Garrett Graff: “Based on the reporting and odd comments of the last few days, with the Pentagon saying that the balloons transited the US before, including during the Trump administration, and Trump officials vociferously denying any such transits, I think it’s fairly easy to read between the lines: The balloons did transit the US before, including during the Trump administration, but without the US detecting them. Somehow—most likely either through so-called ‘signals intelligence intercepts’ by the NSA or from human intelligence sources through the CIA, the US learned about the Chinese balloon program and instructed the Pentagon to be alert for future transits.”
“The Chinese balloon program seems the rough equivalent of the U-2 spy plane missions of the early 1960s—important surveillance and intelligence missions that carried on according to their own bureaucratic schedule, seeming with little higher-up attention.”
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