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.
“Mission Control”28 pages
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Secret NOFORN Appendix B 332 President of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, Perkin was a close friend of James Baker and was also a member of several advisory panels, including the BEACON HILL project. He helped Baker decide what cameras to use in the first U-2 aircraft. ## PERKIN, Richard S. ## POWERS, Francis Gary An Air Force Reserve Officer who became a CIA U-2 pilot in 1956, Powers flew 27 successful missions before being shot down over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. After his return to the United States in exchange for Soviet spymaster Rudolf Abel in 1962, Powers was cleared of all allegations of misconduct in his mission, capture, trial, and captivity. He became a test pilot for Lockheed and later piloted light aircraft and helicopters for radio and television stations. He died in a helicopter crash on 1 August 1977. ## PURCELL, Edward M. A physicist who won a Nobel prize in 1954 for his work in nuclear resonance, Purcell served on a number of advisory bodies, including the USAF Scientific Advisory Committee and Edwin Land's Technological Capabilities Panel study group. It was Purcell's ideas for reducing the radar cross section of the U-2 that led to the OXCART program. Purcell also contributed to the satellite programs. ## RABORN, William F., Jr. DCI from 1965 to 1966, Raborn pushed for the deployment of OXCART to the Far East but failed to sway the top officials of the Johnson administration. ## REBER, James Q. After serving as the Assistant Director for Intelligence Coordination in the early 1950s, Reber became the chairman of the Ad Hoc Requirements Committee in 1955 and continued to chair this committee after it was taken over by the US Intelligence Board in 1960 and renamed the Committee on Overhead Requirements. In 1969 he became the chairman of the USIB's SIGINT Committee. ## RODGERS, Franklin A. Formerly of MIT, Rodgers was the chief engineer at the Scientific Engineering Institute who converted the theories of Edward Purcell into practical systems to reduce the radar image of the U-2 and especially the OXCART.
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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.