Missile Crisis Wear

No, this is not a set of painter’s coveralls. 

Well, it is, but we’ll get back to that. Initially, this was U.S. Navy captain William Ecker’s flightsuit, the one he wore on October 23, 1962. On that day, Ecker flew a Vought RF-8 at 700 mph just above treetop level to take photographs of the Soviet Union’s buildup of nuclear missiles in Cuba. It was the height of the Cold War, and Ecker’s photographs would be used as proof of the Soviet installation on the island nation, launching the tense closing stages of the Cuban missile crisis.

Ecker’s flightsuit—the only item related to the crisis in the National Air and Space Museum’s collection—is remarkable largely for just how unremarkable it appears, evoking a certain nonchalance that matched the wearer’s own attitude but belied the mission’s extraordinarily high stakes.

The suit is constructed from fire-resistant cotton, and it features a range of pockets designed for easy access. Since Ecker made his flight before GPS was invented, he relied on traditional paper maps and visual markers on the ground to reach his targets, hence the zipper pencil pocket on the upper left arm and the others across the suit. The defining characteristic of the garment is its utter anonymity: It has no identifying insignia given the risky, top-secret nature of Ecker’s mission.

Some objects are used once and immediately attain the status of major historical artifact, but Ecker saw no need to decommission a perfectly functional suit. Before its time at the Museum, Ecker used the suit as—that’s right—a set of coveralls while he painted his home, hence the white splotches. Unassuming and largely unacknowledged, this suit—and its wearer—were quietly pivotal in a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.   

Reilly Tifft is an assistant editor at Air & Space Quarterly.