The destruction of the balloon is rather simple. By cutting away the attached equipment by use of a safety device, the balloon rises rapidly into the sub-freezing stratosphere where expansion of lifting gas will cause it to burst, just as ordinary meteorological sounding balToons expand and burst at high altitude. As plastic material becomes brittle at sub-freezing temperatures, the balloon, upon bursting actually shatters into many small pieces that float harmlessly to earth.

Most of the balloon flights have been conducted in the United States, however, the cooperation of other governments has made it possible for small research stations to be established in other countries. Meteorological balloons have been flown from Brazil, Panama, Scotland, Japan and Okinawa. The addition of research stations in Europe, Alaska and Hawaii during 1956 will increase the scope of this program.

President Eisenhower's Annual Budget Message to Congress, January 16, 19561 [Extract]

Because of the direct importance of basic research to our defense program and our national welfare and economic progress, this budget proposes a substantial increase in Federal support of generalpurpose research and education in the sciences. This increase is considered by our national security and scientific research agencies to be vitally necessary. Even with this added support, basic research will constitute less than 10 percent of the Government's annual investment in research and development.

For these reasons, I recommend that the appropriation for the regular activities of the National Science Foundation be substantially increased from 16 million dollars in the current fiscal year to 41 million dollars in the fiscal year 1957. This will enable the Foundation to extend an additional 13 million dollars of support to meritorious basic research projects in colleges and universities; will provide 7 million dollars for the construction of special-purpose facilities needed for basic scientific research, including the Nation's first major radio astronomy center; and will make available an additional 5 million dollars for expanding the Foundation's experimental program designed to improve science teaching in our schools and colleges and to encourage a greater number of able students to enter careers in science.

A supplemental appropriation for the Foundation of 28 million dollars will be required in the current year to complete financing of the United States program for the International Geophysical Year. The additional amount is mainly for the earth-circling satellite project, in which the Department of Defense is also participating.

1 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), pp. 122–123.

Soviet Note to the United States on Meteorological Balloons,

The Soviet Government considers it necessary to state the following to the Government of the USA:

During January of this year there have been seized in the air space of the Soviet Union a large number of aerial balloons up to fifteen meters in diameter with apparatus of various types, devices and other cargoes suspended therefrom. The above-mentioned balloons are balloons of polyethylene with capacity of up to 1600 cubic meters. The total weight of the cargo suspended from one such balloon reaches 650 kilos.

According to information at the disposal of the Soviet Government the release of these aerial balloons is carried out by American military organizations from the territory of Western Germany, and also from American air bases located on the territory of certain states bordering on the Soviet Union. The apparatus suspended from these aerial balloons includes automatically operated photo cameras for aerial survey, radio transmitters, radio receivers and other things. An examination of the captured balloons shows that both the balloons themselves and the apparatus suspended therefrom are manufactured in the United States of America. This is shown in part by such labels on various parts of the apparatus as "Made in USA" and the names of the American firms producing these parts-Atlas Engineering Company, Roxbury, Massachusetts; Elgin Neoxatic, Inc., Los Angeles, California; American Phenolic Corporation, Chicago, etc.

In addition to the above-mentioned balloons American organizations continue to release into the air spaces of the Soviet Union balloons with cargo consisting of leaflets hostile to the USSR and propaganda literature.

As is known, already on September 28, 1955 the Soviet Government approached the Government of the United States on the question of the adoption of necessary measures in order that American organizations should cease the release from the territory of Western Germany of aerial balloons with cargo suspended therefrom. The Soviet Government pointed out that the flights of such balloons create a danger for airplanes flying on the internal lines of the Soviet Union and also on international lines going over the territories of the Soviet Union and of a series of European states.

The Soviet Government notes that the Government of the United States up to the present has not taken measures for the cessation of the above-mentioned impermissible activities of American organizations. According to information at the disposal of the competent Soviet organs the flights of such aerial balloons over the territory of the Soviet Union have not only not ceased but have recently assumed greater proportions.

It is not difficult to imagine the situation that would arise if states into whose air space the above-mentioned aerial balloons with cargo suspended therefrom are released embarked on the same path and began to release comparable flying mechanisms in the direction of the

1 Department of State Bulletin, Feb. 20, 1956, p. 295.

air space of those countries which bear responsibility for the illegal activities mentioned above.

The release into the air space of the Soviet Union of balloons with the cargoes mentioned above which are carried out by American military organizations represents a crude violation of the air space of the Soviet Union and a violation of the generally accepted principle of international law in accordance with which each state has full and exclusive sovereignty in regard to the air space over its territory.

In accordance with this principle of the sovereignty of states over their air space the flight of any form of flying apparatus into the air space of any state can take place only with the permission of the state in question. In view of the foregoing the above-mentioned activities of the American military organizations represent violation of the territorial integrity of the USSR, are contrary to the obligations assumed by the United States Government under the Charter of the United Nations and are incompatible with normal relations between states.

The Soviet Government makes a decisive protest and demands from the United States Government the taking of measures for the immediate cessation of the above-mentioned impermissible activities of the American military organizations.

News-Conference Remarks by Secretary of State Dulles on Meteorological Balloons, February 7, 19561

[Extracts]

Q. Mr. Secretary, could you tell us what the position is, under international law, of balloons-meteorological balloons-and also other experiments, such as the circling satellites?

