon.

This is the first book to deal with this aspect of the Cold War in such a detailed,well-documented and in-depth explanation and analysis.Tens of photos are included and at the beginning of the book Brugioni gives offers many insights into the analyst's daily job of receiving,reading and interpreting aerial photos,including the technical tools he needs in order to do this.After all Brugioni experienced everything at firsthand.

First lets start with the good stuff - if you're interested in military and intelligence history of the Cold War this book should be on your shelf. The CIA, NSA and NRO employed imagination, creativity and daring in building a series of imagery, elint, telint and other systems that eventually became our National Means of Technical Verification. This allowed us to peer into the closed society of what was the Soviet Union and more than likely was one of the reasons why World War III never happened. The author, who was there at the creation of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) and had the first eyeballs on the U-2 and Corona imagery and is the true definition of an imagery domain expert.

The bad news is that domain which is the subject of this book- Eisenhower, the CIA and the Cold War - appears to be above his pay grade. The book rambles between timelines in the mid-1950's and fast forwards at random times a decade or two into the future and then jumps back to the Eisenhower administration. (It would have been a much more interesting book if he hadn't tried to constrain himself to the Eisenhower story and focused more on the evolution of overhead imagery story.) Given the author was briefing Eisenhower it's frustrating to finish the book still trying to figure out whether his role was as a junior "spear-carrier" or a decision maker. I happen to believe that the available historical data supports the authors basic claims about Eisenhower's Cold War imagery policy and strategy. But the book was so poorly edited that I couldn't tell whether his statements about the subject were speculation, opinion or first hand observation.

The book shines when the author sticks to the subject he knows best, imagery and interpretation. The stories are bright, insightful and revealing.

There's no shortage of books about the Lockheed U-2. A couple of recent ones worth reading are "Spyplane: The U-2 History," by Norman Polmar, and "The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown: A New History of the Early Years," by Chris Pocock. Both of these concentrate on the development, technology and operations of the aircraft itself. "Eyes in the Sky" tells a different story. As such, is a very useful adjunct to the many U-2 books already on the market.

Mr. Brugioni was deeply involved in collecting, interpreting and exploiting overhead imagery in World War II and during the Cold War. He was a hands-on participant in the analyses of U-2 imagery that helped to dispel U.S. fears of a "bomber gap" and a "missile gap." "Eyes in the Sky" offers his unique perspective on the Eisenhower presidency, a time when the capabilities and importance of aircraft and satellite reconnaissance surged to unprecedented proportions. As the first aircraft purpose-built for photography from altitudes that (at least temporarily) rendered it immune to Soviet air defenses, the U-2 was a technological masterpiece. But that's not Mr. Brugioni's focus. His story (and a fascinating one it is) takes place largely on the light tables of the skilled imagery analysts who tirelessly scrutinized overhead photographs to extract every last morsel of intelligence value from them. His story often features the "briefing boards" that these analysts prepared for high-ranking officials and decision-makers, including the President, and on what the crystal-clear images implied to national security. As far as I know, this story has not been told in detail before. Mr. Brugioni thus adds an essential element of understanding to the history of Cold War aerial espionage.

"Eyes in the Sky" covers only the Eisenhower years. It ends at the cusp of the 1960s, after the U-2 had become obsolescent because of its vulnerability to Soviet surface-to-air missiles, but before the Corona photo-reconnaissance satellite system had become fully operational. Within that timeframe, though, this book gives as good a picture as you're likely to find of what went on "behind the scenes" at the highest levels of Government during the tumultuous 1950s.

As good as it is, "Eyes in the Sky" still has some minor but annoying errors that don't affect the accuracy or quality of its narrative, but do indicate that a competent editor should have made a final, thorough proofreading pass over the manuscript. For example, the spellings of some names are different, often in the same paragraph or within a few pages of each other. The Soviet airfield "Mys Schmidta" (an early U-2 target, and also the subject of the first successful Corona denied-area image) also appears as "Mys Schnidta." China's nuclear weapons test site is both "Lop Nor" and "Lop Nur." The name of a CIA official is variously "Sheldon" and "Shelton." The Canberra's engines were Rolls Royce "Avons," not "Avions," and "Midas" stood for "Missile Defense Alarm System," not "Missile Alarm Defense System." These errors aren't major, of course, but there are pretty many of them, and they should not be there. Perhaps Mr. Brugioni will fix them in a later edition.

