Abstract:
Carl Ernest Duckett, born in Swannanoa, North Carolina in 1923, served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s top science official. A collection of declassified documents unveiled Duckett’s role as a key player in high-tech espionage at the height of the Cold War, which he quietly helped win. Duckett oversaw secret programs including U-2 surveillance flights, the agency’s CORONA spy satellites, and its Glomar Explorer mission to raise a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine from the ocean’s depths.