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.
“Nevers”34 pages
- p. 13 …Without their help a good deal of this story could never have become known. The assistance…
- p. 44 …the CL-282; in fact, there may never have been a formal decision as such. In…
- p. 74 …fly, Lockheed engineers had to solve problems never before encountered. Among these problems was the need…
- p. 84 …Flight tests continued, with the U-2 ascending to altitudes never before attained in sustained flight…
- p. 102 …put aside for further thought (which it never received), and Bissell's weather research cover remained…
- p. 138 …William Shelton, raised an important question that had never been considered: what would happen if an…
- p. 147 …Peninsula, because of bad weather and, therefore, never entered Soviet airspace. A second attempt to photograph…
- p. 157 …2 flight over the Black Sea that never violated Soviet airspace revealed 12 attempts at interception…
- p. 159 …Six of the men on board were killed and the remaining 11 were never heard from…
- p. 160 …Although this new Berlin crisis never became as threatening as the blockade of 1948-49, President…
- p. 165 …The Air Force never equipped its original U-2s with the J75 engines. $ ^{106} $
Detachment C…
- p. 189 …Powers never made it past Sverdlovsk. Four and a half hours into the mission, an SA…
- p. 194 …2 program in 1974, but RAF pilots never again conducted an overflight in an Agency U…
- p. 208 …very good reason, and such a situation never developed, in part because satellite photography gradually began…
- p. 210 …Since this never happened, Francis Gary Powers' flight on 1 May 1960 proved to be the…
- p. 223 …Responsibility for photographic coverage of Cuba remained with the Air Force; Agency pilots never flew another…
- p. 227 …Both were experienced with World War II aircraft, although Vito had never flown the rebels' fighter…
- p. 248 …It was short of both pilots and planes and never had more than three U-2s…
- p. 257 …This was an electronic intelligence mission that, in accordance with the new guidelines, never came closer…
- p. 264 Secret NOFORN
Chapter 5
There was never another Agency U-2 mission from an aircraft carrier…
- p. 290 …the OXCART aircraft for its own use, never adopted the laminated vertical stabilizers. $ ^{18} $
## THE OXCART…
- p. 294 …Scott employed concepts never before used in camera systems. These included the use of a reflecting…
- p. 298 …above water. $ ^{29}$ As it turned out, the J58 was never used in a Navy aircraft.
- p. 299 …This new delay was caused by leaking fuel tanks, a problem that would never be solved…
- p. 303 …the J58 had to reach performance levels never before achieved by a jet engine, while operating…
- p. 313 …even though the SKYLARK contingency plan was never put into effect. Since U-2s continued to…
- p. 316 …Moreover, the Soviets never operated the radars in the tracking and lockon modes, a fact that…
- p. 317 …strongly opposed it and the 303 Committee never forwarded the proposal to President Johnson. $ ^{59} $ The…
- p. 318 …The OXCART, which had never operated in heavy rain, taxied to the runway and took off…
- p. 326 …collector of strategic intelligence, the OXCART was never used for this purpose. Its brief deployment was…
- p. 328 …Yet, the President never went so far as to eliminate the overflight program. As Commander in…
- p. 333 …in 1962, its speed and altitude have never been equaled. The development of this aircraft also…
- p. 348 …System-II, a communications and navigation system, never worked properly and was canceled. System-III, a…
- p. 349 …a mission over the Soviet Union that never took place. Systems-XI through XV were ECM…
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
187
the U-2 project under the title Operation Overflight. Later he flew a light plane as a traffic reporter for a Los Angeles radio station and then a helicopter for a television station. On 1 August 1977, he and a cameraman from the station died when his helicopter crashed on the way to an assignment. $ ^{49} $
## CHANGES IN OVERFLIGHT PROCEDURES AFTER MAY 1960
One of the most important changes in the overflight program after the loss of Francis Gary Powers' U-2 was the institution of more formal procedures for the approval of U-2 missions. During the first four years of U-2 activity, very few members of the Eisenhower administration had been involved in making decisions concerning the overflight program. The President personally authorized all flights over the Soviet Union and was consulted by Richard Bissell and either the DCI or the DDCI about each such proposed mission. In addition to CIA officials, the President's discussions of individual U-2 missions or of the program as a whole generally included the Secretary of State or his Under Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense or his deputy, and the President's secretary, Colonel (later General) Goodpaster.
The approval process under President Eisenhower was thus very unstructured. There was no formal approval body charged with reviewing overflight proposals; the President kept this authority in his hands and simply consulted with selected cabinet officials and advisers before reaching a decision. In 1959 the U-2 program had gained a second approval authority when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan became the approval authority for missions conducted by the RAF pilots in Detachment B.
The loss of Powers' U-2 in May 1960 led to major changes in the approval process. For all practical purposes, Prime Minister Macmillan ceased to be a source of approval because the RAF pilots who remained in the U-2 program did not conduct any more operational missions (although the use of British pilots was considered on several occasions). In the United States the approval process 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.