Cameras Aloft: No Secrets Below

The camera, I think, is going to be our best inspector.

--John F. Kennedy

The President s brief, blunt remark was deliberate understatement. For months trie Cuban skies have belonged to U S photo planes--soaring, diving, circling appearing and disappearing on swift, unexpected tangents. Diplomats may still argue about on-site inspection of Cuban missile bases, but the question is almost academic. Under the prying eyes of U S aerial cameras. Cuba lies as exposed as a nude in a swimming pool.

No spot on the long, narrow island is more than 40 miles from the sea; it is an easy if unwilling subject for high-flying U25 slanting their cameras on target from offshore. A single run along its spine rolls out the island on film like a topographical map Supersonic jets scooting in at low titude can roar over the horizon, photograph anything of interest, and be out to sea again in a total of five minutes.

Both high-and low-altitude photo work have improved spectacularly since World Har II. Cameras that work at 20-mile altitudes--up where the U-2 flies--have 36 in.-100 in. focal lengths that turn their lenses into virtual telescopes. Some of them swing from side to side, reaching both horizons. But though the pictures show surprising clarity, their scale is still too small to illuminate fine details of objects on the ground. Clouds are another frustrating disadvantage; over humid Cuba they often spoil the view. High-Utitude photography serves best for surveying large areas that cannot be reached by fast, low-altitude dashes from friendly territory.

Low Passes. The most spectacular work is done by supersonic jets flying at palmtop level. This is always dangerous-today s jets are so fast that they may crash into a mountain before their pilots even sense trouble. During a low pass, everything blurs into meaningless streaks, like a fence a few feet from a speeding car Landmarks disappear. Objects to be photographed sweep under the plane and are gone in a fraction of a second.

Taking pictures under such conditions lor elaborate equipment. Low-level photo planes carry five or more cameras pointing ahead, astern, to each side and directly down. Since the pilot is too busy with flight controls to give the cameras my attention, they must advance their own film and give each frame the proper exposure for the prevailing light conditions. Pictures can be shot singly but the time over the target is so short that they are generally shot as quickly as possible often many times a second.

To do all these things correctly involves an enormous amount of optical, mechanical and electronic complication. Durino-low-level runs, the ground below sweeps past so fast that its image would smear on a stationary film, even during an exposure of one-thousandth of a second. A small computing device called an intervalometer must note the airplane's speed and altitude and figure out how fast the film must move to keep exact pace with the ground. Just before the shutter opens a vacuum sucks the film against a perforated plate that starts moving at the necessary speed. After the shutter has closed, the vacuum releases the film so a new frame can be advanced, and the plate snaps back to its starting position.

Mambo to Moscow. When everything clicks just right, when due allowance is made for speed and altitude, and no excessive vibration gets through to the cameras, the pictures show incredible detail In stereoscopic shots, everything seems to take on new clarity in three dimensions--boltheads, men's faces, footprints in the dirt. Said one photo expert, "You can't quite see the pencils in the guys' shirt pockets. The airborne cameras are usually long gone before anything at the target can be hidden away. The plane flies faster than the sound of its own approach and it is too low to be spotted by radar' Men on the scene do not know that their pictures have been taken until the plane is gone and its trailing shock wave has hit them.

While airborne cameras are crisscrossing Cuba, more dignified electronic snooper planes circle the island. Some, with their bulky radar antennas, look like a fish that has just swallowed a turtle but their sensitive radar pictures sometimes reveal things that photographs miss. Other snoopers are loaded with electronic black boxes" that can record every electronic signal emanating from Cuba--from mambo music to messages for Moscow. No ground-based radar can search the sky without being recorded. Even hand-carried walkie-talkies can be heard by the bug ears in the sky.

Taking pictures of Cuba today is a relatively leisurely business, butunder actual war conditions, information about the enemy is needed as quickly as possible. To meet this need, some low-flying photo planes develop their own films using a processing system that works wholly automatically, keeps itself at the right temperature, and is not bothered by the plane's wildest gyrations. When the plane lands, the film can be examined at once for news of the enemy's doings.

Even faster is a system that develops the films, scans them with a fine-definition TV camera and transmits the pictures to home base while the plane is still in the air. Some of these systems are fitted into small, fast, unmanned airplanes that can be sent under radio control into a hurricane of enemy fire or through a radioactive cloud.

Pictures taken at night are sometimes more revealing than those taken in daytime. In some cases, long exposures with sensitive film and light-intensifying devices can take satisfactory shots in moonlight or even starlight. But it is more common to illuminate the target, usually by a powerful flash bomb dropped by parachute and exploded far below the plane. A shield keeps the brilliant light from reaching the camera directly, but the first light reflected from the ground triggers a photocell to open the camera's shutter. If there are no lights on the ground to fog the film, the shutter can be opened before the flash bomb explodes.

Skilled Pis. The best pictures taken during the Cuban crisis showed missiles and launching devices that even laymen could recognize, but most information is extracted from films by an elaborate system of analysis. Military Pis (photo interpreters) are carefully trained to look for hints that point to important hidden information--a picture showing tracks leading into an apparently impenetrable thicket, perhaps a truck parked near no visible road, or a large rectangular object showing vaguely through foliage. Only after careful study can the Pis turn such clues into knowledge of a carefully camouflaged strongpoint.

As they pry and peer to penetrate concealment, the interpreters often depend on infra-red light. When fresh green foliage is cut and used to hide something, the chlorophyll in the leaves changes quickly into a substance that is easily recognizable if illuminated by infrared. Such so-called "black" light can even show dying leaves where men have hacked their way through jungle only hours before. Another kind of infra-red photography reveals warm objects, such as heated underground chambers or recently used trucks parked under trees.

The most intricate photo systems may not be needed in Cuba, but the PIs will still use all their skills to keep tab on military activity there. Missiles can be hidden in caves, for example, and Cuba has more than its share. But caves seldom have roads leading to their mouths. If a PI spots the track of a heavy vehicle leading to a mountainside, he will refer to earlier pictures of the same area to find how long ago the tracks were made. Fresh tracks may point to a cave-dwelling missile that calls for that necessary next step after photography: on-site inspection.

Seldom is the PI's work so dramatic. Mostly they check photos of Cuba's monotonous plains and cane fields, looking for signs of new activity. A car parked near by a peasant's thatched shack is the sort of thing that will attract their attention. So is an oil slick on a lagoon. They will strain to spot all major movements of men. Every acre of Cuba has long since become familiar to the PIs. If any acre changes in the slightest, it will come under suspicion.

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