The CIA U-2 plane and C-54 Crash Theme Challenge Coin for 2019

Cheryl Robarge, Dr. David Robarge (Chief Historian at CIA), Doris Barnes, TD Barnes (Author and NVAHOF Exec Director), 2d Lt. Jake Marino, Sarah Akari Baxter

TD & Doris Barnes with JoAnn Campbell and Cheryl Moore (both former CIA EAA)



JoAnn Barfield and TD Barnes with some of the attending U-2 pilots

They all, President Truman, the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps feared the Central Intelligence Agency, yet the president tasked it with doing something that the Air Force would not do. That was to develop a manned overhead reconnaissance program to spy on Russia. Despite many technological and bureaucratic hurdles, the CIA, in eight months from contract to flying, and under budget, produces the revolutionary U-2 spy plane. A few months later, the CIA is overflying the Communist Soviet Union to disprove the feared bomber and missile gap between the two superpowers. The struggle between the CIA and the US Air Force to control the U-2 Angels and the persistent tension between the CIA and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower extends to the A-12 Archangels intended to replace the U-2. The CIA loses many lives of pilots flying out of the agency’s remote site in Nevada known today as Area 51.Buy and EnjoyB&N Paperback  Nook  iTunes  Smashwords  KOBO  AMAZON KINDLE