U-2s in Action: Sept. 5, 1962

Fifty-fourth Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

A Lost U-2 = Another Soviet-American Crisis

A September 5th New York Times p.1 headline announced,

SOVIET PROTESTS U2 FLIGHT

OVER SAKHALIN OFF SIBERIA

The Soviet note of protest identified the intruder as “an American U-2 reconnaissance plane.” The note also labeled this August 30th intrusion into Soviet air space as a deliberate provocation.

The note then repeated the warning the Kremlin had issued in May 1960 when a Soviet SA-2 antiaircraft missile had shot down a CIA U-2 over Russian territory: the USSR would retaliate against any nations which allowed the United States to use their territory as bases for spy plane operations over Russia.

The U.S. State Department admitted the violation but said that this mission had been planned to avoid, not fly over, Soviet territory. When debriefed, the pilot of the straying U-2 reported severe winds during his night-time mission. Those winds, helped by a possible navigational error, may have shoved him off course.

The State Department note added that the ban on U.S. over-flights of the USSR which President Eisenhower had decreed after the May 1960 shoot-down had been reissued by President Kennedy on January 25, 1961. It remained in force in 1962.

Ban or no ban, however, a U-2 had again overflown Soviet territory and the Soviet government’s protest, timed to coincide with a meeting of the United Nations, had been exceptionally sharp. The State Department would have found this incident almost as embarrassing its 1960 predecessor.

The Vehement Soviet Protest = Maskirovka?

Dino Brugioni, then at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) near Washington, writes that “the vehemence” of the Soviet protest “was apparently an attempt to distract attention from the Soviets’ growing involvement in Cuba,” as well as to frighten other nations into denying the U.S. permission to operate U-2s from their soil.

The Sept. 5th U-2 Mission over Cuba

According to declassified SECRET CIA memorandum,

“Another U-2 over-flight of Cuba successfully flown on schedule on September 5th over the eastern and central portions of the island. Three additional SAM sites were detected in the central portion of the island. Unfortunately, the flight encountered heavy cloud cover over eastern Cuba.”

The dotted line on the map on the head of this chapter shows the track of the September 5 U-2 missions. Readers will notice that while Mission 3089 covered Cuba’s eastern and central sections, the U-2 left Cuban air space well east of Havana. This mission track completely avoided Pinar del Rio Province, southwest of Havana, where the first SAM sites had been discovered in late August.

The heavy cloud cover over eastern Cuba was indeed unfortunate: it meant that a mysterious surface-to-surface missile site near Banes photographed by the August 29th U-2 mission would have been shielded from Mission 3089’s cameras. That mysterious site had the analysts at NPIC scratching their heads. What kind of missile was it for?

The Carter-McCone Cables

In late August Director of Central Intelligence John McCone had left for a month-long honeymoon. During that month, from his nuptial bower at Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, this happiest of men exchanged a steady stream of cables (the “Honeymoon Series”) with Deputy Director of Intelligence General Marshall S. Carter, in charge of the CIA during McCone’s absence.

On September 4th, Carter cabled McCone some ominous news.

“CUBAN READOUT CONFIRMS EIGHT AND PROBABLY NINE SAM RPT SAM SITES UNDER CRASH CONSTRUCTION. EIGHT OF NINE SITES NOTED WILL BLANKET ENTIRE WESTERN HALF OF ISLAND. NINTH IS ON EAST COAST AND WE EXPECT OTHERS WILL BE BUILT TO COVER ENTIRE COUNTRY. CONSTRUCTION PROCEEDING SO QUICKLY WE LOOK FOR SOME TO BE OPERATIONAL WITHIN NEXT WEEK OR TEN DAYS. READOUT ALSO SHOWED EIGHT TORPEDO BOATS WITH DUAL, RADAR-GUIDED MISSILE LAUNCHERS [with] ESTIMATED RANGE OF ABOUT 15 MILES FOR A 2,000 POUND HI-EXPLOSIVE PAYLOAD WITH GOOD ACCURACY.”

On September 5th, as Mission 3089 was in progress, Carter cabled McCone that he and his colleagues were keenly aware of the danger from those SAM sites in Cuba:

“IN BACKS OF OUR MINDS IS GROWING DANGER TO THE BIRDS,” i.e. to the U-2s.

The next day, Carter cabled McCone:

“CONTINUED READOUT NOW SHOWS TOTAL OF NINE, PROBABLY TEN, SAM SITES. OTHER INFO, FROM GROUND REPORTS, POINTS STRONGLY TO AT LEAST TWO OTHERS.”

McCone’s reply of September 7th reinforces my impression that he was one of the few high-level policy-planners in Washington able and willing to connect some fairly obvious dots— if not the only one. McCone cabled Carter,

“…URGE FREQUENT REPEAT MISSIONS OF RECENT RECONNAISSANCE OPERATIONS…MY HUNCH IS WE MIGHT FACE PROSPECT OF SOVIET SHORT-RANGE SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES OF PORTABLE TYPE IN CUBA WHICH COULD COMMAND IMPORTANT TARGETS OF SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES AND POSSIBLY LATIN AMERICAN CARIBBEAN AREAS.”

McCone had first told other policy-planners that the Soviets were going to install strategic missiles in Cuba on August 10th. In early September McCone was sticking to his guns—and calling for repeated U-2 reconnaissance missions over Cuba to discover what those SAM sites were being built to protect.

But if those SAM sites were soon to be operational, what might happen to a U-2 flying within range? That question had already been answered—on May 1, 1960.

Email your questions to phufstader@sbcglobal.net or post a comment.

Sources and Notes

The declassified CIA document dated February 1963 concerning U-2 over-flights of Cuba is number 45 in Mary McAuliffe, ed., CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. Washington, D.C.: October 1992, p. 127ff.

For another take on the Sept. 5th U-2 flight, see Norman Polmar and John D. Gresham, DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2006, p. 77 and FN.

Dino Brugioni’s comments, along with other details of the August 30th incident, appear on pp. 108-9 of his Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of The Cuban Missile Crisis (Robert F. McCort, ed.). New York: Random House, 1991.

The transcript of President Kennedy’s January 25, 1961, news conference was printed on p. 10 of the January 26, 1960, issue of the New York Times.

The Carter-McCone cables quoted in this chapter are documents 13, 14, 15, and 16 in CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. The term “READOUT” in Carter’s cables probably refers to analysis of intelligence information from photographs and other sources.