The Taking of K-129: How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History

by Josh Dean

the United States, he later wrote, “was capable of almost any engineering accomplishment that it considered necessary to national survival. It possessed in its manpower and industrial base the power to achieve almost any single goal it set, provided only that it was willing to concentrate its energies and resources on that goal.”

News media is the enemy of “staying the course”. They cannot stand any plan that takes longer than the current president’s term.

When Killian came calling, Land chose national security over entertainment and selected just five men to serve on his panel, employing one of his favorite management tenets—that any effective committee should fit inside a taxi.

A U-2 pilot had to maintain speed within a very small and specific range. If he dropped below 98 knots, the plane would stall and fall out of the sky; if he went over 102 knots, it was in danger of breaking apart. So, Ben Rich wrote, “the slowest it could safely go was right next to the fastest it could go.”

Damn...

“You don’t have to be absolutely perfect,” he said. “But be prepared to not do anything you would be embarrassed to tell me about.”

“The difficult we do tomorrow; the impossible might take a little longer.”