U-2 THE USA’S NOT SO SECRET SPY PLANE
“THE BASE WHERE TESTING OF THE NEW PLANE WOULD TAKE PLACE WAS KNOWN AS WATERTOWN, BUT BOTH THE BASE AND THE PLANE ITSELF WOULD SOON HAVE NEW IDENTITIES. WATERTOWN BECAME AREA 51. THE CL-282 BECAME THE U-2”
As soon as World War II ended, the United States was faced with a major problem. Its wartime ally, the Soviet Union, was clearly poised to become its chief adversary in the post-war years. The strength of the Russians was frightening enough. Equally concerning was the fact that very little was known about what was going on behind the ‘iron curtain’.
Traditional spies could only be relied upon so far. America needed to have a clearer and far more comprehensive understanding of what the Soviets were up to, and the longer this need went unmet, the more fanciful the nightmares the American military community would dream up. The belief that a ‘bomber gap’ existed, which would later be repeated in the fears over a ‘missile gap’, produced a state of near crisis in the American intelligence community. They feared they were falling behind in the development