"Eyes in the Sky" is still a great book, and less anal-retentive readers will probably not even notice these little faults. Mr. Brugioni's work deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the Cold War, the intelligence community, the Eisenhower presidency or the early evolution of American aerial and satellite reconnaissance. I recommend it very highly.

"Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Cold War Aerial Espionage," by Dino Brugioni, is the story of the evolution of aerial reconnaissance. Brugioni worked as a manager within the CIA for many years, so he speaks with authority on the amazing capabilities that managed to peek over the Iron Curtain.

Military commanders have always sought the "high ground" to be able to sense how their adversary deployed their forces in combat. As aviation evolved, so did military experiments with aerial photography. Brugioni provides the reader with a quick primer on both the military and civil application of aerial photography through the mid 20th century. Among the staff officers exposed to the maturation of this nascent technology was a military officer by the name of Dwight Eisenhower.

As Eisenhower assumed the oval office, he viewed the Soviet Union as the most likely adversary. The United States felt a great urgency to learn what was going on inside the Soviet Union, but in the 1950s these maps simply did not exist. Eisenhower then began some of the most ambitious aerial reconnaissance programs that would test the limits of American ingenuity. These programs would require new optics, new cameras, new film, and new aerial platforms - and the price of failure could have resulted in nuclear war. Brugioni examines various balloon programs and as expected, dedicated entire chapters to Kelly Johnson's visionary U-2, A-12, & SR-71 aircraft, and the world's first reconnaissance satellite, CORONA.

Paul Harvey would be proud of the way Brugioni provides the reader with the "Rest of the Story". He fully explains to the reader how these new technologies resolved emerging crises - U-2 flights and the Cuban Missile Crisis; debunking the myth of the "Bomber Gap" and the "Missile Gap" between the Soviet Union and the US; Belgians in the Congo; and the Suez Crisis. US aerial intelligence proved the deciding factor in these and many more situations.

The book is a fascinating look at the impact of aerial intelligence on the politics of the late 20th century. Dino Brugioni was there for many years - he knew the personalities and saw the evolution of the technology. The book is well researched and footnoted, yet still very readable. I highly recommend this book for the reader wanting to learn more about this fascinating subject.

By: Dino A. Brugioni

When Dwight David Eisenhower was sworn in as President he brought with him the experience of the Pearl Harbor sneak attack in 1941, thus one of his top priorities was to insure America was never again surprised by an enemy. In this book the author has captured the many challenges; technical, organizational, political and international, that Eisenhower had to face, in significant detail and from and insider's perspective. Dino Brugioni was a combat veteran of 66 bombing missions over Europe in WWII, and after the war worked his way up to be one of the key civilians in what became the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center. In this position he had a front row seat to the development of airborne reconnaissance and its exploitation, particularly in the U-2 program and the early and developing stages of the Corona spy satellite effort. The text is rich with stories involving Eisenhower with the power elites of the day, from General Curtis Lemay, Allen and Foster Dulles, President Kennedy, the heads of state of many other nations and many others, some well known and others not. His personal involvement with the key players gives him the opportunity to reveal the strengths, weaknesses and foibles of these personages with great authenticity as he talks about the Gary Power's U-2 shoot down, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the "Bomber Gap" and "Missile Gap" and many other events. This book is exceptionally detailed, almost on an encyclopedic level at times, and can lead to some heavy going for those not initiated in this very complex and at times arcane science. There are some redundancies as he puts new programmatic efforts in context of older ones, and some editorial lapses make the text at times uneven; however, he has done a masterful job of relating a compelling history of aerial surveillance and President Eisenhower's incredible strength as he took on challenges beyond the scope of any previous president. This book is highly recommended to anyone who has interest in real espionage and how Presidential power was wielded during exceptionally challenging times.

