ABSTRACT
The high-altitude photograph – featuring a landscape with fields, trees, and roads – does not seem especially interesting, at least not without its captions written into the image [Fig. 10.1]. This image, however, proved to be a crucial piece of evidence, as it was taken by a U-2, a United States spy plane, high above communist-controlled Cuba on October 14, 1962. Analysts at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, examining miles of photo transparencies with visual aids, found important needles in a giant intelligence haystack: the subtle visual signatures of Soviet missile systems. This photograph was one that helped establish that the Soviets were secretly introducing nuclear weapons to Cuba.1
