President Eisenhower initiated Project Genetrix in January 1956. This space “research” project consisted of the Air Force launching 516 Skyhook “weather” balloons from locations in Europe.[1] These balloons carried automatic cameras. Given prevailing winds, the balloons were certain to pass over Eastern Europe and the USSR. If the research succeeded, the balloons-equipped with radio tracking beacons-were eventually to be recovered near Japan and Alaska. The program produced limited intelligence.[2]
When the balloons passed over their territory, Eastern European nations and the USSR protested, complaining that the balloons disrupted civilian aircraft and were equipped for automatic aerial photography in an effort to obtain targeting information. Belgium and Czechoslovakian airlines canceled several flights to Czechoslovakia because of the balloons. The United States initially admitted that Radio Free Europe, an affiliate of a “privately financed anticommunist organization in the US,” was flying propaganda balloons from West Germany. Further, the Air Force admitted that as part of Operation Moby Dick, it had released some two thousand balloons from various sites around the earth but denied that these releases were a threat to civilian flights.[3]
On 7 February 1956, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles responded to the Soviet protests by stating that, in the interest of “decent friendly relations,” the US would “try” to stop the release of the “weather” balloons. While admitting that some of the weather balloons carried photographic equipment, the United States asserted that the equipment was only for taking pictures of high-altitude cloud formations.[4] The Soviets responded that they had developed film from the balloons containing pictures of Turkish airfields.[5] In the face of criticism that the balloons clearly violated the USSR’s airspace, Dulles agreed to stop releasing them. He noted, however, that “the ownership of upper air” was “a disputable question under international law.”[6] Some in the media attacked Dulles for making this statement and for having approved the launch of the balloons.
These critics argued that the sovereignty issue had long been resolved and that sovereignty extended indefinitely into the sky. Further, they argued that the Chicago Convention forbade the sending of unmanned missiles over another nation’s airspace without consent. The position of these critics was correct with respect to a nation’s sovereign rights over its own airspace. However, no international law, practice, or custom had as yet established the issue of a nation’s sovereignty in outer space.
- ↑ Pedlow and Welzenbach, 85.
- ↑ Hall, “Origins,” 6.
- ↑ Welles Hangen, “Russia Charges Balloon Forays by US & Turks; Reports Inroads by Spheres Equipped with Cameras and Radio Equipment; Leaflets Noted Anew: State Department Suggests Moscow May Refer to Air Force Weather Balloons,” New York Times, 6 February 1956; “US Studying Protest,” New York Times, 7 February 1956; and Anthony Leviero, “Balloon Activity Explained By US-Air Force Says Some of 200 Loosed in Scotland May Have Drifted to Soviet,” New York Times, Special Edition, 9 February 1956.
- ↑ Elie Abel, “Dulles Hints US Will Try to Curb Balloon Flights: Implies Weather Apparatus Will Be Kept From Soviet Skies as Friendly Move--Espionage Use Denied,” special to New York Times, 8 February 1956. “Balloon Flights Stopped by US to Satisfy Soviet,” special to New York Times, 9 February 1956.
- ↑ “Russians Display Balloons of US-Call Flights a Brink-of-War Act-Insist Spying, Not Weather Study, Is Aim,” special to New York Times, 10 February 1956.
- ↑ “Transcript of the Record of News Conference Held by Dulles,” New York Times, 8 February 1956.
