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.
“Headquarters”25 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
growing hazards confronting aerial reconnaissance of the People's Republic of China. In three years the Agency had lost four U-2s over China, and the Air Force had lost numerous reconnaissance drones. The three men agreed to go ahead with all the preparatory steps needed for the OXCART to operate over China so that it would be ready in case the President decided to authorize such missions.
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
Project BLACK SHIELD, the plan for Far East operations, called for OXCART aircraft to be based at Kadena airbase on Okinawa. In the first phase, three planes would be flown to Okinawa for 60-day periods, twice a year, an operation which would involve about 225 personnel. Later there would be a permanent detachment at Kadena. In preparation for the possibility of such operations, the Defense Department spent $3.7 million to provide support facilities and real-time secure communications on the island by early autumn 1965. $ ^{5-4} $
In the summer of 1965, after the United States had begun introducing large numbers of troops into South Vietnam, Southeast Asia became another possible target for the OXCART. Because the continued use of U-2s for reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam was threatened by the deployment of Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles. McNamara asked the CIA on 3 June 1965 whether it would be possible to substitute OXCART aircraft for U-2s. The new DCI, Adm. William F. Raborn, replied that the OXCART could operate over Vietnam as soon as it had passed its final operational readiness tests. $ ^{55} $
Formal consideration of proposed OXCART missions involved the same approval process that was used for U-2 overflights. In late November 1965, after the OXCART had passed its final validation tests, the 303 Committee met to consider a proposal to deploy the OXCART to Okinawa to overfly Southeast Asia and China. Although the committee did not approve deployment, it ordered the development and maintenance of a quick-reaction capability, ready to deploy to Okinawa within 21 days after notification.
There the matter remained for more than a year. During the first half of 1966, DCI Raborn raised the issue of deploying the OXCART to Okinawa at five separate 303 Committee meetings but failed to win 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.