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• 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

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RETURNTO

Background Use Only

Do Not Reproduce

Sua252 02 Initial Missions

In the period fron 20 June to 10 July 1956 the Soviet Bloc air defense

sysian ias subjected to eight penetrations of an unprecedented nature, seven

26 tithin a period of only eight days. It urust be remembered thai

24 (car:) neovides the only basis of judging the perforance of the Sovie

This is invortant because it is clear Iron RECAL raterial that

.724

onsicazzole air defense business is conducted over landlines and thus nou

obserted by CoMINg.

lowever, some tentative conclusions may be drawn frei

Thase initial flignts and these are indicated as follows:

In spite of the fact that these missions cone as z surprise,

none of them went undetected.

This.

in clear evidence that their

radar corarage extends above (12,000)fcet.

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2. Ey 5 July 1956, the fourth fligat, the USSR was aware

of tice purpose of the missions and were taking counter action.

One positive action was the standaow of civil flights mile the

mission aircraft was over the USSR, and a second action which is

believed related is the moving of MIG-19 aircraft inio Erst

Germany and Poland on 7 July 1955. Also MIG-19's were moved

into Hungary at about this time.

3. The perfomance of the Soviet system on the 5 July mission,

2014,

was indeed curious.

While the action evident Inca COMIN'I) 2 y

is not clear an explanation wnich appears to Ilt the known lacts

is ofiered as Pollows: As a, result of the previous missions, the

feet, and that a penetration as deep as loscow was possible.

procably surmised that the 5 July mission was headed jor Moscow when

the track appeared on a northeasterly heading.

The loss of the

target when it entered Soviet territory was probably deliberate and

"red herring" track returning to the west was either a dodge

or a convenience to avoid brosicasting a track for all the system

to see that a "hostile or intruder" tas coning over Moscow vith no

means available to stop it.

This idea is supported by the use

of a raid nunber assigned in the region just beyond the point

were the track had been "lost".

In addition,

the track wes not

labelad "hostile or intruder" when it was broadcast after it

had passed beyond Hioscow.

The reporting of the track when it did

appear was caly by Moscow and it has been suggested tot otber

stations had been instructed not to broadcast the track.

Further, iù noT

02 Iay not be a coincidence that the heigat broacast was alnost

exactly balf of the true altitude of the mission aircrait, but on

the sext nissions, four days later, the altitude reporting was

consistently above 50, 000 feet.

By 9 July 1956, in addition to the evident recognition of

the great height of the mission flights, tracking as better and

in gezeral the performance of the warning systen was much improved.

The next day. 10 July 1956, the Soviet air defense warning

systen closed a 3000 mile track with only two shori periods oi

confusion or track loss.

Altitude reporting was over 60,000 feet

with one plot rassed 68,800 which was only 100 feet off target.

The first eight missions proved that the air defense taring

systen is deployed in dopth.

This was evident fro both the continuity

of track and nost forcefully fron the ELIT date collecied. Some 1461

intercepts of Soviet Sloc radars operating in the 3000 mc/s band were

ostzined by project ElliT as follows:

TOKEN-1331, WELET-37, GAGE-26,

PAITY CAKE-37, Other 30.

These numbers cannot be equated to in-

dividial radar seta

since the same radar may be intercepted more than

618 ICKEN sites were located, including 213 new sites.

343 adaitional TOKEN signals were identified but available inforiation

does not permit cetermination of location so that it must be con-

cluded that these signals include both know and new sites.

of the limitation nf ELINT to the 3000 uc/s band and the Soviet

practice of collocatizg radars on different Irequencies the totzl

number of radars may be expected to be at least double the number

of sites.

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Confusion and track loss seaned to be related to the 99

has not been determined because of insuflicient datz.

The question of raiars for height iinding, the carabilities

of TokeN in this role, the introduction si ROCK CAKEs and later

develorments are discussed in another section. It is believed,

however, that these missions were a catalyst in the introduction

Of ROCK CAKES.

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