Burrows, William E. Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security. New York: Berkley Books, 1988. 406 pages.

William Burrows, who has written about space and aviation for more than two decades, is a professor of journalism and director of the Science and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University. The subject matter of this book, particularly where it concerns the capabilities of modern spy satellites, is classified as Sensitive Compartmented Information -- which is higher than Top Secret. But by using open literature, scholarly papers, and interviewing scientists working on similar technology in the private sector, Burrows has put together an informative and readable history of aerial and space reconnaissance.

Modern espionage uses TECHINT (technical intelligence) along with HUMINT (human intelligence). The latter depends on human penetration agents and, with much luck and assuming no counter-penetration, is able to discern the status and intentions of the enemy. TECHINT consists of SIGINT (signals and communications interception) and PHOTINT (imaging intelligence). It is more reliable than HUMINT but can also be expensive. Lyndon Johnson claimed in 1967 that the entire space program could be justified ten times over simply for its contribution to space photography: "Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were building things we didn't need to build."
ISBN 0-425-10879-1

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