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…
Khrushchev and the U-2 wreckage
This revelation completely demolished the US cover story, and senior administration officials then debated what the appropriate course of action should be. Allen Dulles offered to take responsibility for the overflight and resign, but President Eisenhower did not want to give the world the impression that he was not in control of his administration. On Wednesday, 11 May, the President read a statement to the press in which he assumed full responsibility for the U-2 mission but left open the question of future overflights, even though four days earlier he had approved the recommendation of his key foreign policy advisers to terminate all provocative intelligence operations against the Soviet Union. $ ^{35} $
The U-2 affair had its greatest consequences when the long-awaited summit meeting in Paris began less than a week later on 16 May. Soviet Premier Khrushchev insisted on being the first speaker and read a long protest about the overflight, ending with a demand for an apology from President Eisenhower. In his reply 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.