FREE ESSAY ON U2

U2

The U-2 program was started because the U.S. needed to have information about the Soviet
nuclear capacity (The Long Peace 197). Many people believed that the Soviet Union had
many more missiles than the United States did (Mayday 154). The Democrats, especially
Lyndon Johnson who was head of the Senate Military Preparedness Committee, believed that
there was a missile gap between the U.S. and Soviet Union (Mayday 237). Khrushchev
claimed that the Soviet Union "was cranking missiles out like sausages" (Mayday 152).
Eisenhower did not want to start an arms race. He believed that "the greatest threat to
national security was to be frightened into an arms race which could lead to nuclear
destruction" (Mayday 152). In 1954 C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles said that there were
"serious shortcomings in the accuracy of our intelligence regarding Soviet military
capabilities"(The Long Peace 197). In response to this, Eisenhower set up a secret
Technological Capabilities Panel to develop ways to