Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford Page A
Authors: James Bamford
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Eisenhower decided, was all the investigators would get.
Full stop. The fact that he had actually micromanaged the program from the Oval
Office would have to be denied. According to formerly top secret documents
obtained for Body of Secrets, Eisenhower was so fearful of the probe
that he went so far as to order his Cabinet officers to hide his involvement in
the scandal even while under oath. At least one Cabinet member directly lied to
the committee, a fact known to Eisenhower. Subornation of perjury is a serious
crime, one that had it been discovered might have led to calls for his
impeachment and to the prosecution of senior Cabinet members.
"The
impression," Eisenhower ordered his senior Cabinet members and National
Security Council team, "should not be given that the president has
approved specific flights, precise missions, or the timing of specific
flights." Yet that was precisely what the president had approved: the
specific flights, the precise missions, and the timing of the specific flights.
The issue
was never the protection of "our intelligence systems," as Eisenhower
told the NSC officials. It was covering up his role in the botched project.
After all, the U-2 program had virtually no secrets left. For four years the
Russians had been tracking each flight over and along their country. They now
had a pilot, who had given them a signed confession and was talking. And
sitting on display in Moscow's Gorki Park were major parts of the plane,
largely intact. Included were the damaged camera and NSA eavesdropping gear, as
well as pictures made from the exposed film showing the quality of photography.
Visitors to the exhibit could even listen to the spy plane's intercept tapes
giving off the beeping signals of Soviet radar installations. Tapes once
destined for NSA.
Nor was
the public release of sensitive information an issue. The testimony was to be
taken entirely in secret by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which as a
matter of course heard highly classified testimony concerning such topics as
intelligence operations and nuclear weapons. Furthermore, to ensure security,
the CIA itself was to be in charge of censoring any information that was
eventually to be made public, and the stenographer's tapes were to be put
through a shredder.
Rather,
what Eisenhower feared most was the leak of politically damaging information to
the American public during a key election year. Powers's capture was the most
serious national security blunder in more than a decade, one that caused the
collapse of an important summit and plunged the country into an enormous crisis
with Russia. Eisenhower was at the epicenter of the debacle, the man pulling
the strings from the beginning. On top of that, at a time when his vice
president was in a heated neck-and-neck race for the White House, his
administration had been lying to the public and to senior members of Congress
for weeks about his lack of personal involvement.
The U-2
affair was now part of the political landscape. Even before Eisenhower had
returned from Europe, two-time Democratic rival Adlai E. Stevenson began
throwing brickbats. "We handed Khrushchev the crowbar and sledgehammer to
wreck the meeting," he huffed. "Without our series of blunders, Mr.
Khrushchev would not have had the pretext for making his impossible demand and
his wild charges." Mike Mansfield, the Senate Democratic Whip, said the
committee should "trace the chain of command, or lack of it" that
controlled the May Day flight and get to the bottom of the "confusing
zigzags of official pronouncements." But Republican Senator Barry
Goldwater thought the Senate should stay out of the matter: "What the CIA
has done was something that had to be done," he argued. Goldwater,
however, was in the minority.
On May 26,
the morning before the start of the probe, Eisenhower made a quiet last-minute
plea to senior leaders in Congress to stay away from sensitive areas in their
investigation. Over eggs and toast with the
Full stop. The fact that he had actually micromanaged the program from the Oval
Office would have to be denied. According to formerly top secret documents
obtained for Body of Secrets, Eisenhower was so fearful of the probe
that he went so far as to order his Cabinet officers to hide his involvement in
the scandal even while under oath. At least one Cabinet member directly lied to
the committee, a fact known to Eisenhower. Subornation of perjury is a serious
crime, one that had it been discovered might have led to calls for his
impeachment and to the prosecution of senior Cabinet members.
"The
impression," Eisenhower ordered his senior Cabinet members and National
Security Council team, "should not be given that the president has
approved specific flights, precise missions, or the timing of specific
flights." Yet that was precisely what the president had approved: the
specific flights, the precise missions, and the timing of the specific flights.
The issue
was never the protection of "our intelligence systems," as Eisenhower
told the NSC officials. It was covering up his role in the botched project.
After all, the U-2 program had virtually no secrets left. For four years the
Russians had been tracking each flight over and along their country. They now
had a pilot, who had given them a signed confession and was talking. And
sitting on display in Moscow's Gorki Park were major parts of the plane,
largely intact. Included were the damaged camera and NSA eavesdropping gear, as
well as pictures made from the exposed film showing the quality of photography.
Visitors to the exhibit could even listen to the spy plane's intercept tapes
giving off the beeping signals of Soviet radar installations. Tapes once
destined for NSA.
Nor was
the public release of sensitive information an issue. The testimony was to be
taken entirely in secret by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which as a
matter of course heard highly classified testimony concerning such topics as
intelligence operations and nuclear weapons. Furthermore, to ensure security,
the CIA itself was to be in charge of censoring any information that was
eventually to be made public, and the stenographer's tapes were to be put
through a shredder.
Rather,
what Eisenhower feared most was the leak of politically damaging information to
the American public during a key election year. Powers's capture was the most
serious national security blunder in more than a decade, one that caused the
collapse of an important summit and plunged the country into an enormous crisis
with Russia. Eisenhower was at the epicenter of the debacle, the man pulling
the strings from the beginning. On top of that, at a time when his vice
president was in a heated neck-and-neck race for the White House, his
administration had been lying to the public and to senior members of Congress
for weeks about his lack of personal involvement.
The U-2
affair was now part of the political landscape. Even before Eisenhower had
returned from Europe, two-time Democratic rival Adlai E. Stevenson began
throwing brickbats. "We handed Khrushchev the crowbar and sledgehammer to
wreck the meeting," he huffed. "Without our series of blunders, Mr.
Khrushchev would not have had the pretext for making his impossible demand and
his wild charges." Mike Mansfield, the Senate Democratic Whip, said the
committee should "trace the chain of command, or lack of it" that
controlled the May Day flight and get to the bottom of the "confusing
zigzags of official pronouncements." But Republican Senator Barry
Goldwater thought the Senate should stay out of the matter: "What the CIA
has done was something that had to be done," he argued. Goldwater,
however, was in the minority.
On May 26,
the morning before the start of the probe, Eisenhower made a quiet last-minute
plea to senior leaders in Congress to stay away from sensitive areas in their
investigation. Over eggs and toast with the
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