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.
“RAF”18 pages
government could not afford to maintain two such similar reconnaissance programs. The elimination of the Agency's OXCART program did not, however, spell the end of the usefulness of the world's most advanced aircraft; its offspring, the SR-71, is still in service. Secret NOFORN Chapter 7 321 In addition to the aircraft themselves, many other items associated with the reconnaissance program have represented important advances in technology. The flight suits and life-support systems of the U-2 and OXCART pilots were the forerunners of the equipment used in the space program. Camera resolution improved dramatically as the result of cameras and lenses produced for the CIA's reconnaissance program. ## COOPERATION WITH THE AIR FORCE In this history, which concentrates on the CIA's involvement in overhead reconnaissance, it is easy to overlook the important role that the US Air Force played in the U-2 and OXCART programs. From the very beginnings of the U-2 program in 1954, the Agency and the Air Force were partners in advancing the state of the art in overhead reconnaissance. Air Force personnel served at all levels of the reconnaissance program, from project headquarters to the testing site and field detachments. The Air Force supplied the U-2's engines, at times diverting them from other high-priority production lines. Perhaps most important of all, the Air Force provided pilots for the U-2s after the Agency's original attempt to recruit a sufficient number of skilled foreign pilots proved unsuccessful. Finally, the day-to-day operations of the U-2s could not have been conducted without the help of Air Force mission planners, weather forecasters, and support personnel in the field detachments. The cooperation between the Agency and the Air Force that began with the U-2 and continued with Project OXCART remains a major feature in US reconnaissance programs today. ## IMPACT OF THE OVERHEAD RECONNAISSANCE PROGRAM ON THE CIA CIA's entry into the world of overhead reconnaissance at the end of 1954 ultimately produced major changes in the Agency. Classical forms of intelligence—the use of covert agents and clandestine operations—gradually lost their primacy to the new scientific and
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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.