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January 20. R-7A
ICBM accepted into military service. March 1.
20 Cosmonaut candidates report
for "Vostok" training. President Eisenhower authorized two U-2 overflights for April 1960. The
first was made on 9 April and was uneventful. The second overflight was scheduled for the
end of April or the beginning of May. One of the flight's prime target was a suspected
ICBM cite at Plesetsk. May 1.
Gary Powers U-2 shot down by SAM-2 missile. November 5, China.
First launch of
Chinese-built copy of Soviet R-2, model 1059. November 14, China. Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen
starts development of DF-3, 10 000 km ICBM.
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(
Continue from "Chronology, 1959") Although the Air Force's
alarmist estimates were looking increasingly untenable as time passed, it was impossible
to prove them wrong. The reason was the U-2's inherent limitations. The risk of
overflights and Eisenhower's unwillingness to run them meant that few were made. Also, the
aircraft's range was too short to cover some areas. Other areas, including Moscow. were
photographed only once. Although large segments of rail lines had been photographed, it
was not certain that they were statistically significant. Another problem was recognizing
an ICBM site. The U.S. had photos of the Tyuratam test center. From them, the function of
each building could be reconstructed and the general layout of the facilities mapped. The
Army, Navy, and CIA all assumed that an ICBM base, once discovered, would follow the same
pattern. The Air Force argued that no particular arrangement should be assumed and that
camouflage should be taken into account. ICBM sites might have been photographed, but the
analysts had not recognized them as such. This is a common problem in photo
interpretation. In practical terms, however, this argument meant that the Air Force would
claim that any unusual construction was an ICBM site until proven otherwise. Objects in
this category included ammunition storage sheds in the Urals, a Crimean War memorial, and
a medieval tower. Analysts would later complain, "To the Air Force, any fly speck on
a film was a missile." |
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Continued in
"Chronology, 1961" |
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At the
beginning of the 1960, US intelligence has already had Plesetsk high up in the list of
suspected ICBM sites. Moreover, Francis Gary Powers' reconnaissance flight on May 1,
1960, resulted in famous U-2 incident, had Plesetsk among its primary surveillance
targets. Determined to retain secrecy around the site, Soviet air-defense forces
were "covering up" Plesetsk with anti-aircraft missiles. To uncover
Plesetsk mystery and not to repeat U-2 fiasco, the US employed its early reconnaissance
satellites. In August 1960, after numerous previous failures, Corona spacecraft, in the
previous years known as "Discoverer-14", brought down photos of the site.
Despite low quality, they did reveal railway lines not shown on the German military maps
from the period of the second World War - the best reference on the Soviet geography US
intelligence had at the time.
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This page is currently under
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SS © 2003 |
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