He said that had photos of the Shuttle been allowed, the would have
shown the leading edge hole, while I've gotten the impression from
watching lots of C-SPAN coverage back then that the NASA managers
had reason to believe that photos would not have been able to show
the damage, and that the photos would not have shown it.

That was when they suspected a small area of damage. Given the size of
the actual hole, that probably would have been visible, although there
are some doubts because of the necessarily low-contrast conditions.

Jan