July 21 - President Eisenhower Reveals His 'Open Skies' Plan

This Day in History: 21 July 2020

 

21 July 1955

 

65 years ago, today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented his 'Open Skies' plan at the 1955 Geneva summit. This was a meeting between Premier Edgar Faure of France, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Great Britain and Premier Nikolai Bulganin of the Soviet Union. The plan was never accepted but laid the foundation for President Ronald Reagan's policy of 'trust but verify' in relation to arms agreements with the USSR. The agenda for the summit had included discussions on the future of Germany and arms control, but it became clear that no clear consensus could be reached for both issues.

 

Eisenhower unveiled the 'Open Skies' proposal, calling for the United States and the Soviet Union to exchange maps that indicated the exact location of every military installation in both nations. Each country would then be allowed to conduct aerial surveillance of the installations to make sure each was complying with arms control agreements. The French and the British expressed interest in the idea but the Soviets rejected the plan, with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev calling it nothing more than an 'espionage plot'. It is likely that the Soviets simply did not want the United States to know that they were far behind in military capabilities, but the US found out anyway. A few months after the Soviet rejection, the U-2 spy planes were approved for spying on the Soviet Union.

 

Want to find out more about the 'Open Skies' plan? Click here for more information, or here for more about Cold War espionage.