The U-2 Program Was Started Because The U.S. Needed To Have Informatio

U2 The U-2 program was started because the U.S. needed to have information about the Soviet nuclear capacity (The Long Peace 197). Many people believed that the Soviet Union had many more missiles than the United States did (Mayday 154). The Democrats, especially Lyndon Johnson who was head of the Senate Military Preparedness Committee, believed that there was a missile gap between the U.S. and Soviet Union (Mayday 237). Khrushchev claimed that the Soviet Union was cranking missiles out like sausages (Mayday 152). Eisenhower did not want to start an arms race. He believed that the greatest threat to national security was to be frightened into an arms race which could lead to nuclear destruction (Mayday 152). In 1954 C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles said that there were serious shortcomings in the accuracy of our intelligence regarding Soviet military capabilities(The Long Peace 197). In response to this, Eisenhower set up a secret Technological Capabilities Panel to develop ways to American History