A Brotherhood of Spies

Starred review from March 19, 2018
This gripping work of narrative nonfiction tells the extraordinary story of the U-2—the ultralightweight high-altitude spy plane that was the CIA’s “first technological development project”—and the 1960 U-2 crash in the Soviet Union that made public the U.S.’s first peacetime espionage program. The plot revolves around four characters: Edwin Land, the “brilliant scientist,” inventor, and corporate leader of Polaroid who threw himself into clandestine work; Clarence Johnson, the “fiery engineer” behind the U-2’s unconventional design; Richard Bissell, the “bookish bureaucrat” tasked with overseeing the covert project; and Francis Powers, the U-2 pilot who was shot down and captured in the Soviet Union. Drawing on interviews, declassified documents, and secondary sources, Reel (Between Man and Beast) captures the secrecy involved in developing the plane (including hiding an emergency-landed prototype from the occupants of a military base), the wrangling between the old covert operations guard and the innovators from outside of espionage, and the international scandal engendered by the revelation that the U.S. had given up its former aversion to peacetime spying. Along the way, Reel seamlessly
integrates other related narrative threads: the birth of the military-industrial complex, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other technological innovations spurred by the U-2 project. This exemplary work provides a wholly satisfying take on a central chapter of the Cold War—a dramatic story of zeal and adventure.

March 15, 2018
High-flying history of the U-2 spy plane program and its unlikely clutch of fathers.In this constantly surprising tale of espionage and under-the-table diplomacy, Bloomberg Businessweek contributor Reel (Between Man and Beast: A Tale of Exploration and Evolution, 2013, etc.) puts an unlikely figure at the center of events: photographic innovator Edwin Land, developer of, among many other things, the Polaroid camera. He code-named prototypes of that camera U-2, "an acknowledgment of his 'other life, ' which was an open secret among the scientists inside the Polaroid labs." That "other life" involved Land's putting his talents at the disposal of the CIA, which put much more powerful versions of the camera in successive versions of its spy planes. Within the agency, the high-altitude U-2 was managed by a career employee who is best remembered today, a touch unfairly, as the architect of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The U-2 was controversial: Dwight Eisenhower, the president at the project's inception, insisted that it be under civilian control to keep espionage and warfare at arm's length; even so, Eisenhower predicted that he would "catch hell" if one of them wound up in enemy territory. One of them did, famously, with Francis Gary Powers serving as living evidence--he was not supposed to live, but he did, while a Soviet pilot was killed by friendly fire during the incident--of capitalist perfidy. After much diplomatic wrangling, Powers was released; Reel notes that he chafed to reveal his side of the story but was ordered to keep silent, living out his few final years working as a helicopter-flying traffic reporter in Los Angeles. The U-2 program was not unsuccessful altogether, however. As Reel writes, it turned up evidence of the Soviet space program before Sputnik even launched, and the photographs it delivers can pinpoint a footprint in the Afghan snow, for which reason the spy plane is still in service today.Intriguing stuff for fans of true spy tales and students of the Cold War alike.

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June 1, 2018

When the Soviets shot down a U-2 spy plane on May 1, 1960, the Cold War had a turning point. Thawing relations suddenly got icy. Journalist Reel (Between Man and Beast) documents the story of the U-2 with a narrative that keeps readers intrigued. He focuses on four men--Edwin Land, Kelly Johnson, Richard Bissell, and Francis Gary Powers--who were central in the development of the U-2 program. Reel describes how each man was bound by duty to serve his country, which is often forgotten when viewed by later cynicism. Further, Reel does an excellent job of revealing how the program was viewed with skepticism within military and intelligence circles. This program was a first for the CIA because it used technology as the primary way for information gathering. This work will become a standard along with Michael R. Beschloss's Mayday and Trumbull Higgins's The Perfect Failure about the CIA's operations during this time period. VERDICT Highly recommended for those interested in moral quandaries pertaining to espionage, rich Cold War history, and realpolitick.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

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April 1, 2018
It was an event so famous that it's still widely talked about. In 1960, an American airplane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Although the Americans soon announced that the plane was merely off course, that it had crashed due to pilot error, and that its pilot had died, it soon emerged that the downed aircraft had been a spy plane and that its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was very much alive and held captive by the Soviets. The U.S.?the whole world, in fact?was plunged into deep shock: the American president had been caught lying. This captivating book traces the history of the U-2 spy program from its inception in the 1950s. The program, we learn, was intended to propel the U.S. to the forefront of the spy game; instead, it almost destroyed American-Soviet relations, and it surely contributed to the longevity of the Cold War. A richly detailed, well-researched, and engagingly written book that takes us behind the scenes of one of the twentieth-century's most nail-bitingly tense episodes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)