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Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage

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For academic historians of the Cold War, journalists are unwelcome but inevitable competitors. Journalists tend to write better than academics, and they certainly have better ties to the publishing world, but they often lack either historical training or deep knowledge of a specific topic. Admittedly, a good popular historical account of a subject can both add to the record and increase public interest in it. One person who did it in the mid-1980s was William Burrows, a former New York Times reporter who wrote one of the early books on satellite reconnaissance, Deep Black, and substantially advanced our understanding of this secretive world.

Philip Taubman is currently the Washington bureau chief for the New York Times and has written a new popular history of the early years of strategic reconnaissance called Secret Empire. The book largely focuses on the people who built the U-2 spy plane and the CORONA reconnaissance satellite. It is a readable book and Taubman certainly did a lot of research. But unlike Deep Black, or many other books before it, Secret Empire breaks absolutely no new ground and primarily repeats information that appeared in several books in the late 1990s. Most notably, several chapters in Secret Empire are simply retreads of information in Jeffrey Richelson's 2001 book The Wizards of Langley. Richelson's book did well and received wide exposure, but Secret Empire has the force of the Simon & Schuster advertising machine behind it.

After recounting the development of the U-2 spyplane, which has already been extensively covered in greater detail by author Chris Pocock, Secret Empire focuses upon the development of the CORONA reconnaissance satellite (spy satellite names were usually printed in capital letters). CORONA first achieved success in August 1960 after over a dozen failures, and over a hundred of these satellites were launched during the next decade. It was not declassified until 1995. The book also discusses the bureaucratic fights that took place between the US Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency during the mid-1960s and some of the satellite projects started during these fights.

One of the foundations of Cold War history is that the advance of time opens up new records and frees more people to speak about events, thereby enabling historians to write a richer historical account--we certainly know more about the Cuban Missile Crisis today than we knew 5 or 10 years ago. But Secret Empire actually contains less information than several books written before it, such as Jonathan Lewis' well-researched history of corporate involvement in CORONA, Spy Capitalism. It also contains less information than is available with careful research.

The book mentions almost nothing about the Samos satellite that CORONA eventually usurped. Samos was the primary satellite reconnaissance program during the early years of the space race and the Air Force spent huge amounts of money on Samos before canceling it without a single success. There are important lessons of technological hubris to be learned from Samos, and Air Force mishandling of the program explains later bureaucratic squabbles, but Taubman devotes only a few paragraphs to the subject. He also mistakenly states that Samos was simply a video relay satellite, whereas it also included film return capsules, just like its offspring, CORONA. Similarly, the author makes virtually no mention of the GAMBIT satellite that complemented CORONA. The two satellites worked as a team during the 1960s: CORONA was the binoculars that scanned the Soviet Union looking for targets and GAMBIT was the high-powered telescope that focused in on those targets. But unlike previous books on spy satellites, you will find no new information here about programs that the United States developed.

Similarly, Taubman pays no attention to the exploitation of the images returned by these satellites. What, exactly, did they see and how were their pictures used? A tremendous amount of information has been released on this subject in the past few years, but almost none of it is included here.

Taubman did extensive interviews to support this book, including interviewing several people who have not talked before. But the interviews appear to have merely provided the same information that has appeared in previous books. Certainly these people had other secrets to tell, but they did not do so in the pages of this book. The substantial list of documentary sources includes nothing that other writers have not already tapped. SImply put, if you have read any previous book on spy satellites or the U-2, you will learn nothing new from Taubman. If, however, you are completely new to the subject, this is not a bad book and has a decent overview of the period from 1954-1960. But you should be aware that there is much more information out there.

