Secret empire : Eisenhower, the CIA, and the hidden story of America's space espionage
Annotations
Transcription of Annotations
Notes on endpapers provide information on the U-2 spy plane, the Corona reconnaissance satellite, and the WS117L satellite program. Other notes mention Eisenhower's concern about the threat of a surprise attack and Trevor Gardner's role in calling attention to the need for better intelligence. Because of bandwidth problems, the Americans had to rely on Russian maps at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, and only 15% of satellite pictures could be called up on computers, the rest had to be transformed into black-and-white photographs. At a cost of $4 Billion, the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) is identified as the most expensive spy project in history. -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book. -- Examples: p. 90: "Eisenhower once told Land, "Oh, I'm so grateful to you fellows who are out of town! You can't think in Washington. You go away and think and then you tell me what you've been thinking. There's no way to think if you live here."" - p. 109: "CIA contingency reserve - a secret fund; Aquatone." - p. 166: "But in the 1950s, before the disclosure of CIA abuses and other spy agencies, the delay in informing Congress about the U-2 was not unusual." - p. 365: "Still, it was as though the government had developed a sleek, beautifully engineered racing car and then hitched it to an ox to haul it around the track."