OPINION:
“’Possibly the greatest achievement of any intelligence service’” (Web, May 8), the book review by Joseph Goulden of Monte Reel’s “Brotherhood of Spies: The U-2 and the CIA’s Secret War,” contained an extremely inaccurate criticism. Mr. Goulden writes that the book was “marred somewhat” because in condemning the U-2 overflights of Soviet airspace the author fails to mention the Sputnik satellite flights that began in 1957, three years before Francis Gary Powers’ ill-fated U-2 mission.
However, flying in orbit over another country is not a violation of a nation’s airspace. Furthermore, the Sputnik satellites contained no surveillance equipment of any kind. Their goal was to test the viability of Soviet technology for manned space flight. As the first objects launched into orbit by humans, this was their only goal. They were not spy satellites.
DOUGLAS GORALSKI
Silver Spring
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