In the final chapter of the book Taubman makes an assertion that many journalists now consider proven beyond all doubt--that the United States has put too much faith in satellites and consequently neglected plain old fashioned spying. The claim does not stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. After all, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen were not trading satellite secrets to the Soviets in return for all that money, they were giving them the names of people spying for the United States. Satellites have always had limitations, but so do spies, and the CIA never missed an opportunity to snare a good human because it was too focused on its amazing orbiting robots. A deeper and broader analytical approach would have explored these issues more fully, rather than resorting to what amounts to a sound-bite summation of a complex topic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a very, very fast read considering it is non-fiction. I think that Taubman really made the characters come alive, which enhanced learning about what could easily be a boring technical book. However, it lived up to its promise in my mind. I read through it quite quickly and I didn't want to put it down.

The coverage of the U-2 development and the development of the Corona satellite were very detailed. Learning about how far those scientists came in such a short time was a very important story to tell and I am very glad that Taubman did the job, because he did it so well.

I would have liked more information about the development of the SR-71 and the latest spy satellites, but I suppose that might be classified or just not in the scope of the book. Either way, I am glad that I read it and recommend it to everyone who finds history and science mixed together a great read.

The book Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage by Philip Taubman could be likened to a triptych of America's first steps into the dark world of space through the murky processes of Cold War intelligence operations and military competitiveness. The first third looks at the period of time immediately following World War II, when the Cold War had not yet become a matter of settled doctrine, nor had the Soviet Union been identified as the key adversary. The second portion looks at the time of the spy planes, before satellite technology was available but when surveillance from the air was considered vital for national security. The final third continues the tale into space and, to a certain extent, into the post-Cold War era. This is a sweeping history.

The intelligence operations that had been started during World War II were new the United States in many respects; continuing this process on a global scale during peacetime and in civilian as well as military hands was also a new aspect. The British, with their worldwide empire, had been the masters of international intelligence, but had neither the resources nor the technology to even attempt to continue this role. The early days of intelligence gathering across the Soviet Union - the largest nation on earth geographically, and one very remote from most Western national borders - were fraught with danger. Taubman's narrative begins with one such dangerous mission - the flight of Hal Austin over the northern edge of the Soviet Union, trying to get updated intelligence information while flying a souped-up but admittedly conventional aircraft. Austin's flight took on aspects of Mission: Impossible ideas - the government would disavow knowledge of the mission in event of discovery, would not attempt a rescue in event of capture, etc. However, it was becoming too dangerous in a world that was growing in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) proportions.

Ironically, despite the riskiness of missions such as Austin's flight, the new developments intended to be safer, both politically and personally, were not necessarily so on either front. Yet intelligence was essential. Not knowing what the Soviet Union was up to, particularly by a government whose members vividly remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor, was a threat to national security in and of itself. "In the nuclear age, such ignorance was untenable" (p. 27). Eisenhower's need was seen and satisfied by the work of figures such as Richard Leghorn, Mert Davies, Kelly Johnson, Jim Killian and others, who in Taubman's narrative have various roles to play in the up-and-down world of developing better, faster, and `stealthier' aircraft.

Turned over to the CIA under Dulles and funded from the contingency reserve (thus minimizing both scrutiny and paper trails), the Aquatone project, later and better known as the U-2, was developed. This is a plane that is still in operation today in various places and in various forms, although it was beset with problems mechanical and political from the start.

Taubman highlights figures such as Richard Bissell, Jim Baker, Edwin Land and others in the pursuit of a plane that would give the feedback needed for intelligence purposes without enormous risk. The scientists, military and political figures involved were not always working together - indeed, often plans would go astray or be rejected, only to be picked up again later. For example, Leghorn's idea of a long-range, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft came to fruition in the U-2 after he had left government service. Leghorn had an article in U.S. News & World Report just a week before the first U-2 test flight (Leghorn had not known about this development at the time).

