Item COLD WAR 27/15 - Transcript of interview with CIA pilot Martin Knutson, 1996

Typescript transcript of interview with Martin Knutson, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pilot, 1955-[1960], and Director of Flight Operations and Site Director, Ames-Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), California, USA, May 1984-Dec 1990, relating to Knutson's service with the CIA as a pilot of Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft in missions over the USSR to search for Soviet Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silos, [1956-1960]; CIA briefings prior to reconnaissance flights over the USSR, [1956-1960]; Knutson's invitation from the CIA to train as a pilot for missions over the USSR, 1955; the characteristics of and operational use by the CIA of the Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft, [1956-1960]; the reaction in the USSR to the detection of US aircraft within Soviet airspace, [1959-1960]; the importance of the intelligence acquired by flights over the USSR, [1956-1960]; the 'bomber gap', the US belief that the USSR had more strategic bombers in operational service than the USAF, [1955-1957]; Knutson's flight over Engels airfield, USSR, and the reconnaissance photograph taken from his aircraft of Soviet Myasishchyev M-4 Bison strategic bombers, 1957; the withholding from the CIA pilot of information on the intelligence value of the target of a US reconnaissance flight over the USSR, [1956-1960]; operational procedures for a CIA pilot to implement if shot down over the USSR, including the issue and expected use of suicide pills, [1956-1960]; Knutson's account of a typical reconnaissance mission over the USSR, [1956-1960]; the use by the CIA of airbases in the Federal Republic of Germany and Turkey, [1956-1960]; the planned flight over the USSR by Francis Gary Powers from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Bodø, Norway, 1 May 1960; the shooting down, near Sverdlovsk, USSR, of a CIA U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft, and the capture of the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, 1 May 1960; the collapse of the Paris summit meeting between US President Dwight David Eisenhower and Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, caused by the U2 incident and the capture of Powers, May 1960; the withdrawal of US CIA pilots from Norway, May 1960; the launch of the Soviet Sputnik I Earth orbiting satellite, Oct 1957; US flights over Cuba by U2 reconnaissance aircraft during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oct 1962; the importance of the U2 during the Cold War, [1955-1990].