The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

July 5, 1966

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A door opened, disturbing the smoke that was obscuring the light. It swirled through the air, lazily, vanishing into the cloud as it slowed. A trio of military men stood up, looking at the new arrival, who was manifestly not a military man-- he wore a suit jacket and an inch-wide tie, looking about a decade younger than the officers arrayed opposite him.

A junior officer stood behind the new arrival, stony-faced, but with a flick of his hand one of the senior officers dismissed him. The door, which had no window, shut in another whirl of smoke.

"Gentlemen," the Agency man said, shifting a file folder from under his arm. "What I am about to tell you is classified TOP SECRET, but the Agency feels it is of high enough importance to share it with the Pentagon."

"Glad they thought of us," one of the officers scoffed. His nameplate read Lansdale, and he wore enough stars that the Agency man knew he was in charge. "What do they have?"

"Project CORONA," the Agency man said, placing the folder on the table and opening it up. The officers saw that most of the papers were covered by black ink-- the trust CIA had put in them wasn't that strong evidently. What they did see were high altitude photographs.

"U-2s?" one of the junior Air Force men asked, squinting at the photographs.

The Agency man shook his head. "Satellites. The Agency received word that something was happening in Eastern Russia, and we activated CORONA. These were in the latest drops."

Lansdale and the other officers shared the pictures. They were not very high resolution, but what they could see was fairly easily identifiable to any officer worth their salt: barracks, tank lagers, warehouses, airstrips. Military bases. "What am I looking at?"

"Well, the question should be what you aren't looking at," the Agency man responded, passing out a new round of photographs. These were older, he explained, but Lansdale and his men recognized what their guest had meant: in the older photographs there were tanks parked on the lagers and vehicles parked outside the barracks and administration buildings.

The implications became clear. "The Soviets aren't in their bases," one of Lansdale's men concluded.

"No," the Agency man asked, looking pointedly at the Air Force officers. "So where are they?"

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The White House, Washington, D.C.

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CIA Director John McCone stood, showing off the CORONA images blown up on a projector screen. To much of the NSC, this felt a little too reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy sat at the head of the table, opposite the projector, adopting a thoughtful pose.

Robert Kennedy and J. William Fulbright sat opposite each other, leaning on the table at either of the President's sides and squinting at the pictures. Further down was Secretary of Defense Symington and Chief of Staff Ken O'Donnell, and beyond them were NSC Chairman McGeorge Bundy and General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"What CIA would request, and what I think the NSC should approve, is that USAF approve IDEALIST to cover western China if only for a moment. Our sources indicate a movement of Soviet men and machinery, and we feel it is essential to know where it is going-- or where it already is," McCone concluded.

Fresh on everyone's mind at the mention of IDEALIST was the crisis in 1960, the U-2 downed in Soviet territory. The President spoke at long last. "IDEALIST cannot overfly Soviet territory," he stated.

Taylor spoke up. "Mr. President, IDEALIST operates solely over Chinese territory. If anything should happen regarding the Soviets, the operation will have gone spectacularly wrong and our plane would be thousands of miles off course."

"If those Soviet tanks are moving west, we ought to be aware," Fulbright opined. "IDEALIST won't tell us that."

"IDEALIST will tell us if they've moved into China," McCone stated.

"That would be a big deal," the Attorney General said, looking to his brother. "If that Sino-Soviet Split got worse we should know."

McCone cleaned his glasses idly with a shirt sleeve. He replaced them on his nose and turned up the lights. "With respect, Mr. Kennedy, I would be more worried if it got better."

The President looked around the room for a moment, and his eyes landed on Taylor. "IDEALIST is a go absent any objections here, but I want to reiterate there will be no overflights of Soviet territory."

The NSC nodded their concurrence, there was no dissenting voice-- even Fulbright, with his Eurocentric view of the contest with the Soviets, had little to say. McGeorge Bundy stood, clearing his throat. "Meeting adjourned, then."

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Peshawar, Pakistan

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There recurred a familiar sight at Peshawar,>! though now under the auspices of the USAF rather than the CIA.!< A U-2 landed in the dead of night, following several days after the arrival of an Air Force ground crew in a C-130 and taxied in short order to a broad hangar, where it would be safe from any Soviet spy satellites.

The following day, early in the morning, a newly-refueled and maintained U-2 plane would taxi out onto the runway and begin its takeoff roll, ascending rapidly while it conducted a turn to the east. The flight plan called for a dramatic climb over Pakistani airspace before, at cruising altitude, the U-2 would cross over the contested and chaotic airspace of Kashmir well above the reach of any Indian or Pakistani fighter jet-- and likely beyond radar detection from the same-- before turning north. After conducting its northward turn, the U-2 would survey and photograph Hotan, Kashgar, Aksu, and Urumqi before returning to Pakistan and landing in Peshawar. These flights would be conducted at various times during the day, making prediction and interception impossible for the PLAAF, such as it still exists.