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
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
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lenses. Since the university did not wish to continue manufacturing cameras and lenses after the end of the war, the optical laboratory moved to Boston University, which agreed to sponsor the effort as long as the Air Force would fund it. Baker decided to remain at Harvard, so his assistant, Dr. Duncan E. Macdonald, became the new head of what was now called the Boston University Optical Research Laboratory (BUORL). Baker's association with the Air Force did not end with the transfer of the optical laboratory to Boston University, because he continued to design lenses to be used in photoreconnaissance. $ ^{37} $
The ISP first met at Boston University on 3 August 1953. To provide background on the poor state of US knowledge of the Soviet Union, Philip Strong informed the other panel members that the best intelligence then available on the Soviet Union's interior was photography taken by the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Since the German photography covered only the Soviet Union west of the Urals, primarily west of the Volga River, many vital regions were not included. The ISP would, therefore, have to look for ways to provide up-to-date photography of all of the Soviet Union. Several Air Force agencies then briefed the panel members on the latest developments and proposed future projects in the area of aerial reconnaissance, including new cameras, reconnaissance balloons, and even satellites. Among the Air Force reconnaissance projects discussed were multiple sensors for use in existing aircraft such as the RB-47, RB-52, and RB-58; Project FICON—an acronym for "fighter conversion"—for adapting a giant, 10-engine B-36 bomber to enable it to launch and retrieve a Republic RF-84F Thunderflash reconnaissance aircraft; reconnaissance versions of the Navajo and Snark missiles; the high-altitude balloon program, which would be ready to go into operation by the summer of 1955; and the search for a new high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.38 Not linked to a story yet.
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.