Bye Bye U-2: CIA Legend Allen Predicts End Of Manned Reconnaissance « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary: “The world of manned reconnaissance is gone, and soon manned reconnaissance itself will be gone.” So says Charles E. Allen, whose opinion on such matters carries more weight than most.
Charlie Allen joined the CIA in 1958 and spent the last seven of his 40 years there as assistant director of central intelligence for collection. He was chairman of the National Intelligence Collection Board, coordinating all secret intelligence gathering by the CIA and a dozen or so other agencies. Allen also served as director of the CIA’s National Warning Staff. He predicted Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. He also pushed the CIA to use a Predator drone to find Osama bin Laden in 2000 and argued for using an armed Predator to kill him before 9/11.
Manned reconnaissance aircraft, especially Lockheed’s high-altitude U-2s and SR-71s, have “a tremendous history and rich history, but those are the historic days of manned aircraft,” Allen told Breaking Defense. “In the future, the history will be made by unmanned.”
