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.
“RAF”18 pages
to gather intelligence on the Soviet missile program. Discussions continued the following day with the addition of Secretary of State Herter, who stated in support of the CIA proposal that "the intelligence objective outweighs the danger of getting trapped." The strong backing of the proposed overflight by both CIA and the State Department finally convinced President Eisenhower to approve the mission. $ ^{9} $
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
On 9 July 1959, more than 16 months after the previous overflight of the Soviet Union, a U-2 equipped with a B camera left Peshawar, Pakistan, flew over the Urals, and then crossed the missile test range at Tyuratam. This mission, known as Operation TOUCHDOWN, produced excellent results. Its photography revealed that the Soviets were expanding the launch facilities at Tyuratam. While this overflight was under way, another U-2 flew a diversionary mission along the Soviet-Iranian border. $ ^{10} $
Despite its success, this overflight remained an isolated incident. President Eisenhower was unwilling to authorize additional overflights of the Soviet Union, in part because he did not wish to increase tension before Premier Khrushchev's visit to the United States scheduled for 15-27 September 1959. Nevertheless, the President still wanted as much intelligence on the Soviet missile program as possible. Because the Soviets were conducting an extensive program of missile tests in mid-1959, Eisenhower authorized a steady stream of the less provocative electronic intelligence (ELINT)-gathering missions (14 in all) along the Soviet border during the remainder of the year.
Within the United States, concern about the Soviet missile program continued to grow. On 12 September 1959 the Soviets scored another space success when their Luna 2 rocket reached the moon, and Khrushchev stressed this success when he arrived in the United States three days later. He also boasted of Soviet missile progress in private conversations with President Eisenhower, while making no 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.