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.

Open the PDF at page 387 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…

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

## Secret NOFORN

Index

374

National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 191

Nationalist China 319,215,224,226,229,236

Nationalist Chinese

201, 205, 222-226,

229-230, 234-237, 239-240,

243, 245-246, 253, 257, 319

Air Force

223, 225

insignia

225

pilots

319, 223, 230, 235, 243, 246, 253

U-2

205, 223-224, 229, 246

Navajo missile 22

Naval Air Station at Atsugi, Japan 134

naval quarantine 210

Nehru, Jawaharlal

231-233

Nelson, Norman 68

Nevada 56-57,341,113,130-131,133,149 182,241,274,283,286,290,295 297,302-303,311

Nevada Proving Ground 56,241

New Delhi, India 232

Ngo Dinh Diem

230

NICE GIRL 310

nickel-cadmium batteries 240

Nile River 119

NIMBUS

200

1973 Middle East war 256,320

9th Tactical Air Force

330

nitrogen

64

Nixon, Richard M.

245-246, 256-257, 333

Nobel Prize

332

North American Air Defense

Command (NORAD)

289

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO)

20, 329, 87, 148, 172

radars

87

North Island Naval Base, California

248

North Korea

4, 233, 237, 242, 307

North Vietnam

190, 221-222, 230-231, 233, 243,

246-247, 301, 304-307, 311, 336, 342

North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)

231

Northrop Aviation

259

Norton, Garrison

14-15, 31, 70, 260, 331

Norwalk, Connecticut

50

Notre Dame University

7

Novaya Zemlya

172

Novokuznetsk, Soviet Union

138

nuclear energy

39, 81, 225

Nuclear Energy Division

39

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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.