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Museum Audio Tour 48: Cold War Gallery: Pulling the Curtain Aside

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

Dec. 31, 1969 | 1:37

The United States needed to know what was going on behind the “Iron Curtain.” This was the term coined by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the divide between Western Europe and Soviet territories and allies. Strategic reconnaissance was a way to find out about the communists’ air defense systems, nuclear-armed bomber force and the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. Because of its speed, the B-47 Stratojet, a nuclear-armed bomber, was modified into a reconnaissance aircraft. Specialized B-47s flew along – and sometimes over -- the USSR’s borders in radio silence to take photographs or gather details about Soviet air defense radar system locations, range and coverage. The RB-57D also helped fill the U.S. Air Force's need for a strategic reconnaissance aircraft that could fly high enough to avoid interception. This type of aircraft flew many classified reconnaissance missions around the world during the late 1950s and 1960s. Perhaps the most noteworthy mission took place Dec. 11, 1956, when three RB-57Ds overflew the city of Vladivostock in the Soviet Union in broad daylight. The ensuing protest by the Soviets led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to end military overflights of the USSR-transferring the mission to the CIA. Even so, RB-57Ds continued to fly reconnaissance missions along the border of the Soviet Union and over other nations. Other reconnaissance aircraft in the Cold War Gallery, such as the U-2 and SR-71 were used throughout the Cold War.