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.
“Headquarters”25 pages
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Secret NOFORN Bibliography "Mystery of the RB-47." Newsweek, 25 July 1960, pp. 36-37. "Nikita and the RB-47." Time, 25 July 1960, pp. 30-31. "Office of Special Activities History, April 1969 to Phase-Out." (draft) (CIA: DS&T, 1974), chap. 3, pp. 36-42 (Top Secret Codeword). Pero, Richard K. "Message Received—Unfortunately." Studies in Intelligence 27 (Winter 1983): p. 29 (Secret). Pocock, Chris. Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spyplane. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife, 1989. Powers, Francis Gary, with Curt Gentry. Operation Overflight. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1970. Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Prados, John. Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations Since World War II. New York: William Morrow, 1986. . The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Russian Military Strength. New York: Dial Press, 1982. Covert Support to Indonesian Revolutionary Government, 1957-1958. 2 vols. Clandestine Service Historical Series, CSHP-53. CIA: History Staff, 1970 (Secret). "Red Air Force: The World's Biggest." Newsweek, 23 August 1954, pp. 28-33. Richelson, Jeffrey. American Espionage and the Soviet Target. New York: William Morrow, 1987. "Russia Parades Airpower as 'Big Stick'." Aviation Week, 28 June 1954, p. 15. Low-Level Technical Reconnaissance over Mainland China (1955-66). Clandestine Services Historical Program, CSHP-2.348. CIA: History Staff, 1972 (Secret). Stanley, Roy M., II. World War II Photo Intelligence. New York: Scribners, 1981.
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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.