Prior to the full development and implementation of the U-2, Eisenhower presented a proposal that was somewhat shocking to the military and intelligence leaders in America - his "Open Skies" proposal. "Historians still debate Eisenhower's motivations in making an offer that seemed both idealistic and calculating. It was a grand and visionary proposal that in a single stroke could have lessened tensions between the two nations, reduced the danger of surprise attack, and provided a means for verifying arms control agreements, if such accords could be reached" (p. 141). This would find echoes later in Ronald Reagan's offer, also astonishing to most, to share all of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") technologies with the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Just as the Soviets were not inclined to trust Reagan, they were similarly not inclined to trust Eisenhower.

For long-range reconnaissance, however, the U-2 was ultimately too high a cost, in terms of material, personnel, and public relations. Gary Powers was but one of the public relations difficulties for the American government. Eisenhower was under no illusions how bad it would be should the Soviet Union be found to conducting similar flights over the United States; this meant that American flights had to be higher and faster, which meant making the leap into space.

The U-2 project was successful; indeed, the U-2 continues to be of use in various settings. It also provided the initial intelligence that the Soviet Union was not as well equipped numerically or technologically as America's Cold War worst-fears scenarios might have envisioned. However, it also provided the prompting for continued surveillance, to ensure America's continued security.

At first, this security seemed to be threatened by Sputnik, a momentary turning of the tables of traditional American dominance in technology. "Sputnik was a humiliating defeat for the United States - perhaps the darkest hour of the cold war - but it was also a transforming event in American life" (p. 212). Apart from the military and intelligence aspects that this implied (Sputnik I was in fact little more than a dumb projectile, far form a menacing spy satellite), the public relations aspect was tremendous. One radio report of the event broadcast a beeping tone, purportedly drawn from Sputnik, saying in the voice-over that this "was the sound that all is not right with America."

Satellite technology was pursued in both military and civilian spheres. Additionally, in the Kennedy era, the space race would take a much more public face with the race to the moon. However, in the late Eisenhower days, the drive for satellite technology took on a surveillance orientation, to supplement and perhaps replace the U-2 and other manned flights over the Soviet Union and other problem spots in the world.

Taubman's text traces the development under Bissell and the CIA, under the code name Corona, which picked up steam tremendously after the Francis Gary Powers incident in 1960. The political issue in the United States had become one of a military gap, which wasn't actually true, and more specifically, a "missile gap," which was not entirely true, either, but caught the public imagination such that the Democrats had in it a formidable campaign weapon against Eisenhower's Republican successor candidate (as well as making it into the popular imagination in ways such as Dr. Strangelove).

The Corona project was intended as a temporary fix, but according to Taubman, was difficult to dislodge. The terminology of "Keyhole" was first used in the Corona satellites (first used for KH4, with earlier satellites back-named). Taubman doesn't explain this terminology, though he does use the abbreviation KH-11 and similar unexplained terms (an occasional shortcoming in his text). Corona and other contemporary and subsequent systems were certainly successful in getting intelligence information to the government. "The problem in Washington was no longer collecting information but making use of it. The trickle of intelligence about the Soviet Union that frustrated Dwight Eisenhower when he moved into the White House at mid-century had turned, by the end of the century, into a tidal wave of information that threatened to engulf Washington and overwhelm the ability of analysts to identify the most urgent and important intelligence and then make sense of it" (p. 354).

Taubman's conclusion takes issue with what he identifies as America's excessive reliance upon technological intelligence-gathering means over the more traditional and personal kinds of intelligence. Several presidential candidates have referred to intelligence issues in the campaign debates, and some would agree with Taubman's analysis that the intelligence we need is going to come from someone overhearing a conversation in a café in Turkey or Pakistan rather than in a satellite photograph. Taubman entitles his epilogue Losing the Inventive Spark, claiming that not only have we lost the groundwork intelligence, but that our technological drive toward intelligence is likewise not being developed as it once was. Taubman connects this to the intelligence failures in the 9-11 attacks, but argues that they were known beforel Taubman cites the Indian development of nuclear weapons as a key incident of intelligence failure in addition to 9-11.

