National Affairs: Secret Out

Near the tobacco port of Samsun on Turkey’s northern coast looms a huge tower-top radar eye that looks across the Black ‘Sea and deep into Russia. Operated by General Electric Co. under contract with the U.S. Air Force, the eyetracks test missiles launched 700 miles away at Krasnyy Yar, Russia’s version of Cape Canaveral, Fla. A vital source of U.S. intelligence about Soviet missiles, the Samsun radar picked up the 1,000-mile flight of an intermediate range ballistic missile in mid-1955, has detected five IRBM launchings a month over the past year or so. Last summer, before the Russians announced the testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (TIME. Sept. 9), the far-seeing eye at Samsun noted at least eight long-range missiles hurtling across Siberia toward a target area in the North Pacific, 4,000 miles from Krasnyy Yar.

This week, after the eye had done its missile-tracking in secrecy-wrapped obscurity for more than two years, the trade journal Aviation Week (circ. 67,000) ripped off the wraps. Since the Samsun installation is no secret to the Russians, argued Aviation Week, there is no reason to keep it a secret from the U.S. public.