The Naked Communist (35 page)

On May 1, 1960, Francis G. Powers, piloting an unarmed U-2 jet reconnaissance plane, were captured 1200 miles inside Russia. The Communist leaders triumphantly announced that they had shot down the U-2 spy plane with a marvelous new rocket. This story was discredited when the Russians displayed Power's undamaged equipment and the U.S. monitors reported hearing the Russian pilots as they followed the plane in a forced landing. Government officials revealed that the U-2 plane came down because of a flameout.

In Washington the incident created consternation. Since Americans were not accustomed to spying, they hardly knew what to do when this plane was caught spying. At first it was simply claimed that the U-2 was a weather plane which must have "drifted." Finally, it was rather clumsily admitted that the plane was in fact flying on an espionage mission with the highly important assignment of photographing Russian missile bases.

Khrushchev professed outraged indignation, criticized the "morals" of the American leaders for spying, and denounced the U-2 incident as an act of aggression. He also immediately announced that he was canceling President Eisenhower's visit to Russia. A few days later he used the U-2 incident to scuttle the Paris Summit Conference.

Meanwhile, in America, citizens were peppering Washington with a multitude of questions:

Was this an isolated mission or one of many espionage flights?

Was it in violation of international law?

What did such flights accomplish?

Why hadn't the Russians objected to such flights earlier?

Should the flights be continued or terminated?

Since Russia had now captured one of the U-2 planes and all of its equipment, the U.S. Government felt justified in telling the inside facts on this rather ingenious American defense device which had been operating over Russia and China for more than 4 years. The May 1 flight was one of more than 200 which had been mapping offensive war preparations of the USSR.

It was revealed that the U-2's had been ordered aloft in 1956 when the U.S. had first learned that the Communist leaders had officially adopted a mammoth "sneak attack" plan as part of their over-all strategy. The planes had flying over Russia at an altitude of between 12 and 14 miles -- far out of reach of any jets or rockets which the Russians possessed.

Was this illegal? Since Russia had refused to negotiate any international law on air space, these flights were not illegal. Ernest K. Lindley summarized the views of Secretary of State Christian Herter:

"The altitude above the earth to which a nation's sovereignty extends has never been determined by international agreement. The traditional rule is said to be that a nation’s sovereignty extends as high as it can exert effective control. By that rule, the U-2 flights were not illegal so long as the planes flew above the reach of Soviet air defenses."
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Then how effective had the U-2's been? The Defense Secretary told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

"From these flights, we got information on airfields, aircraft, missile testing and training, special-weapon storage, submarine production, atomic production and aircraft deployment."
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How was this achieved? The Air Force revealed that it was done with high precision photographic equipment which performed miracles. This equipment could photograph a golf ball from 9 miles up. In fact a published photograph of a golf course taken from that altitude showed the greens, cars, club house and players. The picture caption read: "Even golf balls are clearly identifiable to photo-interpreters."
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But Russia and China cover such vast territories. How could precision photography be effective over so wide a terrain? The Air Force answered this question by revealing that this photographic equipment not only had high precision qualities but was also extremely comprehensive. Officials pointed out those 2 jets carrying these special cameras could photograph one third of the United States in 4 hours!

During Khrushchev's verbal blast against the U-2 flights, he let it slip that he had known about these planes for over three years. Some people wondered why he had not protested long before. Experts pointed out that if Khrushchev had complained, it would have exploded his propaganda boasts about the invincible strength of Soviets defenses. He had been claiming that Soviet radar, jets and rockets could prevent any nation from successfully attacking Russia.

U-2 photographs had revealed that Russian defenses were wide open to massive retaliatory attack. It was for this reason that Khrushchev had waited until he finally got hold of a U-2 plane so that he could claim the Russians had shot it down. The Communists even succeeded in getting Francis Powers to testify at his Moscow trial that he had been shot down at 68,000 feet. But when his father came from America to visit him, the U-2 pilot said he was not shot down. This seemed to confirm Washington military statements that the Russians had neither jets nor rockets that could reach 68,000 feet.

The question of future U-2 flights was finally settled when President Eisenhower agreed that there would be no more. He made it clear that this was not because the flights were illegal or unjustified but simply that the United States would soon have other means of staying informed about Russian bases. The U.S. successfully launched its first Midas satellite into orbit on May 23, 1960. This one carried a 3,000 pound payload of technical equipment designed to detect a missile launching anywhere in the world.

A few months later the U.S. launched its Samos satellite. The Samos was specifically designed to photograph Russia and China from 300 miles out as it made an orbital journey around the earth every 94 1/2 minutes. Of course, from 300 miles distance, additional photo graphic miracles were necessary. The Air Force revealed thai the cameras on the Samos would photograph and identify, any object larger than one square foot.

