Read Online Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK by John Newman - Free Book Online
Authors: John Newman
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feet," recalls Berry, "and then we lost them."' Berry remembers hearing the U2 pilots speak to the control tower. Athey recalled that on rare occasions the pilots "would check in with us at 60,000 feet and then check out as they reached 80,000 and kept climbing."'
The U-2 program was TOP SECRET and more, but it was no secret to the marines in Oswald's unit. They saw the planes, they tracked them, and they even communicated with them. That is, until Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, which was the target of the U-2s' espionage mission. The ballistic missile information these dark planes from Atsugi collected as they overflew the Communist giant was vital intelligence for U.S. estimates of the Soviet Union's ability to wage nuclear wars What Oswald knew of the U-2 program before his defection is therefore a matter that deserves close attention.
Detachment C
The newly released JFK files contain a small set of documents on the U-2 program.' What the Agency has not blacked out are some of the details on the history of a U-2 operation called "Detachment C." The reason we have these documents is that someone from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) asked questions about it. The CIA's deputy director for science and technology (DDS&T) answered them. Even what little we have in these new documents is revealing.
"Detachment C advance party of security and communication personnel," a 1978 CIA memo to the HSCA began, "departed the U.S. for Atsugi, Japan, on 20 February 1957, the second echelon of administrative personnel departed on 4 March, and the main body of the detachment with two U-2 aircraft and equipment began deployment on 15 March."7 Detachment C was operational by the week of April 8, 1957, and "operating procedures and liaison" had been accomplished with the Atsugi Naval Air Station.
Detachment C was a CIA U-2 operation producing data vital to U.S. strategic intelligence, and Oswald, a trained radar operator, had a bird's-eye view of the operation from the runway to his radar bubble. The classification level of the U-2's intelligence information was very high. The CIA's (DS&T) answers to U-2 questions posed by the HSCA in 1978 were top secret with a further restrictive caveat. The top secret classification remains on all the pages of these documents, but the additional caveat for the intelligence associated with the program has been excised-almost.
In an apparent attempt to prevent the public from knowing the name of this intelligence "compartment" (intelligence jargon for a category of information, usually tied to a particular technical system), the CIA removed this part of the classification from the top and bottom of every page of the two separate but nearly identical documents which the Agency released in January 1994-except for one page. Just one slipped by. There, on the top and bottom of the page is the rest of the classification: "EIDER CHESS." How much did Oswald know about Detachment C? What did he know that could betray what the Americans had learned through EIDER CHESS intelligence channels?
". . . It's Moving over China!"
Atsugi was a "closed base," Special Agent Berlin noted in his March 10, 1964, Naval Investigative Service report, and "at the time, was the base for the Joint Technical Advisory Group, which maintained and flew recon[naissance] U-2 flights." Berlin had located and interviewed Eugene J. Hobbs, a marine hospital corpsman who had been stationed at Atsugi Naval Air Station while Oswald was there. During the interview, Corpsman Hobbs stated that it was "gossip around the base that the U-2s were taking recon flights over Russia." He also described a series of conversations he overheard about the U-2s flying over China, and stated that a naval commander had said "the flights would be the same as the ones the U-2s were making over Russia." Hobbs told Berlin that the U2 missions over the Soviet Union were "common knowledge around the [Atsugi] base."'
From November 20, 1957,
The U-2 program was TOP SECRET and more, but it was no secret to the marines in Oswald's unit. They saw the planes, they tracked them, and they even communicated with them. That is, until Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, which was the target of the U-2s' espionage mission. The ballistic missile information these dark planes from Atsugi collected as they overflew the Communist giant was vital intelligence for U.S. estimates of the Soviet Union's ability to wage nuclear wars What Oswald knew of the U-2 program before his defection is therefore a matter that deserves close attention.
Detachment C
The newly released JFK files contain a small set of documents on the U-2 program.' What the Agency has not blacked out are some of the details on the history of a U-2 operation called "Detachment C." The reason we have these documents is that someone from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) asked questions about it. The CIA's deputy director for science and technology (DDS&T) answered them. Even what little we have in these new documents is revealing.
"Detachment C advance party of security and communication personnel," a 1978 CIA memo to the HSCA began, "departed the U.S. for Atsugi, Japan, on 20 February 1957, the second echelon of administrative personnel departed on 4 March, and the main body of the detachment with two U-2 aircraft and equipment began deployment on 15 March."7 Detachment C was operational by the week of April 8, 1957, and "operating procedures and liaison" had been accomplished with the Atsugi Naval Air Station.
Detachment C was a CIA U-2 operation producing data vital to U.S. strategic intelligence, and Oswald, a trained radar operator, had a bird's-eye view of the operation from the runway to his radar bubble. The classification level of the U-2's intelligence information was very high. The CIA's (DS&T) answers to U-2 questions posed by the HSCA in 1978 were top secret with a further restrictive caveat. The top secret classification remains on all the pages of these documents, but the additional caveat for the intelligence associated with the program has been excised-almost.
In an apparent attempt to prevent the public from knowing the name of this intelligence "compartment" (intelligence jargon for a category of information, usually tied to a particular technical system), the CIA removed this part of the classification from the top and bottom of every page of the two separate but nearly identical documents which the Agency released in January 1994-except for one page. Just one slipped by. There, on the top and bottom of the page is the rest of the classification: "EIDER CHESS." How much did Oswald know about Detachment C? What did he know that could betray what the Americans had learned through EIDER CHESS intelligence channels?
". . . It's Moving over China!"
Atsugi was a "closed base," Special Agent Berlin noted in his March 10, 1964, Naval Investigative Service report, and "at the time, was the base for the Joint Technical Advisory Group, which maintained and flew recon[naissance] U-2 flights." Berlin had located and interviewed Eugene J. Hobbs, a marine hospital corpsman who had been stationed at Atsugi Naval Air Station while Oswald was there. During the interview, Corpsman Hobbs stated that it was "gossip around the base that the U-2s were taking recon flights over Russia." He also described a series of conversations he overheard about the U-2s flying over China, and stated that a naval commander had said "the flights would be the same as the ones the U-2s were making over Russia." Hobbs told Berlin that the U2 missions over the Soviet Union were "common knowledge around the [Atsugi] base."'
From November 20, 1957,
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