For four years, the Americans undisturbedly spied on the Soviet Union using U-2 spy planes, which photographed the territory from a height (21 km) beyond the reach of Soviet fighters or missiles. Thousands of missions were flown over Soviet territory. 138 pilots died during the program’s development. The Soviets were initially too embarrassed by their inability to shoot them down, so they refused to admit the flights even existed. The planes had been produced in record time (two and a half months for the first prototype commissioned by the CIA) by Lockheed SkunkWorks. The U-2 project had been launched on Eisenhower’s orders: Operation Aquatone.
