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.

Open the PDF at page 257 Original source ↗

“Sea”26 pages

  • p. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …3 0 0 ^{\circ} \mathrm{F} $ at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …276 pounds heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These balloons…
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …On 31 July, the same aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. There were a…
  • p. 148 …space launch facility east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 153 …of Soviet naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea. The final overflight of Detachment A. mission 2040…
  • p. 157 Secret NOFORN Chapter 3 144 U-2s flying well within international airspace above the Black Sea…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 185 …Because the Bodo airfield was involved in NATO maneuvers taking place in the Barents Sea area…
  • p. 225 …forces were conducting an all-out air-sea-land drive against the rebel-held areas in…
  • p. 257 …The use of peripheral missions prevented any further losses, although one aircraft crashed into the sea…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
  • p. 317 …2 would be flying farther out to sea, safely beyond the range of all Soviet SAMs…
  • p. 350 …B B Afghanistan, Tashkent, Tyuratam, Kazalinsk, Aral Sea 11 August 1957 4039 McMurray Lahore B B…
  • p. 351 …A-2 Dushanbe, Tashkent, Tyuratam, Kazalinsk, Aral Sea 10 September 1957 4059 Hall Adana B A…
  • p. 369 …AQUILINE 304, 339-343 Arabs 256 Aral Sea 135 Arbenz, Jacobo 16 "Archangel-1" 262 "Archangel…
  • p. 371 ## Secret NOFORN Index 358 Baltic Sea 3, 303 Baltic states 104 Baltimore; Maryland 6, 9 Barents…
  • p. 373 …186, 201, 205, 208-209, 299, 327 Caspian Sea 126 catheterized 64 cathode-ray tube 267…
  • p. 382 …23-24, 109, 139, 143, 164 Kara Sea 142 Kazakh language 135 Kazakhstan 135 Kazan', Soviet…
  • p. 385 …301 mechanical fuel totalizer/counters 68 Mediterranean Sea 114, 116, 121, 140, 142, 153 medium-range…
  • p. 393 …7 Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Airport, Pennsylvania 222 Sea of Japan 3 Seaberg, John 8-9, 12…
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 5
244

Fiscal Year	Overflights
Total	104
1962	18
1963	17
1964	13
1965	30
1966	10
1967	14
1968	2

## Peripheral Missions by Detachment H

Detachment H did not cease its activities following the termination of overflights of mainland China. Its next U-2 mission took place on 18 May 1968. This was an electronic intelligence mission that, in accordance with the new guidelines, never came closer than 20 miles to the Chinese coast. All future Detachment H missions against the PRC also conformed with this restriction but were still the target of interception attempts by PRC MiG-21s or hastily erected SAM sites on offshore islands. The use of peripheral missions prevented any further losses, although one aircraft crashed into the sea from unknown causes shortly after taking off to start a mission on 5 January 1969. Another pilot was killed on 24 November 1970 in a crash during a routine training mission. $ ^{66} $

The level of activity gradually increased during the remaining years of Project TACKLE, as can be seen in the table on page 245.

The U-2s flying these missions were generally equipped with the B or the newly designed 48-inch H cameras to obtain oblique photography and with various signal-intelligence-gathering systems. Beginning in May 1971, Project TACKLE began using a new communications-intelligence collection package known as LONG SHAFT. This system was used on 32 occasions through 12 December 1973, when the LONG SHAFT collection program ended.

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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.