Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Edwards Air Force Base”7 pages
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
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demonstrated its ability to conduct overflights of Cuba by the 5 November deadline, which passed without any hostile action by the Soviets or Cubans. The detachment then worked to develop the capability for sustained operations with its five aircraft. All these preparations were valuable training for the OXCART program, even though the SKYLARK contingency plan was never put into effect. Since U-2s continued to satisfy collection requirements for Cuba, the A-12s were reserved for more critical situations.
When the Agency declared that OXCART had achieved emergency operational status on 5 November 1964, the aircraft was still not prepared for electronic warfare, as only one of the several planned electronic countermeasure devices had been installed. Nevertheless, a senior government panel decided that the OXCART could conduct initial overflights of Cuba without a full complement of warning and jamming devices, should the need for such missions arise.
One reason for the delay in completing OXCART's electronic warfare preparations was the Air Force's concern that OXCART use of existing ECM devices could, in the event of the loss of an OXCART over hostile territory, compromise the ECM equipment used by Air Force bombers and fighters. Even if OXCART's ECM devices were merely similar to military ECM systems, the Air Force still worried that their use would give the Soviets an opportunity to work out countermeasures.
Such concerns led the Agency to an entirely different approach to antiradar efforts in Project KEMPSTER. This project attempted to develop electron guns that could be mounted on the OXCART to generate an ion cloud in front of the plane that would reduce its radar cross section. Although this project proved unsuccessful, the CIA also developed a number of more conventional ECM devices for use in the OXCART. $ ^{53} $
As the OXCART's performance and equipment continued to improve, there was renewed consideration of deploying the aircraft overseas, particularly in Asia, where US military activity was increasing. On 18 March 1965, DCI McCone, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Vance discussed the Not linked to a story yet.
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.