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 321 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 6
308

USS Pueblo in Wonsan Harbor

advanced aircraft ever built was to be put out to pasture. The abandonment of the OXCART did not result from any shortcomings of the aircraft; the causes lay in fiscal pressures and competition between the reconnaissance programs of the CIA and the Air Force.

Throughout the OXCART program, the Air Force had been exceedingly helpful; it gave financial support, conducted the refueling program, provided operational facilities at Kadena, and airlifted OXCART personnel and supplies to Okinawa for the Vietnam and Korean operations. Air Force orders for variants of the CIA's A-12 the YF-12A interceptor and the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft-had helped lower development and procurement costs for the OXCART. Nevertheless, once the Air Force had built up its own fleet of reconnaissance aircraft, budgetary experts began to criticize the existence of two expensive fleets of similar aircraft.

In November 1965, the very month that the A-12 had been declared operational, the Bureau of the Budget circulated a memorandum that expressed concern about the costs of the A-12 and SR-71 programs. It questioned both the total number of planes required for the combined fleets, and the necessity for a separate CIA fleet. The memorandum recommended phasing out the A-12 program by September 1966 and stopping any further procurement of the SR-71

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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.