Documents / FOIA release
The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; the U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 1954-1974
Central Intelligence Agency · 1900-01-01 · 406 pages · text by OCR
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.
“RAF”18 pages
- p. 19 Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
6
RAF Canberra Mark-PR3
division in Baltimore, headed by Lt. Col…
- p. 36 …In 1952 the Royal Air Force (RAF) began Project ROBIN, which was designed to modify the…
- p. 106 …The U-2s were to use Lakenheath AFB, an RAF base also used by the USAF…
- p. 107 …inadvertently penetrated the British radar network, causing RAF fighters to scramble. Afterward the Air Ministry made…
- p. 122 …twin-engine Canberra bomber, similar to the RAF overflight of Kapustin Yar in 1953. The US…
- p. 156 …Range for the first time since the RAF's overflight in 1953, obtaining photographs of a…
- p. 166 …In November 1958, four RAF officers arrived at Detachment B at Adana, thus beginning the United…
- p. 167 …On 7 February 1958, Bissell instructed the to ask Air Vice Marshal MacDonald if the RAF…
- p. 168 …MacDonald agreed to Bissell's proposal and began recruiting RAF pilots to fly the U-2…
- p. 169 …Most flights by the RAF pilots in Detachment B, however, took place in the Middle East…
- p. 177 …For almost a year, the RAF pilots of Detachment B had been ready to fly over…
- p. 194 …A four-man unit of RAF U-2 pilots was stationed at Detachment G, Edwards AFB…
- p. 200 …approval authority for missions conducted by the RAF pilots in Detachment B.
The loss of Powers…
- p. 316 …Project IDEALIST U-2 flying from an RAF facility in Great Britain. The OXCART would fly…
- p. 332 …1960, the need for British participation lessened. RAF pilots henceforth flew only training or ferry missions…
- p. 339 …Division
PSAC President's Science Advisory Committee
RAF Royal Air Force
RFP Request for proposal
SAB…
- p. 351 …May 1960 4154 Powers Peshawar B B Tyuratam, Kyshtym, Sverdlovsk; downed by SAM
$ ^{a} $ RAF pilot
- p. 402 …Louis 29
Watertown Strip 57
Watton RAF Base. England 156
"weather plane" cover story 179
weather…
absorption devices for the U-2. Once these devices were installed on the operational U-2s, he explained, the "majority of incidents would be undetected." $ ^{73} $
Work on methods of reducing the U-2's vulnerability to radar detection had begun in the fall of 1956 as the result of President Eisenhower's disenchantment with the overflight program following Soviet detection and tracking of the first series of U-2 missions. The CIA proprietary firm Scientific Engineering Institute was conducting this research under a project codenamed RAINBOW. SEI Chief Engineer Dr. Franklin A. Rodgers, formerly of MIT, converted the theories of Harvard physicist Edward Purcell into systems that could be used on aircraft. SEI's radar-deception system consisted of a series of attachments to the U-2. First bamboo poles and later fiberglass rods were attached to the wings, where they would not interfere with the control surfaces. At the ends of these poles, completely circling
"Trapeze" antiradar attachments to the U-2 Not linked to a story yet.
About this file
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.