As unpiloted craft take over the reconnaissance mission, an intelligence insider looks back on the work that set recce pilots apart. You've probably never heard of Carmine Vito. At 5:26 a.m. on July 5,1956, Vito climbed into the cockpit of his silver Lockheed U-2A in Wiesbaden, Germany, popped a wad of tutti-frutti gum in his mouth to quell his anxiety, and took off for Moscow. His single-engine U-2 was tricky to fly, a skittish and fragile bird intolerant of stress and prone to engine flame-outs. The A model had no ejection seat and a primitive autopilot. At the edge of space, alone, over denied territory, if anything went wrong, Vito would be in big trouble.
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