Page 191 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 191 of 237

THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT -- ELECTRONIC SPIES

"The camera, I think, is actually going to be our best inspector." -- JOHN F. KENNEDY on television, December,
1962

"That function [inspection] can now be assumed by satellites. Maybe I'll let you see my photographs." -- NIKITA
S. KHRUSHCHEV to Paul Henri Spaak, July, 1963

THE PRESIDENT of the United States and the Premier of the Soviet Union were referring to one of the strangest
secrets of the Cold War, a secret which was scarcely a secret at all. Kennedy and Khrushchev were alluding to a
revolutionary tool of espionage, the camera-bearing "spy in the sky" satellite. And it was clear that neither had
been fooled by the elaborate security precautions of the other.

The United States had been orbiting SAMOS spy satellites over the Soviet Union since 1961, and the Russians
were known to have the capacity to track them. With similar technique and purpose the Soviets started in 1962 to
send up their COSMOS satellites under the vigilant eye of the U.S. tracking system.

By 1963 aerial reconnaissance had become the most secretive operation of the Pentagon. Yet, ironically, when
SAMOS was first tested in 1960, its virtues were graphically described in official pronouncements. Indeed, the
electronic and optical laws upon which it was founded had long been the property of the scientific community,
Russian and American alike.

Until Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2 over Russia on May 1, 1960, little had been disclosed about
SAMOS. But a summit meeting in Paris was being held that month and the Eisenhower Administration was
emphasizing its determination to keep the Soviet Union under surveillance despite the U-2 incident. Suddenly,
from the depths of the Pentagon, came a spew of previously highly classified details. By following the official
disclosures over the next several months, a diligent Russian analyst could easily have pieced together the
following description of the remarkable satellite:

SAMOS, the name of a Greek island, was a contraction for Satellite and Missile Observation System. The project
was in an advanced state of development and the White House had given it a "DX" rating, which meant it was one
of the handful of Pentagon programs with the highest national priority. Still, it was to be pushed even faster on a
budget of just under $200,000,000 a year.

SAMOS was designed to be operational by 1962 and to take photographs with detail equal to what the
human eye could see from a hundred feet. The satellite was launched * by an Atlas-Agena rocket, standing
ninety-five feet high, or a Thor-Agena rocket, with a height of seventy-eight feet.

The Agena, or second stage, was made by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, designers and producers of the U-2.
It was that part of the rocket which went into orbit. The satellite weighed 4,100 pounds and was twenty-two feet
tall and five feet in diameter. It circled the earth upright like a giant cigar, carrying a 300-to-400-pound gold-
plated instrument package.

SAMOS was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, into a polar orbit from which it could
photograph every nation in the world as the globe rotated under it. The camera could be shut off when the satellite
was off target, thereby conserving power.

(By 1964 reliable reports indicated that a SAMOS was passing over the Soviet Union eight to twelve times, and
over Communist China two to four times, every day.)