Eyeing the Red Storm
Eisenhower and the First Attempt to Build a Spy Satellite
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Publisher Description
In 1954 the U.S. Air Force launched an ambitious program known as WS-117L to develop the world’s first reconnaissance satellite. The goal was to take photographic images from space and relay them back to Earth via radio. Because of technical issues and bureaucratic resistance, however, WS-117L was seriously behind schedule by the time Sputnik orbited Earth in 1957 and was eventually cancelled. The air force began concentrating instead on new programs that eventually launched the first successful U.S. spy satellites.
Eyeing the Red Storm examines the birth of space-based reconnaissance not from the perspective of CORONA (the first photo reconnaissance satellite to fly) but rather from that of the WS-117L. Robert M. Dienesch’s revised assessment places WS-117L within the larger context of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, focusing on the dynamic between military and civilian leadership. Dienesch demonstrates how WS-117L promised Eisenhower not merely military intelligence but also the capacity to manage national security against the Soviet threat. As a fiscal conservative, Eisenhower believed a strong economy was the key to surviving the Cold War and saw satellite reconnaissance as a means to understand the Soviet military challenge more clearly and thus keep American defense spending under control.
Although WS-117L never flew, it provided the foundation for all subsequent satellites, breaking theoretical barriers and helping to overcome major technical hurdles, which ensured the success of America’s first working reconnaissance satellites and their photographic missions during the Cold War.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
During the Cold War, many American leaders believed that the U.S.S.R. wanted to conquer the world, writes Dienesch, an adjunct assistant professor of history at the University of Windsor, Ontario, in this scholarly investigation of American spy-satellite development. According to military leaders, national security required a vast expansion of the military. When President Eisenhower took office in 1953, he was determined to defend the U.S. without bankrupting it or converting it into a garrison state. His major barrier was ignorance of the U.S.S.R.'s military capabilities. Satellites solved the problem in the 1960s, but Dienesch concentrates on their origins, emphasizing a nearly forgotten program to build the first, named WS-117L and approved in 1953. As a pioneering piece of technology it was clunky; its power needs required a heavy nuclear reactor, its camera resolution was no better than that of television, and its reel-to-reel tapes were difficult to control remotely. Canceled in 1959, the WS-117L never flew, but several of its systems were used in later satellites. Though this is an academic study replete with coverage of committee meetings, panels of experts, and official reports, it thankfully lacks turgid prose. Readers searching for a detailed analysis of early spy satellite development will approve of Dienesch's accessible work.
