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
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1
briefly mention a Lockheed design for a high-flying aircraft at the 24-25 May meeting of Baker's Intelligence Systems Panel, he did not realize that that plane and the one in Strong's drawing were the same. As soon as Land saw Strong's copy of the CL-282 drawing, however, he telephoned Baker to say, "Jim, I think I have the plane you are after." 50
A few days later, when Land showed Kelly Johnson's conceptual drawing to Baker and the other Project Three members, they all became enthusiastic about the aircraft's possibilities. Although Baker had heard Allen Donovan's brief mention of the Lockheed design in May, he had not yet seen a drawing of the aircraft because Donovan did not report to the ISP on his early-August trip to Lockheed until 24 September. After seeing the CL-282 drawing, Baker began designing a camera and lens system that would fit in the Lockheed craft. $ ^{51} $
At the end of August, Land discussed the CL-282 with Allen Dulles's Special Assistant for Planning and Coordination, Richard Bissell, who came away from the meeting without any definite ideas as to what Land wanted to do with the aircraft. Overhead reconnaissance was not uppermost in Bissell's mind at the time, and it was unclear to him why he had even been contacted. $ ^{52} $ Bissell's outstanding academic credentials, his acquaintanceship with James Killian through his previous teaching experience at MIT, and his direct access to DCI Dulles may have led the Technological Capabilities Panel members to consider him the best CIA point of contact.
Although surprised that he had become involved in the CL-282 project, Bissell's interest was piqued, and he set out to learn what he could about reconnaissance systems. In early September 1954, Bissell had Douglas E. Ashford, a young Air Force officer on his staff, put together a general status report on air reconnaissance programs. Bissell forwarded the 16-page study to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI), Lt. Gen. Charles Pearre Cabell, USAF, on 24 September. In a covering memorandum, Bissell called Cabell's 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.