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 GLM-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. 123 …Former Air Force Col. Richard S. Leghorn headed the SEI operation for the Agency when it…
  • p. 146 …U-2 took off from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to conduct the first intentional…
  • p. 195 …were consolidated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base, California, the unit formed after the…
  • p. 222 …CIA's U-2 Detachment at Edwards Air Force Base on 11 October, and the CIA…
  • p. 234 …were incorporated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This detachment was now…
  • p. 269 …the Agency's Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base could deploy aircraft to and begin…
  • p. 308 Secret NOFORN Chapter 6 these aircraft were hastily flown to Edwards Air Force Base. From this…

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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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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.