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.

  • p. 18 …This search soon led him to a British twin-engine medium bomber—the Canberra—built by…
  • p. 19 Secret NOFORN Chapter 1 6 RAF Canberra Mark-PR3 division in Baltimore, headed by Lt. Col…
  • p. 22 …high-altitude performance of the B-57 Canberra. By January 1954 all three firms had submitted…
  • p. 36 …The RAF equipped the new Canberra PR7 with RollsRoyce Avon-109 engines and gave it long…
  • p. 37 …altitude flight being made to the US Canberra, the B-57. $ ^{41} $ ## The Intelligence Systems Panel…
  • p. 80 …production was needed to power specially configured Canberra RB-57Ds for the Air Force. The first…
  • p. 122 …a reconnaissance version of the twin-engine Canberra bomber, similar to the RAF overflight of Kapustin…
  • p. 175 …2 and an Air Force RB-57D Canberra. The two aircraft cruised along the Soviet border…
  • p. 372 …310, 313, 321, 327, 329, 332, 333 Canberra 5, 9, 23-24, 67, 109, 117, 162…
  • p. 401 …General 61 oxygen mask 62 RB-57D Canberra 162 Third Air Force 89 US deterrent force…
Nationalist Chinese U-2R

March 1972, when the President's visit took place, Detachment H ceased all operational missions. $ ^{67} $

In March 1973, the TACKLE agreement with the Nationalist Chinese was renegotiated. Although no end date was set, the agreement contained a termination clause that would become effective three months after notification by either party. This clause provided more flexibility to the United States, which could now end the Nationalist Chinese U-2 program whenever US foreign policy considerations made such a step desirable.

## Operation SCOPE SHIELD Over North Vietnam

In addition to the Project TACKLE peripheral missions against the PRC, Detachment H (with Agency rather than Nationalist Chinese pilots) flew a series of missions known as Operation SCOPE SHIELD to gather intelligence on activities in North Vietnam. The Indochina area had become the responsiblity of the Air Force in 1964, but, under the terms of the cease-fire agreement negotiated with North

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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.