In part, he argues it is because of the orientation of the spy satellite system rather than any particular failure within the system. "Terrorists are everything Soviet military forces were not: invisible, elusive, improvisational, and cunningly creative" (p. 361). These require a different kind of surveillance, Taubman argues. Not all analysts would agree with Taubman's assessment here - while it makes good journalism, it might not in fact be true that case managers and other human elements in intelligence have been neglected.

The intelligence communities continue to look for more and better ways of collecting, distilling and using information. The reformation of the intelligence community in the post-9-11 government is a key indicator of how divergent and diverse the community had become, although as Taubman's book demonstrates, this should be no surprise, given the wide range of turf battles, personalities, intentions and other divergent attributes there were there at the start.

This text serves as a good survey of the politics of the time, both the Cold War international politics, as well as the bureaucratic politics of the American government, using this issue as a case study with implications for the larger-scale operation of the government then and now.

I saw Philip Taubman on a news show shilling for this book and immediately ordered it. How could I resist? In 1973 and 1974 fresh out of college my first "real" job was as an Intelligence Operations Specialist at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Armed with all kinds of fancy clearances, I sifted through reams of roll paper teletypes from the CIA and DIA to create a daily briefing for Fred Ikle (then head of ACDA) John Lehman (Deputy) and the Assistant Directors (like Amron Katz - a character in this book). The intelligence was actually incredibly boring and banal. Ikle used to complain that the morning briefing was pathetic next to the news from the Washington Post and NY Times. It might have been banal but it was all very "important" and secretive with silly code names for special clearances. The mere existence of satellites was called the "fact of" and was classified Top Secret. They had regular meetings for about five years before they decided to downgrade it to Confidential, and it took another ten years to declassify it. The National Intelligence Estimates (which Taubman mentions but doesn't explain) were rediculously out of sync with the "raw" intelligence we got every day. The "raw" intelligence pretty clearly showed - if you actually paid attention to it - that the allegedly awesome Soviet military was pretty close to pathetic.

There are several very exciting stories to be told in all this. A lot of it about political bumbling, military agendas that needed to aggrandize the struggling Soviet Union, a giant man-boy dominated environment with no place for women and a big penchant for expensive toys.

This book does fill in a few gaps in the espionage story that I didn't know, and it does a pretty good job of giving credit to the leadership role of Eisenhower. However, I found it frustrating - exactly how did they manage to divert such large sums without most of Congress knowing? How did some reporters pretty much know the whole thing? Exactly how were they persuaded not to print the story? What did happen to Humint? If Humint was dormant for so many years how could it fire up so fast after 9/11? The questions that could have made a more exciting story if examined in depth were not even asked. It seemed to me that the information in this book, if well-edited, would make a great magazine article. However, despite it's occassionally breathless tone and offers of exposure of secrets I found it repetitive and slightly boring. Someday someone is going to write a great book about the period of American espionage covered in Secret Empire, but this isn't it.

I found the presentation of information in this book to be very thorough, and I learned a ton about some of the really advanced aerial and orbital systems that have come to shape the way America thinks of espionage. Definitely worth my time.

I have been studying secret science research projects during World War II for some time, as well as the development of the Oss and the CIA.

This book was an excellent surprise, for it changed and advanced my views in many areas. I was also amazed to find that it was Dwight Eisenhower's respect for Science and Technology that led him to give a green light around 1953 for ramping up espionage, intelligence, and sky and space-borne observation of the Soviet Union, giving a green light (and little accountability) to this work, almost paralleling the Star Wars era of the 1980s! Perhaps this is what led him to say, eventually, "beware the military-industrial complex". Nonetheless, the results eventually led to the end of the Cold War.

