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.

Open the PDF at page 372 Original source ↗

“Mission Control”28 pages

  • p. 9 …The struggle between the CIA and the US Air Force to control the U-2 and…
  • p. 72 …2 missions. Access to the photographs taken by the U-2 would be strictly controlled, which…
  • p. 73 …This pact gave the Air Force responsibility for pilot selection and training, weather information, mission plotting…
  • p. 81 …Before the start of a mission, the ground crew set the counters to indicate the total…
  • p. 96 …All of the products from this project would be placed in the new control system. By…
  • p. 100 …This was an S-band radar used by Soviet forces for early warning and ground-controlled…
  • p. 113 …The President nevertheless maintained tight control over the program and authorized only 10 days of overflights…
  • p. 128 …personnel controlling overseas photo processing and interpretation centers, which were normally under Air Force control. Further…
  • p. 140 …Although the President would not allow U-2s to fly their primary mission of reconnaissance of…
  • p. 142 …of the first series of U-2 missions. The CIA proprietary firm Scientific Engineering Institute was…
  • p. 147 …To take advantage of these weaknesses, Detachment C staged three missions from Alaska into the Soviet…
  • p. 156 …After these missions, penetration overflights became a rarity. There would be only six more during the…
  • p. 167 …U-2 missions. To handle U-2 material, the British created a new control system, which…
  • p. 168 …The British missions would be operationally controlled by CIA project headquarters. Soon afterward four British pilots…
  • p. 169 …of authority for the joint program: "British missions are carried out on your authority and are…
  • p. 170 Secret NOFORN Chapter 3 May 1959, and used to fly weather missions on 7 and 8…
  • p. 180 …As in December, the pilot was British, and the mission had been ordered by Prime Minister…
  • p. 188 …some Soviet airborne-missile fire-control systems. Operation GRAND SLAM, mission 4154 and the 24th deep…
  • p. 191 …This revised cover story, along with a mission flight plan consistent with it, was sent to…
  • p. 193 …the impression that he was not in control of his administration. On Wednesday, 11 May, the…
  • p. 196 …with Abel's "wife" (probably his Soviet control) in East Germany. In November 1961, Acting DCI…
  • p. 204 …in the DDP in order to maintain control of his overhead reconnaissance projects (the U-2…
  • p. 220 …Strongly favoring Air Force control of the U-2 missions over Cuba, the DOD representatives called…
  • p. 237 …In reality, however, the United States would maintain strict control over the missions to be flown…
  • p. 335 …The flood of information that the U-2 missions gathered led to a major expansion of…
  • p. 340 …In 1959 Bissell became Deputy Director for Plans but kept the reconnaissance projects under his control…
  • p. 348 …System-I used S- and X-band ELINT receivers to collect ground-controlled intercept and air…
  • p. 400 mission 2023 108 mission 2029 124 mission 3086 200 mission 3088 200 mission 3089 201 mission…
borax 121

Boston, Massachusetts 13,18,22,24,27,52,56 110,260

Boston camera 13

Boston University 22,24,52

Bowles, Chester 225

Brahmaputra Valley 231

bridges 82

Briglia, Frank 339

Briggs School 42

British and French fleets 116

British Guiana-Venezuela border 211

British overflight of the Soviet Union 23-24,164

British Parliament 94,232

British radar network 94

Brugioni, Dino 135,137

Budapest, Hungary 123

Budget, Bureau of the 267,308-310

Index

Budget, Director of the 40

Buffalo, New York 9,63

Bulganin. Nikolai 94,120

Bulgaria 101,124-125,140

Bundy, McGeorge 188,201,205,209,236,293

BUORL 22

Burbank, California 45

Secret NOFORN

Burke, William 168,170,174

Byelorussia 104,106

## C

C model camera 54

C-124 cargo planes

66, 135, 181, 219

Cabell, Charles P.

30, 36, 43, 88, 101, 122-123, 127,

139, 183, 223, 295, 327, 329

Cairo, Egypt

117, 119

Calcutta, India

232

California

9, 13, 24, 26, 36, 45, 50, 54, 56,

133, 182, 198, 200, 208, 221, 247,

251-252, 254-256, 295, 311, 340

California Institute of Technology

26

Cambodia

216, 230, 243

camera lenses

93

camera technicians

78

camera-carrying balloons

14, 18, 23, 84, 145

cameras

1, 3-4, 12-13, 21-22, 31, 44, 49-51,

53-55, 60, 77, 87, 196, 244, 281-282,

310, 313, 321, 327, 329, 332, 333

Canberra

5, 9, 23-24, 67, 109, 117, 162

Cannon, Clarence

88

Capp, Al

45

cardiovascular system

62

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About this file

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.