Both detachments merged into Detachment G, under the command of Lt. Col. William Gregory, at Edwards Air Force Base, California where the CIA had relocated the U-2 program after nuclear testing forced it to abandon Groom Lake in 1957. The CIA sought to determine if the U-2 could, from a fixed base at North Edwards, rapidly deploy to an advanced American base and complete reconnaissance flights on a largely self-sustaining basis. A proving exercise was arranged with Gregory and the new Detachment G unit to simulate deploying a U-2 unit overseas, taking two or three aircraft, and conducting three reconnaissance missions with no resupply. The exercise was critical to continued CIA operation of the U-2, since basing the aircraft in a foreign country was no longer an option. The exercise was completed with excellent results, and actual reconnaissance missions began to be scheduled immediately. On 4 January 1961, the CIA U-2 reconnaissance effort, which was formerly known as CHALICE, was redesignated IDEALIST. This program codeword by the end of the decade was being used to describe the U.S. reconnaissance along the Chinese coastline, while Taiwanese missions into the Chinese country would be known as the IDEALIST program By the next U-2 flight, in October 1960 over Cuba, the previously informal procedure in which the president personally approved or disapproved each flight after discussion with advisors was replaced by the National Security Council Special Group. The expansion of satellite intelligence partly compensated for the overflights' end but, because U-2 photographs remained superior to satellite imagery, future administrations considered resumption at times, such as during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Cuba Bay of Pigs Invasion As many as 15 U-2 sorties provided support for the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by the United States. Scientists such as Edwin H. Land, James Rhyne Killian who had originally conceived the U-2 and had advocated for its development and deployment as a tool of scientific reconnaissance felt betrayed by the use of the U-2 for "dirty tricks" covert operations, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion. Richard M. Bissel, the CIA official in charge of both the U-2 program and CIA covert operations, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion, had been a good friend of Land and Killian, but such use of the U-2s strained their friendship. From October 1960, Detachment G made many overflights of Cuba from Laughlin Air Force Base,