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Much has been said and written about the failure of U.S. intelligence to prevent the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and its overestimation of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction under Saddam Hussein. This book focuses instead on the central role that intelligence-collection systems play in promoting arms control and disarmament. Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. and Keith Hansen bring more than fifty combined years of experience to this discussion of the capabilities of technical systems, which are primarily based in space. Their history of the rapid advancement of surveillance technology is a window into a dramatic reconceptualization of Cold War strategies and policy planning. Graham and Hansen focus on the intelligence successes against Soviet strategic nuclear forces and the quality of the intelligence that has made possible accurate assessments of WMD programs in North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Their important insights shed a much-needed light on the process of verifying how the world harnesses the proliferation of nuclear arms and the continual drive for advancements in technology.
Presenting the full story of the CORONA spy satellites' origins, Eye in the Sky explores the Cold War technology and far-reaching effects of the satellites on foreign policy and national security. Arguing that satellite reconnaissance was key to shaping the course of the Cold War, the book documents breakthroughs in intelligence gathering and achievements in space technology that rival the landing on the moon.
Examines the history, technology, and uses of spy satellites, looking especially at the various reconnaissance satellite programs of the United States, from the mid-twentieth century to the present.
In this book, Patrick Norris responds to the 50th Anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age – the launch of Sputnik 1 – with a review of the most important historical applications of space science for the benefit of the human race during that half century, focusing on the prevention of nuclear war. In developing this story Norris illuminates a little-known aspect of the Space Age, namely the military dimension.
Presents the recently declassified story of the design, development, production, and operation of the Hexagon KH-9 reconnaissance satellite, that provided photographic intelligence to the United States government, and it stands as one of the most complicated systems ever put into space.
In the early 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union faced each other in a nuclear standoff, a small band of engineers, designers, and intelligence officers secretly set out to do the impossible. Armed with little more than a few ideas and drawings of the payload, they created America's first reconnaissance satellite program - the Corona project - which for decades remained one of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. This is the story of their extraordinary efforts, from the first desperate requests for intelligence on the USSR, throuqh a series of heartbreaking failures, to Corona's ultimate success. This book focuses not only on the Corona project's great technical achievements but also on the remarkable human side of the story - on the engineers who built the satellites but could not divulge what they did even to their own families, and on the recovery pilots who competed to see who would be the first ace. Their stories appear for the first time in this book along with previously classified details of their recovery unit and a list of the ace pilots.
In 1954 the U.S. Air Force launched an ambitious program known as WS-117L to develop the world’s first reconnaissance satellite. The goal was to take photographic images from space and relay them back to Earth via radio. Because of technical issues and bureaucratic resistance, however, WS-117L was seriously behind schedule by the time Sputnik orbited Earth in 1957 and was eventually cancelled. The air force began concentrating instead on new programs that eventually launched the first successful U.S. spy satellites. Eyeing the Red Storm examines the birth of space-based reconnaissance not from the perspective of CORONA (the first photo reconnaissance satellite to fly) but rather from that of the WS-117L. Robert M. Dienesch’s revised assessment places WS-117L within the larger context of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, focusing on the dynamic between military and civilian leadership. Dienesch demonstrates how WS-117L promised Eisenhower not merely military intelligence but also the capacity to manage national security against the Soviet threat. As a fiscal conservative, Eisenhower believed a strong economy was the key to surviving the Cold War and saw satellite reconnaissance as a means to understand the Soviet military challenge more clearly and thus keep American defense spending under control. Although WS-117L never flew, it provided the foundation for all subsequent satellites, breaking theoretical barriers and helping to overcome major technical hurdles, which ensured the success of America’s first working reconnaissance satellites and their photographic missions during the Cold War. Purchase the audio edition.
It's a bit of an open secret that reconnaissance satellites, or spy satellites, as they're often known, play a big part in American intelligence-gathering efforts. They're indispensible tools in the ongoing War on Terror. While information about the country's current satellites is classified, curious minds can learn all about the development of spy satellites in this informative tome. Highlights include WS-117L, CORONA, SAMOS, GAMBIT, HEXAGON, DORIAN, and KENNEN, all of which are introduced with detailed diagrams and multiple photographs. Other topics covered include the methods of aerial reconnaissance that predated satellites, the various types of intelligence that are routinely gathered, and an overview of the U.S. intelligence community.
In this, the first full-length study of the Directorate of Science and Technology, Jeffrey T. Richelson walks us down the corridors of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and through the four decades of science, scientists, and managers that produced the CIA we have today. He tells a story of amazing technological innovation in service of intelligence gathering, of bitter bureaucratic infighting, and sometimes, as in the case of its "mind-control" adventure, of stunning moral failure. Based on original interviews and extensive archival research, The Wizards of Langley turns a piercing lamp on many of the agency's activities, many never before made public.