The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft
node
A single-engined, glider-winged high-altitude aircraft built to fly above the ceiling of interceptors and, for a few years, above the reach of surface-to-air missiles, carrying cameras of long focal length. It is the instrument through which much of the confrontation was actually observed, and its history is a compressed lesson in how intelligence changes politics. Overflights of the Soviet Union from 1956 produced the imagery that dismantled American fears of a large bomber and then missile advantage; the shooting down of one over the Soviet Union in May 1960 wrecked a summit and demonstrated that the sanctuary of altitude had closed; and a U-2 flight over western Cuba on 14 October 1962 produced the photographs that started the missile crisis. During that crisis a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and its pilot killed, and another strayed into Soviet airspace over the Far East on the same day — both incidents that could have been read as the opening of hostilities and were not. Later variants of the aircraft remained in service for decades.
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Timeline
No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.
Connections · 1
- The San Cristóbal medium-range missile sitesevidence_for
Assembled narrative · 1
Assembled from 15 blocks · 1 evidence · 8 related
- Story
- A single-engined, glider-winged high-altitude aircraft built to fly above the ceiling of interceptors and, for a few years, above the reach of surface-to-air missiles, carrying cameras of long focal length. It is the instrument through which much of the confrontation was actually observed, and its history is a compressed lesson in how intelligence changes politics. Overflights of the Soviet Union from 1956 produced the imagery that dismantled American fears of a large bomber and then missile advantage; the shooting down of one over the Soviet Union in May 1960 wrecked a summit and demonstrated that the sanctuary of altitude had closed; and a U-2 flight over western Cuba on 14 October 1962 produced the photographs that started the missile crisis. During that crisis a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and its pilot killed, and another strayed into Soviet airspace over the Far East on the same day — both incidents that could have been read as the opening of hostilities and were not. Later variants of the aircraft remained in service for decades.
- Knowledge
- The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft
- The San Cristóbal medium-range missile sites
- Connections
- The San Cristóbal medium-range missile sites
- A U-2 photographs missile construction in western Cuba
- The Cuban missile crisis
- The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft
- Cuba
- A U-2 photographs missile construction in western Cuba
- The Cuban missile crisis
- Evidence
- Named as the principal declassified-document collection behind this pack's account of the crisis, the B-59 submarine incident and the later disclosures about tactical warheads on the island. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — nsarchive.gwu.edu is blocked by the environment's egress proxy. Everything this pack says about the crisis is from standing knowledge of the published historiography, and the degree of documentary support for the B-59 account in particular is not established here.
Observed changes · 0
No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.
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/atlas?object=TECH_U2&experience=TECH_U2