Anyone who has given this book 5 stars has obviously read nothing of the subjects on which this book is based. Because of the numerous errors in the first chapter, how do I know the rest he writes isn't mistaken? Simple, I can't and am giving the book 2 stars out of courtesy for his past books especially "Eyeball to Eyeball."

The first chapter is filled with errors of dates and facts. Some are:

- on page ix, he confuses SHAEF and SHAPE. He is talking about World War II and has Eisenhower at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) but this was not inaugurated until April 1951, considerably after the end of WW2. During WWII, Eisenhower was at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) which he commanded from headquarters in England from 1943 until the end of the war (which was 1945).

- page 8, he writes "Kasserine was Eisenhower's first real battle.." Wrong! Eisenhower was nowhere near the battle (as was during his whole career when the only thing he commanded was a desk). He may have planned it but it was MG Fredendall's battle against Rommel, later assumed by Patton.

- on page 14, he writes "On June 12, seven days before the invasion of Normandy ..." Funny but all the histories I've seen write that the invasion was June 6, 1944;

- on page 16 he talks about the bombing of Siracourt on April 23, 1943. Interesting that the site (and 3 others) weren't even approved until July 1, 1943;

- on page 13 he claims Lord Cherwell "believed the sites were intended for launching unmanned aircaft." He thought they were decoys or weather balloons. Cherwell was a staunch opponent of the possibility of rocket attacks or development, not believing that liquid fueled rockets had the capacity or range. He used his influence with the government to expend resources elsewhere and put more road blocks in the discovery and evaluation of the V-1 and V-2 evidence. But it is an interesting irony that Cherwell, of an earlier school, didn't understand the technology behind the V-weapons which was why Hitler refused to back them himself until he had no other resources, having faith in tanks, guns, and piston-engine aircraft;

- page 10 he says that D. R. V. Jones "was an additional hindrance" which is hardly held up by other intelligence accounts as well as Dr. Jones' memoirs ("Most Secret War" - and quite worth reading);

- he makes the pages read as tho Ms Babibgton-Smith spotted something off and the RAF was sent to bomb. That was hardly the case because of other priorities and whether the flying bombs and V-2 existed at all. It was a constant fight only made clear when the first V-1s began landing on London in June 1944 and V-2 in September 1944.

- on page 20, Brugioni tells about the destruction of a site "to prevent France from ever using it to bomb Great Britain." Not sure how British or French readers would react to such nonsense, this being a bit past the Napoleonic Wars;

- on pages 10 - 21 is a confusion of dates and alleged bombing missions, many of which were to have blown sites before they were planned. Very effective. In many cases, the actual year is vague (not good when writing a history);

- on page 29 he completely misquotes Patton's weather prayer. The real one reads: "Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations." The misquotation may have come from the reference he used but, as the author, he should have checked it.

- he also makes numerous typos that should have been corrected such as Speer's title and calling the rocket interceptor the "ME-163" (it is the Me-163, being an abbreviation for Messerschmitt, not two works together. For example, a Russian aircraft might be a "MiG", the combination of Mikoyan and Gurevich). These are small things but it is small things that distinguishes a good history from a poor one.

And so forth and so on. With that many pages, I decided to stop and return the book. There are a number of other books better written about this period by people who were in a position of authority as well as numerous recently published "Corona" histories.

I do recommend Mr. Brugioni's "Eyeball to Eyeball", an excellent history all around, which was why I got this book and am disappointed at the early errors that taint the rest.

For better information on V-1 and V-2, an excellent source is Dieter Holsken's "V-Missiles of the Third Reich: The V-1 and V-2"; Monogram Avaiation, Sturbridge, MA, 1994

An interesting contrast exists between those books given a lot of publicity, e.g., Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, by reporters and writers versus those lesser quality written books by people there lacking the publicity machine. Lots of history books exist on the subjects of this period: the former President, the agency, and the U-2, many fine books, cleared books.

