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 389 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

376

## Pakistan

Paksane, Laos 231

Palmdale, California 311

panoramic-type framing camera 53

Paradise Ranch 57,66

PARAMOUNT Committee 114,116,120

Parangosky, John 274,288,296,309,331

"parasite" aircraft 263

Paris Summit 172,181-182

Pasadena, California 13,50,252

Pathet Lao 221

PB-4Y aircraft

222

Pearl Harbor 322

Pearson, Drew 299

Peenemunde rocket project 2

Peiping, China 228-229

Pellegrini, Joseph J. 6

Pennsylvania State Police 222

Pentagon 5,7,9,11,13-14,39,78-79,238

People's Liberation Army (PLA) 215

People's Republic of China (PRC)

85,135,201,215,222,225-226,

228-247,253,282,301,319,339,341

(See also China)

radars

215

troop movements

215

nuclear plants

238

nuclear weapons establishment 226 Shuangchengzi missile-test range 235

periscope 56,76

Perkin, Richard S.

18, 31, 50-52, 281-282, 311, 332-333

Perkin-Elmer (P-E) Company 18,31,50,281

Perkin-Elmer tracking camera 52

Perkins, Courtland D. 260

Personnel (USAF), Deputy Chief of Staff for 74

Peshawar, Pakistan 135,163-164,167-168,172,174-176

Photo-Intelligence Division (PID) 82,100,135

photographic chemicals 121

Photographic Evaluation of Information on Cuba 200

photographic resolution 281

photointerpreters

83,108,111,114-116,120-121,135

138,153,172,191,198,209,211

216,221,236,303,307

photomapping 1,232

photoreconnaissance

1, 4-5, 7, 22

photosatellite 270,313,327,330,157

PID's Special Projects Branch 115

"pioneer" photography 87

pitot-static tube 295

Pittsburgh-Corning Glass Company 55

Plans, Deputy Director for 157,191-192,327,333

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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.