Page 193 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 193 of 237

to $500,000,000. But in May and July of 1963 the satellite succeeded in detecting missiles launched from Florida
and California.)

Another satellite launched with much public fanfare in 1960 was TIROS. Its cameras were to televise cloud cover
and storm conditions in order to promote better weather prediction. Such surveillance obviously could be of great
value in timing SAMOS launches for moments of minimum cloud cover over the Soviet Union.* But in Senate
testimony in July, 1961, James E. Webb, NASA's director, denied Soviet charges that the weather satellites were
for purposes of espionage. He asserted that it was perfectly lawful for satellites to be flown over foreign territory
just as ships freely sail the high seas. National sovereignty extends only to air space, Webb contended, and ''as to
outer space where there is no air, this is a completely open field."

The head of NASA was betraying the fears of the administration that U.S. satellites operating over Russia would
be shot down by Soviet propaganda. When President Kennedy took office, he was faced with three alternatives:
(1) to continue the semi-public practices of the Eisenhower Administration; (2) to shut off all official discussion
and disclosures about the espionage satellites; or (3) to make the program "overt" by proposing a new "open
skies" plan and submitting all satellite photographs to the United Nations.

The last recommendation was privately proposed by a group of prominent scientists at the outset of the Kennedy
Administration. They argued that there was a presumption of guilt in surreptitious activities and that the
Soviet Union could play upon this as justification for shooting down a SAMOS or securing a UN resolution
condemning the practice. On the other hand, they contended, if the operation were placed under the UN, the
Soviets would be hard-pressed to destroy SAMOS either with rockets or words.

The Kennedy Administration quickly decided that secrecy was a safer course. When SAMOS II was successfully
launched on January 31, 1961 -- eleven days after Kennedy took office -- the Pentagon prohibited the release of
any details about it. This prohibition soon developed into an absolute ban on any discussion of the satellite, even
in areas of prior official revelation. It was thereafter impossible to obtain official confirmation that in fact
SAMOS existed. Future announcements were restricted to such words as: "A satellite employing an Atlas-Agena
B booster combination was launched by the Air Force today. It is carrying a number of classified test
components."

Since security, if any, had long since been breached by the original SAMOS disclosures, it was clear that the
administration had international political purposes in mind in its new crackdown. The likeliest explanation was
that it hoped to avoid provoking the Russians into countermeasures against SAMOS. Khrushchev had known for
years that the U-2 was flying over Russia, but he said nothing until his hand was forced by the Powers incident.
Might he not be inclined to maintain a similar silence on SAMOS, particularly since his own satellites were the
first to fly over the United States and other nations?

The answer was quick in coming. SAMOS II was hardly off the pad before the Russians protested. Their
complaint, which was formally carried to the United Nations in March, 1962, was summed up on December 3 of
that year by Platon D. Morozov, the Soviet delegate to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

"Such observation," he said, "is just as wrong as when intelligence data are obtained by other means such as by
photography made from the air. The object at which such illegal surveillance is directed constitutes a secret
guarded by a sovereign state and, regardless of the means by which such an operation is carried out, it is in all
cases an intrusion."

The standard reply of the United States was that a nation's sovereignty extends only to the air space above it.
Officials noted that in the first three years of the space age neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had
claimed its territorial sovereignty was infringed by satellite overflights. In the absence of protest or international