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…
## 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 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.