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. 22 …Air Force headquarters soon approved Martin's proposal to modify the B-57 and was very…
  • p. 31 …Their headquarters was located over a secretarial school on Beacon Hill, which soon became the codename…
  • p. 55 Secret NOFORN Chapter 2 42 The Matomic Building total of 357 personnel divided among project headquarters…
  • p. 56 …until it moved into the new CIA Headquarters building at Langley in March 1962. The final…
  • p. 73 …On 3 August 1955, Dulles and Twining met at SAC headquarters in Omaha to sign the…
  • p. 85 …Frequent flights were also necessary to bring in supplies and visitors from contractors and headquarters. Therefore…
  • p. 102 …U-2 project officer, the Air Force Headquarters project officer, and NACA's top official, Dr…
  • p. 107 …did not have to report to higher headquarters. WRSP-1, known within the Agency as Detachment…
  • p. 117 …Late on the evening of 3 July, Bissell went to project headquarters in the Matomic Building…
  • p. 127 …The PARAMOUNT Committee worked inside PID headquarters in the Steuart Building. Composed of members from CIA…
  • p. 128 …Lundahl and Reber flew from the United Kingdom to US Air Force Europe headquarters in Wiesbaden…
  • p. 138 …later and promptly reported the conversation to headquarters. When details of Vito's close call reached…
  • p. 153 …of Detachment A achieved excellent results, project headquarters had already decided that Western Europe was not…
  • p. 168 …The British missions would be operationally controlled by CIA project headquarters. Soon afterward four British pilots…
  • p. 191 …commander at Adana, to Air Force Europe headquarters, to replace the cover story that had been…
  • p. 194 …Because the new government had not been briefed on the U-2, Project Headquarters refused to…
  • p. 205 …its own building to the new CIA Headquarters at Langley. Soon afterward, Col. Stanley W. Beerli…
  • p. 233 …On 6 June 1960, project headquarters decided on a phased-out withdrawal of Detachment C between…
  • p. 235 …Airport, the pilot reported the incident to Headquarters. The Office of Security immediately contacted the Pennsylvania…
  • p. 312 …Project headquarters therefore began preparing contingency plans (Project SKYLARK) for the possible employment of OXCART over…
  • p. 319 …To ensure secure communications between Headquarters and Kadena. A typical mission over North Vietnam required refueling…
  • p. 323 …Project headquarters informed Deputy Defense Secretary Vance on 10 January 1967 that the A-12s would…
  • p. 324 …President Johnson confirmed this decision on 21 May. $ ^{69} $ Project headquarters selected 8 June 1968 as…
  • p. 334 …Air Force personnel served at all levels of the reconnaissance program, from project headquarters to the…
  • p. 365 …Speech given by Richard Bissell at CIA Headquarters, 12 October 1965 (Top Secret Codeword). Interview with…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Index

10-17, 24-27, 29-37, 66, 327-331, 331

CL-400 aircraft

263

clandestine operations

16, 321

Clandestine Services

192

Clark Airfield, Philippines

212

Clifford, Clark

311

"coffin corner"

76

Cold War

17

collection requirements

80-81, 189, 253, 300

Columbia Broadcasting System

18

combat aircraft

6, 26, 45

Combined Shipping Adjustment Board

15

Commerce, Department of

254

commercial airliners

72

communications intelligence (COMINT)

189, 311, 335-336

Communications Satellite Corporation

328

COMPASS TRIP

254

competitive bidding

44

compressor vanes

291

computer-controlled radar

294

computers

52

Congress, United States

44, 88, 98, 111, 159-160, 170, 293,

315, 317-318

constant-velocity film transport

281

Constellation airliner

10, 329

Contingency Reserve Fund

40, 44

contractors

42, 72, 259, 288

contrails

152

Convair

262-263, 267-271, 273, 284, 312

Convair F-106

284

convective clouds

94

Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory

18, 24-25, 328

Corning Glass Works

282

cosmic-ray effects

94

cover officer

89

covert activities

Covert Action Staff (CAS)

214

Crabb, Lionel

94

Crick, Alan

154

Crick Committee

154

Crimean Peninsula

108

Cuba

188, 197-201, 205-211, 299-300,

302, 310, 327, 339

Cuban air and ground order of battle

198

Cuban Missile Crisis

55, 199, 209-210, 299, 327

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines

212, 216, 221

Culbertson, Allman T.

66

Cunningham, James A., Jr.

40, 66, 69, 72, 78-79, 125, 247,

288-289, 328-329

Current Intelligence, Office of

81

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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.