I think the silence over the missions probably has little to do with the RAF-manned missions or that the RAF participated in the CIA programme, but rather more generally the UKUSA intelligence sharing agreements since 1948. Certainly British intelligence was getting a share of the product, perhaps from the entire U-2 programme more generally and the US was getting British intel and GCHQ sigint data too. The RAF U-2 participation might have been an extension of the RB-45 programme but more likely it was tied in with something else.
Richard Aldrich's book 'GCHQ' has an interesting entry on U-2 "In April 1956, coinciding with Khrushchev's visit to Britain, some of the first examples of the CIA's high-flying U-2 spy planes had arrived at RAF Lakenheath... but some of their missions were also sigint-orientated. Eden now decided that this, and a host of other special operations, had to stop, and the U-2s were sent to alternative bases in Germany." Aldrich sees this as a result of the Bridges inquiry which looked at the Crabb Affair and made some wider reviews on the balance of intelligence and political risks. Perhaps Eden was more worried that the British link to the U-2 programme might leaked out then, and perhaps that was the start of sending RAF pilots to join the CIA pilot teams in Germany and Turkey rather than some home-based RAF involvement originally planned?
Generally, I enjoyed the recent James Holland series, not great but better than we have seen, though episode one was probably better. Interesting that he had obviously read Jeffrey Engel's article ‘The Surly Bonds: American Cold War Constraints on British Aviation’ in Enterprise & Society (2005), which reveals the extent of US-UK tensions over jet technology, including the stuff Holland mentions on the US attempts to cripple Comet and the UK's successful breaking of the Western ban on aviation exports to Communist countries in 1958 and the subsequent Ministry of Aviation deception which saw US radios and equipment fitted to Chinese Viscounts despite diplomatic promises not to do so. Nice to see some interesting shots, there were a few clangers although seeing La-15s was nice and episode two included a very brief shot of a BTV Blue Boar test vehicle and the Blue Steel test round dropped from a Vulcan. Repeated the same old erroneous "three V-bombers" stuff which totally omits the Sperrin.
The Sandbrook programmes are somewhat harder to define. Basically his books cover the same themes but better. His presenting style seems a little odd to me, too many soundbites and over-emphasised words. My parents were unconvinced that he knew what he was talking about, they don't remember themselves or their parents ever brooding over the nature of nuclear war or the kind of moral schism he tries to invoke. I think it confirms what I've always thought, cultural history over-emphasises what really moves the masses, in reality for most folks (in Britain at least) the Cold War didn't exist as a daily threat, except for those danger years of 1960-63 when things seemed to be spiralling out of control. Largely since 1991, the Cold War has been totally ignored in Britain and how many programmes on it have we had since then? It's welcoming to see more on the era which I feel is in danger of being completely forgotten in favour of WW2 history, which kind of dismantles Sandbrook's theory everyone was so worked up about it. More likely family Blitz/war tales had more cultural impact (Peter Hennessy's argument). The idea that pop music was an ideological weapon seems a little over-simplified but at least he didn't go as far as Niall Ferguson who argued a few years back that denim jeans were a "killer app" for smashing the Iron Curtain...
Maybe we didn't need TSR.2s after all, just a few Vulcans with loudspeakers playing Beatles 'folk music' and dropping payloads of Levi's over Western Russia? ;D
Still better though than Channel 4s 'Kennedy's Nuclear Nightmare' with odd arty photographic scenes, jumbled photos even worse than the La-15 mistakes, tiny subtitles you couldn't see and lack of any strong narrative to tell you anything you didn't already know.
