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. 11 …At great risk, US Air Force and Navy aircraft had been conducting peripheral reconnaissance and shallow…
  • p. 16 …As a result, in the late 1940s, the US Air Force and Navy began trying to…
  • p. 17 …Two months later, on 7 October 1952, Soviet fighter aircraft stalked and shot down a US…
  • p. 72 On 29 April 1955, Richard Bissell signed an agreement with the Air Force and the Navy…
  • p. 94 …The committee issued its list of targets for the use of the entire intelligence community using…
  • p. 147 …The Agency then turned to the Navy, which granted permission for Detachment C to use the…
  • p. 180 …James Doolittle urged President Eisenhower to use overflights of the Soviet Union to the maximum degree…
  • p. 223 …returned by Air Force and Navy reconnaissance aircraft. President Kennedy used NPIC photographs to illustrate his…
  • p. 273 …Charyk, and his Navy counterpart, Garrison Norton. Designers from several aircraft manufacturers also attended some of…
  • p. 283 …This engine had originally been developed for the Navy's large, jet-powered flying boat, the…
  • p. 297 …The need for additional buildings on the base was met by the Navy. Three surplus Navy…
  • p. 298 …After hearing Bissell and Holcomb's suggestion that the J58 might be used in future Navy…
  • p. 348 …Following modifications to make System-VII suitable for use by the Navy, the designation was changed…
  • p. 353 …AQUILINE prototype at Randsburg Wash on the US Navy's Naval Ordnance Test Station at China…
  • p. 401 …328 US Marine Corps Reserve 14 US Military Academy at West Point 329 US Navy Chief…
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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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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.