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.

  • p. 12 later, at press conferences in February and July 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson revealed the existence…
  • p. 98 …The Soviet Union sent strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations from…
  • p. 102 …not only press releases and the public line to be taken, but also the suspension of…
  • p. 112 …at a press conference that the Soviet Union might be ahead of the United States in…
  • p. 167 Secret NOFORN become involved in the U-2 project in September 1956, when the United States…
  • p. 174 …McElroy stressed that the gap would be temporary and that at its end the United States…
  • p. 183 …On the 9 April overflight, the U-2's ELINT-collection unit (System VI) indicated Soviet…
  • p. 195 …in the press about the presence of "spyplanes" on Japanese territory, asked the United States to…
  • p. 315 …To preserve the secrecy of the OXCART program, the Air Force informed the press that an…
  • p. 328 …at times when the press and Congress alleged that the United States was falling behind the…
  • p. 362 …Smithsonian Institute Press, 1985. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co…
  • p. 401 …United Kingdom (See Great Britain) United Kingdom Requirements Committee 154 United Nations 20 United Press International…
## Secret NOFORN

MRBM Medium-range ballistic missile

NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

NAS Naval air station

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NIE National Intelligence Estimate

NPIC National Photographic Interpretation Center

NSA National Security Agency

NSC National Security Council

NSCID National Security Council Intelligence Directive

ODM Office of Defense Mobilization

ORR Office of Research and Reports

OSA Office of Special Activities

OSI Office of Scientific Intelligence

PBCFIA President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities

P-E Perkin-Elmer Company

PFIAB President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

PI Photointerpreter

PIC Photographic Intelligence Center

PID Photo-Intelligence Division

PSAC President's Science Advisory Committee

RAF Royal Air Force

RFP Request for proposal

SAB Scientific Advisory Board (USAF)

SAC Science Advisory Committee

SAC Strategic Air Command

SA/PC/DCI Special Assistant to the DCI for Planning and Coordination

SAM Surface-to-air missile

SEI Scientific Engineering Institute

SENSINT Sensitive intelligence (USAF)

SLAR Side-looking aerial radar

TAS True air speed

TCP Technological Capabilities Panel

USIB United States Intelligence Board

WADC Wright Air Development Command (USAF)

WRSP Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Provisional

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About this file

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.