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.
of Soviet ICBM sites. The other proposed overflight, Operation TIME STEP out of Greenland, was more likely to run into bad weather (which would affect both navigation and photography) because the flightpath would remain above $ 6 0^{\circ} $ north latitude during the entire mission. Furthermore, mission planners opposed this route because of its greater risk. In his letter to Richard Bissell on 14 March 1960, Colonel Burke stated:
Operation "TIME STEP" is our last choice because we can assume, with a 90 percent probability of being correct, that we will be detected on entry, tracked accurately throughout the period in denied territory (approximately four hours), and will evoke a strong PVO [Soviet Air Defense] reaction. This flight plan would permit alerting of SAM sites, and pre-positioning of missile equipped fighters in the Murmansk area (point of exit) thus enhancing the possibility of successful intercept. In addition, we must assume that even were the Soviets unable to physically interfere with such an incursion, sufficient evidence will be available to permit them to document a diplomatic protest should they desire to do so. $ ^{25} $
The concerns raised by Colonel Burke about TIME STEP should also have been raised about Operation GRAND SLAM, which would be the most adventuresome overflight to date because it proposed covering so much of the Soviet Union. If the Soviets could track the U-2 early in the mission, they would have plenty of time to prepare to intercept the aircraft.
The pilot selected for Operation GRAND SLAM was Francis Gary Powers, the most experienced U-2 pilot in the program. Powers had joined the project in May 1956 and had flown 27 operational missions in the U-2, including one each over the Soviet Union and China as well as six along the Soviet border.
To prevent the U-2 from being seen at Peshawar, project managers decided to ferry the aircraft from Adana to Pakistan the night before the scheduled flight. Once the plane was refueled and its camera was loaded, it would take off at daybreak, with little if any exposure to local residents because of darkness and its short stay—less than six 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.