A. I wish I could tell you, but that whole subject, as I think somebody once said about Russia, is "a mystery wrapped in an enigma" or something to that effect. The question of the ownership of the upper air is a disputable question, and also of the ether above the air. In the main, it is a recognized practice to avoid putting up into the air anything which could interfere with any normal use of the air by anybody else. I understand that these meteorological balloons that have been sent up all around the world-I believe several thousands of them, as a matter of fact-have been drifting over the United States, and they have been launched in California, Alaska, Hawaii, Okinawa, and various places. As I understand it, they have arranged that unless they go up to a height in excess of 30,000 feet they are at once destroyed, and they are supposed to be up at a height of around 50,000 feet, which is way above any normal use of the air, far above any commercial flights. And, as I say, I think several thousands of these have been launched and have been carried by winds to various places, and there is no known record of their having caused any interference in any commercial flights, or any other flights for that matter. The legal position is quite obscure. And, for one thing, it is not very easy, when you put up a balloon, to tell with any confidence where

1 Ibid., Feb. 20, 1956, pp. 280–285.

it is going to go. It is true that in the main the winds flow from the west to the east, but that's not uniformly true. Not infrequently they turn around and go in the other direction.

There was one that was put in California, and which practically went all the way round the world. It transited the United States, the Atlantic, Europe, somewhere through the Asian area, and was last heard of, I understand, in the Western Pacific. I am told that they are gathering an extraordinary amount of useful and new information about these jet stream air currents and, in doing so, at a height which does not practicably involve any risk to anyone. What the legal position is, I wouldn't feel in a position to answer, because I do not believe that the legal position has even been codified, you might say.

Q. Mr. Secretary, are any other countries similarly launching balloons of this kind, for instance, the Soviet Union, or England, or France?

A. No. They are not, as far as I know, although several of them are cooperating with us in this particular project.

Q. There is a balloon that was found 2 or 3 days ago in Japan which came from the Soviet Union. There were reports today from Tokyo. A. Well, it is quite likely that they are doing that. I don't know anything about that.

I would like to make clear, in connection with this talk about balloons, that the United States Government has not directly or indirectly sent up any propaganda balloons whatever designed to transit into the Soviet Union. I want to repeat that the United States Government has not directly or indirectly attempted to send any propaganda material whatever by air into the Soviet Union.

...

Q. Mr. Secretary, on that same question, would you care to clear up the other implication-that these balloons carry photographic equipment which are photographing ground installations?

A. Well, I do believe that they do carry some photographic equipment as part of the devices which on the one hand, keep track of the speed at which the balloons travel and, on the other hand, reproduce cloud formations which are usually under the balloons. When you fly at 50,000 feet or thereabouts you generally find cloud conditions underneath, and there is some recording, I believe, photographically of certain cloud conditions. It would be quite accidental, I believe, if the photograph happened to pick up anything significant on the ground. Of course, they fly by day and by night. During daytime there are apt to be cloud conditions, so that that aspect of the matter I think could only be quite accidental.

Q. Mr. Secretary, is this material made available to scientific organizations of other countries?

A. Yes, after it is collated, it will, if it is of value-and, in fact, I think they already are satisfied that it will be of value. We hope to make it available, probably on a broad basis, in connection with this forthcoming Geophysical Year.

Q. Mr. Secretary, what are we doing, if anything, to codify international law on the question of the balloons?

A. I don't know whether it is being considered by the international law group of the United Nations or not. I just don't know.

Q. Would we favor such a consideration, sir?

Ă. I would think so, yes.

Q. Does the American Air Force, for instance, start these balloons from fields in Germany, or other parts of the NATO countries?

A. I don't know. An announcement was made on this subject-I was looking at it yesterday. A full press release on this was given out, I think, on the 8th of January,2 and it spoke about various places in Europe as well as, I think, it mentioned Okinawa, Alaska, Hawaii, and the like. I don't know just where they are coming from in Western Europe.

Q. Mr. Secretary, to go back to balloons, my impression of what you said earlier is in effect you deny that any balloons have been sent over Soviet territory for military purposes, and say that if any have crossed Soviet frontiers it has been by accident or the chances of winds, and so on. Is that correct?

A. Í think we had to assume that some of these weather balloons put up into these high jet-stream areas might go a long way and would probably cover many, many countries. I suppose in this whole project so far that weather balloons put up in the air probably have covered 20 to 30 different countries. The meteorological information sought can only be obtained by having these balloons travel greater distances than just the territory of a single state. So the concept of their high flying and wide flying is inherent in the project, as I think I made clear in the announcement. But the information that is being sought is not essentially or even at all military information. There is information about the movement of these jet streams which has a bearing upon a great many things. Some people think that the climatic changes which have occurred recently in various parts of the world are due to the shifting of these great jet streams of air at high altitudes. So, to locate those streams and measure their velocity and, from time to time, to measure their shifts, is a part of a project which has worldwide significance.

Q. Mr. Secretary, in anticipating that these balloons would go over the territory of other countries, did the Government take any action or consider the question of notifying other countries that they might? A. There was a public notice which was given to all the world at the time when this project was conceived and about to be launched. I am told that the gondolas that these balloons carry have in them requests in various languages, including the Russian language, that if the gondola is found a reward will be paid for its return, so that the information that is available in the apparatus can be obtained and collated with that from other sources.

Q. Mr. Secretary, does that mean that, provided that there is no determination to the contrary, the United States feels that they have the right to send these balloons at a certain height anywhere around the globe?

A. Yes, I think that we feel that way, although, as I say, there is no clear international law on the subject. We would be disposed to be respectful of the strong views of any country which was opposed to it. While one can never be sure of where a balloon is going to go

2 Ante, p. 28.