Documents / FOIA release
This is a 1992 CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, originally classified Secret NOFORN and approved for release in 2013. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and the two aircraft it developed, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. The history covers the U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers and later operations in Asia and Latin America. It also includes a section on U-2s, UFOs and Operation BLUE BOOK.
“Hill”14 pages
## THE MOVE TO WIESBADEN
same time, Richard Bissell learned that the State Department had told Prime Minister Eden that only one U-2 was based at Lakenheath, when in reality there were four. $ ^{4} $
To avoid arousing further reaction in the United Kingdom and to begin the program of U-2 overflights beyond the Iron Curtain without further delay, Bissell moved Detachment A on 11 June 1956 to Wiesbaden, one of the busiest airfields in West Germany, without notifying West German authorities. The detachment commander, Col. Frederick McCoy, was disappointed in his hope that the redeployment of the U-2s could be accomplished without drawing undue attention. The strange-looking planes, with bicycle-type wheels and wings so long they touched the ground after landing, aroused considerable interest. Wiesbaden was to be only a temporary home for Detachment A; the Air Force began preparing Giebelstadt near the East German border for use by the U-2s. Giebelstadt was an old World War II airbase that had been one of the launching sites for the GENETRIX balloons. $ ^{5} $
Soon after the four U-2s arrived in Wiesbaden, they were refitted with the more powerful J57/P-31 engines. The new engines were better suited for operations behind the Iron Curtain because they were less likely to suffer flameouts than the earlier model. Once the new engines were installed, the aircraft received the designation U-2B. $ ^{6} $
Bissell was anxious to get the overflights started by late June because SAC weather experts had predicted that the best weather for photographing the Soviet Union would be between 20 June and 10 July. Bissell, however, had not yet received final authorization from President Eisenhower to begin overflights of the Soviet Union. On 28 May 1956, when DCI Allen Dulles met with the President to discuss the U-2's readiness for operations, Eisenhower still made no decision on overflights. Three days later Dulles and Air Force Chief of Staff Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.