The first striking thing about this book is that it does have those modern typographic errors which basic word processing spell checkers can't catch in the index "aircraft carrie" rather than "carrier" (for that U-2 capability). One will find mention of CL-292 (a clear typo) rather than the CL-282. The editor's name appears on the dust jacket cover, somewhat embarrassing for her, a little annoying to some readers.

As a slant, the earlier part of the book doesn't show Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Air Command particularly sympathetically (not that this reviewer is partial to the USAF) but later SAC comes in line. The lack of "precision" in WWII attempts to bomb V-1 launch sites is illustrated with one photo with noting 500 attempts and no hits. A reader has to keep in mind not only modern cruise missile GPS precision but also that that "precision" has shown its limits, too (Chinese embassy). The line between the strategic and the tactical starts to blur.

The book isn't a single linear narrative. It's a patchwork of a number of topical narratives which go into a lesser documented future (e.g., Corona satellites) when reset to a local chronology on the next technical problem topic. Some readers will be interested in the aeronautic while others might be interested in the more political. The author attempts to provide his insights. One of the areas weak is the interaction between image and signals intelligence (e.g., Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage).

The book offers in one place a few small things likely scattered (A-12 technical differences from the SR-71 like daylight only photo missions vs SAR and IR) and certain old War era roles not over the Soviet Union before the UK was allowed to train U-2 pilots (i.e., Suez). Where all these topics add up is that using Internet resources such as MS terraserver and google earth one can these same imaging targets: and they are there, still mostly there: the airfields, the SAM sites and silos (I checked out France's besides the former SU).

I'm from the post-Eisenhower era. I've heard various positives and negatives of the past-General and past-President. He comes out looking good here which make me wonder about how this book would change the thinking of those other old remote sensing types I know who didn't think much of him.

I can't suggest that this book is 5 stars, but its over all material is way above 3 stars (average). It's not a book for every body, but it did hit a few of my voids.

Excellent.....after so many years of waiting for removal of security classifications this story by Dino Brugioni of the Eisenhower program for "Open Skys" and his determination to know what the Soviets were up to regarding weapons development and potential war...."We don't want another Pearl Harbor"...can be told. This book will be forever referred to as one of the best referrence books for the time of 1950's to 1970's. I was involved as a reconn sensor specialist and photo interpreter during that period. My involvement started as an enlisted photo interpreter in the Air Force followed by employment as a Government employee at the Air Force Reconnaisance Labatory at Wright Field, Dayton Ohio and later as a participant in the National Reconniance Office(NRO)programs.

I must categorically state that this book belongs on the bookshelf of any early cold war historian. The book gives a historical backdrop of the tensions between The US and the USSR. At the time we had a total dearth of information about the capabilities of the Russians. We,and especially Eisehower was laboring under the fear of another Pearl Harbor. Thus our intelligence agencies had to somehow find out about any possibly agressive moves by our adversary. After reading this book, one might conclude that our U-2 spy flights relieved tensions rather than ratcheted them up with provocative overflights of Russian air space. Our motives were clear. The Russians could easily learn our national mood and intentions by merely reading a newspaper. On the other hand, Russia being a closed society, was a total cypher to us. This book relates what it is like to have a strong president in the white house as opposed to some of the more timid ones of later years and currently. An intersting comparison can be made between the Russians under Krushchev and Saddam. The Russains were full of bombast and very greatly exaggerated their capabilities. The U-2 flights gave the lie to such bluster and had the effect of greatly reducing our own fears. Saddam, like Krushchev, was full of bombast and bluster. But we had no means to find the real truth, thus an invasion that may not have been necessary.

This book is a major contribution to the history of the Cold War. The author, who has a photographic memory, was well positioned to observe the momentous events of that period. He records how overhead reconnaissance and the essential interpretation of the imagery it produced, probably prevented World War III, while saving the United States and its allies many billions in national treasure and human resources.