Robert S. Hopkins III

That I decided to obtain this book as an inter-library loan (rather than buying it outright) is a commentary on not being sure just what I'd be getting, and it turns out to be a curious hybrid. You can tell this from Hopkins' list of acknowledgements, which includes aviation historians such as Lennart Andersson, Yefim Gordon, and Jay Miller on one hand, and noted scholars of international relations such as John Lewis Gaddis, Walter Hixon, Ernest May, and Vlad Zubok on the other. This is a commentary on how Hopkins went from being a USAF officer and pilot involved in reconnaissance and intelligence work, to getting a PhD in diplomatic history.

What this means in practice is that Hopkins is trying to bridge the gap in this work between the aviation enthusiast, and the serious academician. So, while paying his respects to the people who flew and maintained the aircraft, Hopkins is also going out of his way to try and debunk some of the misconceptions that have attached themselves to the missions over the years, culminating in the sensationalism attached to the U-2 mission of Gary Powers.

First, this means illustrating the routine nature of the overflights and the surveillance missions around the periphery of the USSR and the People's Republic of China. Masses of tabular material have been provided attesting to how these operations attained the status of being a war of attrition between the "West" and the Soviet air defense forces.

Two, the next point is to illustrate that these missions never left control of the highest authorities of the United States government even if, over time, a command structure was established that allowed all but the most sensitive flights to be delegated to the most senior military officials; who were not necessarily Curtis LeMay. Hopkins goes to some lengths to disabuse readers that LeMay was some sort of loose cannon who desired a preventative war against Moscow. Though LeMay did see armed reconnaissance as a potentially useful tool of intimidation, there is no evidence that the man ever lost respect for the chain of command.

Finally, Hopkins concludes with how President Eisenhower chose to manage strategic air reconnaissance, particularly the U-2 missions. While recognizing that Ike might have been losing his grip towards the end of this presidency, and was certainly somewhat wishy-washy in regards to maintaining a balance between military posture, diplomacy, and the rest of his political agenda, Hopkins thinks that he has found a way to square the circle of what was trying to be achieved. Essentially, Eisenhower's tight control of the U-2 missions was his way of continuing to collect useful intelligence, at least until the recon satellites came on line, while at the same time avoiding the slippery slope of adopting armed reconnaissance as a policy, which could have led to preventative war being in the cards.

Hopkins intended this book to be the first part of a trilogy, and I hope those books do get published.… (altro)