The book is also a testament to the reasons why we are now weak in counterintelligence--our 40 year focus on observation (which, for example, gave us advance warning of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and a possible invasion of Poland in 1980--which would have been even more disastrous) made us weak in facing terrorism. What is needed now is a conceptual shift of the order that was undertaken after World War II. After visiting Moscow, Eisenhower remarked that the USA and USSR were really allies for about a second. We clearly have been pumping cash and war materiel to those who were only "enemies of our enemies" in a haphazard faship for decades--a practice that clearly must stop.

Anyone who has military--foreign relations interests will find that this book fills a very important space in the transition from conventional warfare to limited warfare, to warfare against non-uniformed foes world-wide that strik without massing and have reached American shores in the most serious way since the War of 1812.

The 50s are often depicted as a quiet, insular and poorly led period in American history. This book demonstrates that 5-star General Eisenhower did much, much more than lead the Allies to victory in World War II--raising his stature among American presidents considerably in my view.

A very impressive and recommended book!

It is a clear, consecutive and exciting story which gives readers vivid description on what's going on with strategic reconnaissance on USSR in those cold war days.
For the sake of a free world, a small group of super smart Ph.D. engineer, ambitious military officer and brave pilots tried their best to unveil the attacking powers under the iron curtain, and finally they made it --- U2, SR71, and Spy Satellite.
I have to say this book changed my mind a lot on President Eisenhower, who overcomed various obstruct from USAF, Congress and so on, pushed the R&D of these reconnaissance craft. In this point, he is a sort of like President Reagan, who brought US a rebirth by speeding up the military race which directly or indirectly speed up the final crash of that "Evil Empire". Great men.
No idea why downstair guys gave such a low rating, IMHO, it is a definitly 5 pts book for cold war histroy.
btw, Philip was Times's Moscow bureau chief in the late 1980's

I heard Taubman touting Secret Empire on NPR and was expecting a really good book. Nevertheless, the book disappointed me. Although it does contain some useful background material on US reconnaissance efforts in the 1950's, the book's one hundred pages of interesting material are interspersed with three hundred sixty pages of dull banter about bureaucratic turf battles, tedious background information on personnel, and other tiresome detail. Oddly, what I felt were the most compelling stories often got short shrift. The development of the SR-71 Blackbird, for example, merits only a couple pages. The U2's operation over Cuba also got virtually zero coverage. I find it incredible that this book could have been written without a comprehensive telling of the story behind the Cuban U2 flights and Adlai Stevenson's presentation of US reconnaissance images before the UN in 1962.

I was also caught off guard by the somewhat odd, non-chronological format of the book. Taubman will spend an entire chapter discussing the United States' utter inability to get a reconnaissance satellite into orbit, then a few pages later in the next chapter he will jump to another subject, only to refer in passing to a constellation of advanced US spy satellites. I couldn't help but think that the subjects were portrayed in a hit or miss fashion, and perhaps I had missed the best parts.

Finally, the terrorism add-on at the end of the book seems like a half-hearted (and somewhat cynical) attempt to keep the book's material relevant in the post 9/11 world.

Taubman offers a fascinating insight into how the Eisenhower Administration confronted the risk of surprise attack at the outset of the nuclear era. He provides a fascinating insight into Ike. The 34th President is fondly remembered for ending the Korean War and presiding over eight years of relative peace and prosperity. Less well-known is that he championed the CIA in its formative years, and patiently advocated risky technologies (U2, Corona, satellites, etc.) that gave us hope for early detection of surprise attack, a grave threat in the 40s and 50s.

I recommend this for readers who enjoy learning about the WWII and early Cold War years.

I forced my way through this book in hopes that some new information or analysis would justify the reviews this book has received. I was very impressed by Mr. Taubman when he appeared on CNN and was looking forward to his take on the spy programs of the 40s and 50s. Very few new facts about the era, poor chronological organization, and the frustrating use of adjectives (one paragraph describes a man as a "precocious physicist" who was a "cheerful, cherubic dynamo" and worked with a "taciturn, laconic scientist") make this a very frustrating read.

If you are a spy/history buff you can do much better than this.