BRIEFING OF CONGRESSMAN OVERTON BROOKS (D., LA.)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003400120026-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 4, 2002
• Sequence Number: 26
• Content Type: MFR

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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECTS Briefing of Congressman Overton Brooks ID., La.
1. Mr. Bissell and I met with Congressman Overton Brooks.
Chairman of the House Science and Astronautics Committee, 4 p.m.,
11 May.
2. Mr. Brooks stated that inasmuch as his Committee had
jurisdiction over NASA they had asked for a report as soon as the
U-2 story first broke, and NASA had given them a report about a
plane being missing from Turkey. Mr. Brooks said that when the
subsequent information appeared in the press recanting the NASA
story and admitting the intelligence operation several members of
his Committee pressed for an investigation as to how deeply NASA
was involved. He felt it would be essential for him to talk to at
least a few key members of his Committee to avoid such an
investigation.
3. Mr. Bissell thereupon gave Mr. Brooks a very general
background briefing on the initiation and development of the project.
Mr. Brooks stated he had heard people cali:the U-2 the billion dollar
plane due to its enormous cost, and Mr. Bissell pointed out that the
airplane itself was comparatively cheap to construct and the cost of
its equipment per plane was in the neighborhood of in-
cluding development costs. Mr. Brooks said he knew of the U-2
as a hush-hush project while it was being constructed at Lockheed.
4. Mr. Bissell stressed the fact that NASA used the U-2
for perfectly legitimate, peaceful uses of its own, including
weather studies and hurricane tracking where its high altitude
characteristics gave it a unique capability. Also, it has been
used for and SAC ,and the Air
Force also do special weather studies and have intermittently
made peripheral intelligence flights on the legal side of the Soviet
bloc. All these activities make up about 95 per cent of the utiliza-
=tion of the U-2. The 5 per cent remaining is accounted for by the
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deep penetration flights. Mr. Bissell emphasised the lines of
command and particularly that when it was a penetration flight
the command was purely civilian through CIA and one of the
reasons for admitting this was so that the Russians could not
make charges about the irresponsible military.
5. Mr. Brooks made it quite clear that he had no objection
to the project and in fact indicated he felt it should be continued.
His objection was to the manner of handling the initial report. He
stated, however, that part of the problem was the manner in which
the pilot gave out so much information so early. He asked how
much of this briefing he could give to the key members of his Com-
mittee, and Mr. Bissell stated that he should feel free to give sub-
stantially what he had heard this afternoon. Mr. Brooks felt that
on this basis he could take care of the matter quietly and informally
and forestall an investigation.
LAWRENCE R. HOUSTQ I
General Counsel
DCI
u- DDCI
IG
DD/P
Legislative Counsel
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