In 1960, the world held its breath when a US spy plane was shot down over Russia. The U2 plane was on its way to uncover the Soviet Union’s secret nuclear weapons – and was supposed to land in Bodø. The powerful leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, was furious when he realized that Norway was being used by the arch-enemy the United States to monitor them. Now he threatened to drop atomic bombs on little Bodø. A wake-up call for Norway Fortunately, Khrushchev did not. But the U2 affair was nevertheless a wake-up call for Norway. And afterwards it was natural to ask: Did the Norwegian authorities know that the US was carrying out espionage from Norwegian soil and thereby exposed the country to a security risk? Was it even possible that the US could maintain a secret spy base manned by American soldiers at a Norwegian airport without the Norwegian authorities knowing anything about what they were doing? One of those who is suitable to answer that is historian Karl Kleve. He is currently a conservator at the Norwegian Aviation Museum. Kleve says that the Norwegian government had given the Americans permission to use U2 from Bodø for reconnaissance missions. But then outside Soviet airspace. But in the Storting soon after, Foreign Minister Halvard Lange explained that he did not know that U2 was going to land in Bodø. From the military side, the chief of the main air station said that no such aircraft had been reported to Bodø, and that he had never seen a U2 at the airport at all. But then the Americans admitted the espionage – completely unexpectedly. President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself held a press conference. He took responsibility for all U2 flights and admitted that he has given the order to collect information on the adversary, by any feasible method. In the Storting, Foreign Minister Halvard Lange explained that he did not know that U2 would land in Bodø. – But then Eisenhower comes and admits that it was an intelligence mission. This puts the foreign minister in trouble, since he has said that he does not know about the landing of U2 in Bodø. Either he has lied to the Storting, which is a great sin, or he has no idea what is going on and is being deceived by the Americans. Karl Kleve is at the Norwegian Aviation Museum in Bodø. Few know more about the US affair than him. Photo: Bente H. Johansen / news – Did not know Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen eventually managed to convince the Russians that the government did not know about the planned U2 landing on 1 May. But he then had to admit that they had no control at their own airport. An investigation was launched to get answers to a couple of important questions. – What had we given the Americans permission to do? Who was involved? It ended in dirt throwing in the Armed Forces. In the end, they don’t get ahead. No one is blamed and no one is singled out as a scapegoat. It may not make sense to mess this up too much in view of our relationship with the United States. Nor are the media very interested in digging too deep, concludes Kleve. Nikita Khrushchev and Einar Gerhardsen go together. Photo: Arbeiderbevegelsens Archive and Bib But what does he really think himself? According to Kleve, there are many indications that neither Einar Gerhardsen nor anyone else in the government knew what the Americans were really up to. He explains: – The Norwegian authorities were involved in the U2 planes twice. First when the U2 planes were stationed in Bodø in 1958 – and then two years later. In January 1960, the CIA asked if they could come back and set up a temporary base in Bodø, as in 1958. Intelligence chief Vilhelm Evang passed this request on to his superiors in the Armed Forces. It was brought forward to Defense Minister Nils Handal, who brought it into the government’s security committee, where Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen and Foreign Minister Lange sat. The answer from the government was yes. The condition was that the Americans kept to international waters. – Norway did not want a repeat of what happened with the last U2 flight in 1958. Instead of flying back to Bodø, it had cut into Finnish airspace, flown parallel to the Finnish-Soviet border and made a small maneuver towards Leningrad to provoke Russian reactions, says Kleve. – The Americans promised that it would not happen again. Surprising The agreement with the Americans in 1960 was that one or more U2 planes would come to Bodø at one time or another to fly a flight. The Americans could not say when, it depended on the weather and wind as well. – What did Einar Gerhardsen and the government know about the Americans’ plans, do you think? – There are no official documents that I know of that show that the government knew. They had been clear that this only applied to international waters. – In that case, Gerhardsen must have received a verbal message across the table, but there is no reason to believe that. Gerhardsen was very keen to keep the tension level as low as possible with the Russians. – We must also remember that Gerhardsen was the first leader from a NATO country to go to the Soviet Union to pay tribute to Khrushchev. That Gerhardsen would open his eyes and allow a project that could demolish everything he had tried to build up – that is not likely. Made a mistake But the prime minister did not make it easy for himself in the time afterwards either. – Gerhardsen made a mistake ten years later – in an interview with news and Sweden radio – and claimed that he did not know U2 at all – it was just nonsense. – Was it naive of the government to believe that the Americans would respect Russian airspace? – Yes maybe. But I think it was rather surprising that the CIA was willing to go that far. This was controversial and debated in the US as well, Kleve replies. But even if Gerhardsen and the government did not know anything, perhaps others in Norway did? 1 May 1967 in Oslo. Einar Gerhardsen gives a speech at Youngstorget. Photo: Arbeiderbevegelsen’s archive and bib Classified documents In 2007, the news program “Specter” presented a top secret CIA document which had then been released. According to the military historian Chris Pocock, the document indicates that the Norwegian authorities knew that the US was spying from Norwegian soil in the years around 1960. – It seems clear from the document that the then head of Norwegian intelligence, Colonel Vilhelm Evang, was to be informed that the U2 planes which took off from Bodø airport, was to make illegal spy flights over Soviet airspace, Pocock said in the programme. Kleve also does not rule out that Evang knew. – The only person who may have known is intelligence chief Evang. He had direct contact with the Americans. But he said in his reports afterwards that he knew nothing. Kleve has tried to find answers in Norwegian archives, but has gotten nowhere. Even today, many decades after the U2 affair, the Norwegian intelligence service’s archives have not been declassified. Norway has some of the strictest rules when it comes to the duration of secret stamping. There is no definite answer to who allowed or knew. On 1 May 1960, an American spy plane of the U2 type was shot down over the Soviet Union. Suddenly the world was on the brink of a new world war, and the Soviet Union threatened nuclear bombs, especially against Norway. It turned out that the US had a secret base for the U2 plane at Bodø airport. Formerly top secret CIA documents reveal new information about what really happened – and who knew…
ttn-69
Cold war and the U2 affair – Norwegian archives are still classified – news Nordland