An American RB-47 reconnaissance plane disappeared over the Berents Sea on July 1, 1960. For several days Russia pretended to be helping in the search for the missing plane and then bluntly admitted that it had been shot down. All of the crew was killed except two. The Russians said they were holding the two survivors as prisoners.

The United States was shocked. President Eisenhower sent Russia one of the most indignant protests of his entire career as President. Russia claimed that the plane was shot down because it had violated Russian territory just like the U-2. The United States Ambassador said this charge was an absolute falsehood. He pointed out that the plane had been under British electronic surveillance and that the United States was prepared to prove the RB-47 had never been closer than thirty miles to the Soviet border.

On July 26, 1960, the United States demanded an impartial investigation by the United Nations to fix responsibility for this inexcusable and illegal attack which had resulted in the killing of four Americans and the kidnaping of two others. The request was referred to the Security Council. It was generally agreed that a U.N. investigation should be held. How else could the U.N. Charter be enforced unless investigations of alleged violations were conducted? But there was no investigation by the U.N.
Russia vetoed it!

The Italian representative then moved that the International Red Cross be allowed to interview the two American survivors. Russia vetoed that, too.

Most Americans missed the ugly significance of this entire U.N. fiasco. Once more Russia had violated the first two articles of the U.N. charter and gotten away with it. There were no particular protests from the press or the public. There was no sweeping demand that Russia be expelled. There was no stirring demand that the whole U.N. structure be completely re-examined. Across the country, school children continued to be told that the U.N. was the only hope for peace and justice among men.

In October, 1957, Russia electrified the world with her first Sputnik. Built on plans stolen from the United States after World War II, Sputnik I, with a payload weighing 184 pounds, was successfully launched into orbit October 4th.

Immediately the United States went into "panic production" to catch up. However, U.S. missile experts insisted on a broad range of experimental effort rather than single-focus crash programs such as the Russians seemed to be following. Long range, the American approach soon began to pay off. Russia continued to put up bigger payloads but America started getting far better scientific data. Gradually the U.S. satellite and missile teams began forging ahead.

By April 1, 1960, the U.S. had the highly successful Tiros I in orbit which circled the earth every 99 minutes at a height of 450 miles. This space vehicle had solar batteries which operated earth-controlled television cameras to transmit pictures of weather formations. This was the most successful picture-taking vehicle ever put into space.

On August 11, 1960, the U.S. was the first to de-orbit a satellite capsule from space. This one weighed 300 pounds. On August 12 the U.S. put an inflated balloon into space. It was as high as a 10-story building and was described as the "first radio mirror" for a huge satellite communications network. 1960 also marked the launching of America's first inter-continental ballistic missiles from submerged submarines. This meant that never again could Russia plan a sneak attack on the West because massive retaliation could be launched from America's moving missile bases at sea.

Officials revealed that future satellites would carry infrared sensors capable of detecting atomic explosions and ballistic missile launchings by the Communists. These also would be able to follow the trail of missiles in flight. America's long-anticipated Midas and Samos satellites ranged into orbit during 1960 and early 1961.

Payload size also gradually became important to the U.S. as it neared the time when a man would be put into space. A 15-ton satellite was promised for about 1963. However, experts promised that there would be an American in space even before that.

Prodded by the unknown proportions of the Russian effort, American wealth and technology poured its strength into the space race. The score by 1961 seemed significant:

The year 1960 saw a clear manifestation that the Communist time table of conquest for Africa was right on schedule. In 1953, the Communist leaders had promised themselves that during the 1960's "a wave of revolution will sweep over the whole continent of Africa and the imperialists and colonizationists will be quickly driven into the sea."
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They also made it clear that the agitating and provoking of the "wave of revolution" was the Communist program for the capture of Africa.

However, by 1960, the European nations with colonies in Africa were already busily trying to prepare the people for independence and self-government by
peaceful
means. From a Communist standpoint this would have been a defeat. Red leaders knew that any well-ordered government of natives would undoubtedly resist Russian-Chinese domination. It was therefore decided to urge the natives to demand freedom immediately, before they had actually been prepared for self-government. The Communists figured that in the resulting chaos, they could probably take over. This is exactly what began to take place.

The 1960 chain of events in the Belgian Congo illustrated the devastating effect of turning self-government over to primitive people prematurely. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the natives had already been promised independence by 1964. Consequently, their uprising was not so much for independence as for "freedom now."

To see the big picture it is necessary to realize that 75 years before when the Belgians first settled the Congo, it consisted of around 120 cannibalistic tribes living on the lowest levels of human existence.

1960 the Belgians had created vast resources of wealth in the geographical heart of Africa. Most of it was concentrated in the province of Katanga which produced 7.5 % of the world's copper, 60% of its cobalt, most of the world's supply of radium and large supplies of uranium and zinc.