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
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
120
angered by what it depicted: an Anglo-French attack on Egypt. He quickly called for a cease-fire and denied the United Kingdom any further U-2 photographs of the Middle East.
The 1 November mission over Cyprus and Egypt also photographed Anglo-French preparations to invade Egypt. President Eisenhower was informed of this impending invasion on Sunday, 4 November. On the following day, British and French paratroopers dropped near Port Said at the north end of the Suez Canal. This action prompted Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin to send messages to France, Britain, and Israel warning that the Soviet Union was ready to use force to crush the aggressors. $ ^{55} $
Early on the morning of election day, 6 November, the Anglo-French invasion armada arrived at Port Said and began landing troops. Back in Washington President Eisenhower met with Allen Dulles to discuss the deepening international crisis. Worried that the Soviet Union might be poised to intervene in the war, the President ordered Dulles to have the Adana-based U-2s fly over Syria to see whether the Soviets were moving planes to Syrian airbases in preparation for a strike against the forces attacking Egypt. The answer to Eisenhower's question came much sooner than expected because on the previous day a U-2 had already overflown Syria before making a run across northern Egypt. The film from this flight had reached Wiesbaden for processing and readout during the night. The results were in the hands of the PARAMOUNT Committee by midmorning on 6 November, while the President was motoring to Gettysburg to cast his ballot. By the time the President returned to the White House by helicopter at noon, Colonel Goodpaster was waiting for him with an answer: there were no Soviet aircraft in Syria. Because of the President's concern about possible Soviet moves, Syria was the target of 14 additional U-2 flights between 7 November and 18 December 1956. $ ^{56} $
The increasing reliance on Adana-based U-2s for coverage of the Middle East during the Suez Crisis made it difficult for the photointerpreters to supply timely information. When Detachment B aircraft returned to their base at Adana, there were no film-processing 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.