THE SPY PHOTOS REAGAN DIDN'T SHOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400095-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 95
• Publication Date: April 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400095-5
,3
U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
4 April 1983
The Spy Photos
Reagan Didn't Show
The black-and-white aerial pictures
displayed in President Reagan's tele-
vised plea for more defense money
gave viewers a peek at only a fraction
of America's photographic evidence of
expanding Soviet military activity.
The archives of U.S. intelligence teem
with classified photos taken from satel-
lites and high-flying jets that
show, close up and in color,
far more startling details of
Russian weaponry from Sibe-
ria and South Yemen to An-
gola and Nicaragua.
Lawmakers and journalists
have seen some of these clas-
sified pictures. But at the
urging of intelligence advis-
ers, Reagan gave his March
23 television audience pho-
tos no sharper than those
that could have been taken a
quarter of a century ago.
Said the President: "I wish I
could show you more with.
out compromising our most
sensitive intelligence sources
and methods."
Reagan offered pictures of Soviet-
built planes in Cuba and Nicaragua and
a 10,000-foot runway that he said "the
Cubans, with Soviet financing and
backing," are building on the Caribbe-
an island of Grenada. All of these pho-
tos were similar in quality to those tak-
en of the Soviet Union in the 1950s by
U-2 spy planes and those exhibited by
President Kennedy during the Cuban
missile crisis of 1962.
Airplanes are, still used for some re.
connaissance missions, but most of
Photos of Communist activity were not America's best.
U2
rl
STAT
America's photographic intelligence
now is gathered by satellites. Security
advisers prevailed on the Chief Execu-
tive not to show any of the military's
photos from space.
The latest space cameras use multi-
spectral color to penetrate camouflage.
The results are flashed back to earth
electronically. Heat-sensitive cameras
can tell whether a silo contains a mis-
sile. They can even reveal whether pe-
troleum storage tanks are full--a vital
tip-off to plans for an attack.
AIRFIELD UNDER CONSTRUCTION
POINT SALINES, GRENADA
CM
NEW CUBAN
HOUSING
It was not until 1978 that a
President even acknowl.
edged the existence of such
cameras. The Soviets learned
numerous details of U.S. sat-
ellite spying through their
own espionage. Other collec.
tion secrets were disclosed
when pictures taken from
space were left behind in the
tangle of aircraft wrecked in
the abortive 1980 attempt to
rescue American hostages in
bran-
Those pictures, taken from
100 miles above the ground,
enabled U.S. analysts to dis-
tinguish one ayatollah from
another by the shapes of
their beards. 0
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400095-5
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