Remembering C-130 (SIGINT) Reconnaissance flight 60528, September 2, 1958

For the United States, 1946 was, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times. The fascist powers had been vanquished, but the Soviet Union, one of the critical partners in that effort, had almost overnight become a dangerous adversary. Even worse, the USSR was a closed society. This made it exceedingly difficult to obtain the critical information U.S. leaders needed to understand the true Soviet threat.

In order to meet this challenge the United States was required to conduct a wide variety of bold intelligence operations. At times the so-called Cold War would turn hot in places like Korea and Vietnam. But because nuclear weapons were present, both Soviet and American leaders were averse to risking total war. Instead, for the duration of the conflict, both sides worked attentively to probe each other’s capabilities and weaknesses. In this arena it was not only military superiority that mattered, but political and diplomatic as well. In short, in our nation’s efforts to defeat the USSR, information was power. Aerial reconnaissance was one of the more valuable programs used to gather the critical data required to ascertain Soviet capabilities.