Documents / FOIA release
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.
“RAF”18 pages
Gardner, the committee members decided to approach President Eisenhower on the matter. On 27 March 1954, the President told them about the discovery of the Soviet Bison bombers and his concern that these new aircraft might be used in a surprise attack on the United States. Stressing the high priority he gave to reducing the risk of military surprise, the President asked the committee to advise him on this problem. $ ^{45} $
The President's request led Chairman DuBridge to ask one of the most prominent members, MIT President James R. Killian, Jr., to meet with other Science Advisory Committee members in the Boston area to discuss the feasibility of a comprehensive scientific assessment of the nation's defenses. At their meeting at MIT on 15 April 1954, the group called for the recruitment of such a task force if the President endorsed the concept.
On 26 July 1954, President Eisenhower authorized Killian to recruit and lead a panel of experts to study "the country's technological capabilities to meet some of its current problems." Killian quickly set up shop in offices located in the Old Executive Office Building and organized 42 of the nation's leading scientists into three special project groups investigating US offensive, defensive, and intelligence capabilities, with an additional communications working group (see chart, page 28). The Technological Capabilities Panel (TCP) groups began meeting on 13 September 1954. For the next 20 weeks, the members of the various panels met on 307 separate occasions for briefings, field trips, conferences, and meetings with every major unit of the US defense and intelligence establishments. After receiving the most up-to-date information available on the nation's defense and intelligence programs, the panel members began drafting their report to the National Security Council.46
## Project Three Support for the Lockheed CL-282
Even before the final Technological Capabilities Panel report was ready, one of the three working groups took actions that would have a major impact on the US reconnaissance program. Project Three had
James R. Killian, Jr. Not linked to a story yet.
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.