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 GLM-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. 58 …in Lockheed's Advanced Development facility at Burbank, California, known as the Skunk Works. $ ^{10} $ Lockheed…
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Area 51 without arousing a great deal of…
  • p. 287 …designed trailer truck that carried it from Burbank to Area 51. By 18 November 1959, the…
  • p. 296 …not test the OXCART aircraft at its Burbank facility, where the runway was too short and…
  • p. 297 …Construction began in September 1960; a C-47 shuttle service ferried work crews from Burbank to…
  • p. 299 …The plane left Burbank on 26 February 1962 and arrived at Area 51 two days later…
  • p. 304 …into the engine nacelles during assembly at Burbank were sucked into the power plant during initial…
  • p. 372 …201,205,209,236,293 BUORL 22 Burbank, California 45 Secret NOFORN Burke, William 168,170…

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Sturm, Thomas A. The USAF Scientific Advisory Board: Its First Twenty Years, 1944-1964. Washington, DC: USAF Historical Office, 1967.

Twining, Nathan F. Neither Liberty nor Safety. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966.

United States Air Force. Project LINCOLN. BEACON HILL Report: Problems of Air Force Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 June 1952 (Secret, downgraded to Confidential).

United States Congress. Senate. Foreign Relations Committee. Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), vol. 12, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, "Report on the U-2 Incident," 6 March 1962 (declassified 1982).

United States Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Foreign and Military Intelligence. Book 1. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976.

United States Office of Defense Mobilization. Science Advisory Committee. Technological Capabilities Panel. Meeting the Threat of Surprise Attack, 14 February 1955. (Top Secret/Restricted Data, downgraded to Secret).

"US Representations to the Soviet Government on C-130 Transport Shot Down by Soviet Fighter Aircraft." US Department of State Bulletin, 23 February 1959, pp. 262-271.

Weber, Karl H. The Office of Scientific Intelligence, 1949-68. Directorate of Science and Technology Historical Series OSI-1. CIA: DS&T, 1972 (Top Secret Codeword).

Welzenbach, Donald E. "Observation Balloons and Weather Satellites." Studies in Intelligence 30 (Spring 1986): pp. 21-28 (Secret).

White, James J. "Francis Gary Powers—The Unmaking of a Hero, 1960-1965." (draft) CIA: History Staff, 1974 (Secret).

Wise, David and Thomas B. Ross. The U-2 Affair. New York: Random House, 1962.

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About this file

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.