During the Cold War, the United States ran a much broader aerial intelligence operation than previously acknowledged, sending spy planes into China, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, newly declassified documents show.
The documents, made public on Wednesday by the National Security Archive, a local think tank, indicate the US effort to secretly photograph sensitive foreign targets went far beyond widely publicised U-2 flights over the Soviet Union, Cuba and the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s and 1960s.
As Washington scrambled to collect intelligence on China’s budding nuclear programme, the Central Intelligence Agency authorised a daring intrusion deep into Chinese airspace to take pictures of a gaseous diffusion plant in the central city of Lanzhou.
The U-2 mission that lasted slightly more than seven hours — nearly six of them over Chinese airspace — began on January 8, 1965 and apparently went without a hitch, according to a heavily edited formerly top secret CIA report.
”Although the U-2 was continuously tracked while over the mainland, no air defence weapons reactions to the aircraft were noted in Comint,” said the report, referring to a regional US command.
What kind of intelligence was gleaned during the overflight remains unknown because that part of the document has been
blackened by censors. Nor does the CIA reveal where the flight originated, although the mission’s timeline heavily suggests the U-2 had take off from Taiwan to reach Chinese territory so quickly.
The United States extensively used the island as a base for intelligence operations in Asia from the end of World War II until it normalised relations with Beijing in 1978. – Sapa-AFP