Spycraft - Melton [32]
Whether Doolittle sensed that technology could transform human spying, or concluded, as did a growing number of scientific thinkers, that technology applied to intelligence collection could replace traditional spying, is moot. The intelligence strategy of America would swing toward big technology programs. Technical collection—early satellite photography, spy planes, and signal monitoring—born in the 1950s and nurtured in the subsequent decades, soon became the focus for America’s intelligence investment, beginning with the Corona satellite program. This was “Big Technology” done in a big way, and with big budgets.17
Corona, a photoreconnaissance satellite conceived in 1946 by the Rand Corporation, was launched in February 28, 1959. The first flight failed, as did the next eleven attempts. On the thirteenth test launch, the low-orbiting satellite was a success and its engineering payload recovered. Then, on August 18, 1960, the fourteenth Corona test launch took images of the USSR from space and, the following day, successfully ejected the film canister over the Pacific Ocean for retrieval by plane in midair.18
Carried within the canister were more than 3,000 feet of exposed film that captured a million square miles of the Soviet Union, providing intelligence officials with their first look at vast outlying areas of Russia. There could be little doubt that U.S. intelligence had dramatically changed since August of 1949 when the Soviets detonated their first nuclear device. Then, intelligence analysts rummaged through Herbert Hoover’s Presidential archives at Stanford University, a collection dating back to the former President’s days as a mining engineer, looking for a map of the Ural Mountain region where the blast occurred.19 Now, with the satellite pictures, analysts had current images of precise areas of interest.
As Big Technology, with its big budget satellites and aircraft began operating against the Soviet Union, classic tradecraft struggled for relevance. The Big Technology programs attracted scientists, inspired technical creativity, and pushed engineering, literally and figuratively, to new heights. Satellites in the skies were viewed as less susceptible to the kinds of risks and unpredictability that plagued spies on the streets. In the minds of some, “technical collection” was untainted by the moral, ethical, and diplomatic entanglements associated with human espionage.
Satellites would not be arrested in the hallways of Moscow apartment buildings nor were they likely to cause international incidents. Satellites had no motive for betrayal and did not require reassurance and flattery. Moreover, if the satellites that delivered images cost billions of dollars, it was not because of some foreigner’s personal greed. Yes, satellites might have mechanical failures, but they did not quit working out of fear or disillusionment. They did not violate the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union while photographing facilities whose guards would shoot a trespasser. As long as they had fresh film, fresh batteries, and a cloudless sky, they delivered the otherwise unattainable: nonpoliticized data.
There were, to be sure, limitations. A satellite could capture the image of missiles deployed to remote areas, but seemingly endless spools of film and powerful lenses could not divine the intentions of Soviet leadership. It could see submarines in their pens at the Severodvinsk naval base, but could not penetrate the roofs of government labs in Moscow and Leningrad to record images of the future weapon systems spread out across the drawing boards of engineers. Nor could it