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.

  • p. 4 …8 Lockheed CL-282 Supporters and the CIA... 13 Scientists and Overhead Reconnaissance... 17 The BEACON…
  • p. 6 …260 Competition Between Lockheed and Convair... 267 The Selection of the Lockheed Design... 270 Efforts To…
  • p. 12 …excellent technical study of the U-2: Lockheed U-2 (1983). There has also been a…
  • p. 22 …Immediately after returning to California, Carter proposed to Lockheed Vice President L. Eugene Root (previously the…
  • p. 23 …competition for a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft Lockheed also submit a design. Carter noted that the…
  • p. 24 …it to General Schriever, who then asked Lockheed to submit a specific proposal. In early April…
  • p. 25 …Seaberg and his colleagues carefully evaluated the Lockheed submission and finally rejected it in early June…
  • p. 26 …Despite the Air Force's selection of the X-16, Lockheed continued to work on the…
  • p. 27 …Proposals for special reconnaissance aircraft have been received in the Air Staff from Lockheed, Fairchild, and…
  • p. 28 …range are not as good as the Lockheed CL-282. $ ^{23} $ Gardner's enthusiasm for the…
  • p. 29 …Few details about Dulles's precise attitude toward the proposed Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft are available, but…
  • p. 30 …At this point, the summer of 1954, Lockheed's CL-282 proposal still lacked official support…
  • p. 37 …ISP chairman Baker then urged Donovan to travel to southern California to evaluate the Lockheed design…
  • p. 39 …Thus, even though the Lockheed CL-282 had several important sources of support by September 1954…
  • p. 40 …Council.46 ## Project Three Support for the Lockheed CL-282 Even before the final Technological Capabilities…
  • p. 42 …Agency. $ ^{49} $ Land learned the details of Lockheed's proposed CL-282 aircraft soon after he…
  • p. 43 Secret NOFORN Chapter 1 briefly mention a Lockheed design for a high-flying aircraft at the…
  • p. 44 …During September and October the Project Three study group met frequently to discuss the Lockheed design…
  • p. 47 …The Lockheed super glider will fly at 70,000 feet, well out of the reach of…
  • p. 48 …Putt, to oppose the adoption of the Lockheed design. The officials argued that the Bell X…
  • p. 49 …He used Gardner's statement to convince Lockheed's senior management to approve the project, which…
  • p. 50 …small group of prominent scientists that the Lockheed design represented the best possible overhead reconnaissance system…
  • p. 53 …Eventually Bissell asked who was going to pay for the airframes to be built by Lockheed…
  • p. 55 …This category included maintenance and support personnel from Lockheed (five per aircraft), the pilots, and support…
  • p. 56 …to be settled, including the contract with Lockheed. Nevertheless, work on the U-2 began as…
  • p. 57 …A general contractor such as Lockheed can purchase much, if not all, of the supplies needed…
  • p. 58 …During the final contract negotiations in the spring of 1958, Lockheed and the US Government agreed…
  • p. 63 …1954, even before the CIA adopted the Lockheed proposal. Baker quickly recognized, however, that he would…
  • p. 69 …in a small Beechcraft plane piloted by Lockheed's chief test pilot, Tony LeVier. They spotted…
  • p. 70 …By July 1955 the base was ready, and Agency, Air Force, and Lockheed personnel began moving…
  • p. 74 project—the construction and testing of the aircraft—remained the exclusive province of Lockheed. $ ^{29} $ As…
  • p. 77 …The first model of the pressure suit, used by Lockheed test pilots, made no provision for…
  • p. 79 …Geary told Culbertson that the Lockheed CL-282 was going to be known officially as the…
  • p. 81 …runway took the plane to 50 knots. Lockheed's chief test pilot, Tony LeVier, was at…
  • p. 84 …article 341 before moving on to other Lockheed flight test programs in early September. This first…
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Area 51 without arousing a great deal of…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Yancey was in charge of six SAC pilots who were to be trained by Lockheed…
  • p. 90 …CIA, which then placed an order with Lockheed for 29 U-2s in configurations to be…
  • p. 107 …U-2 cover story stating that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown by the USAF…
  • p. 143 …Lockheed mechanics had mounted the various RAINBOW devices on the prototype U-2, a Lockheed test…
  • p. 144 …Unable to restart the power plant, Lockheed test pilot Robert Sieker bailed out but was struck…
  • p. 145 …The loss of one of Lockheed's best test pilots, as well as the prototype "dirty…
  • p. 157 …As a substitute, Lockheed began working to develop a paint with radar-suppressant qualities, but this…
  • p. 162 …After a series of tests over Edwards AFB, Lockheed began coating the U-2s with a…
  • p. 188 …Although it had been refurbished by Lockheed and now had the more powerful J75 engine that…
  • p. 199 …In the meantime Powers began working for Lockheed as a U-2 pilot. In March 1963…
  • p. 209 …Some poetic justice in this. $ ^{2} $ One week later Colonel Geary called to order Lockheed to…
  • p. 211 …In May 1961, Lockheed began modifying Agency U-2s so that they could be refueled in…
  • p. 220 …story, which was that its pilots were Lockheed employees on a ferry flight to Puerto Rico…
  • p. 230 …2Cs for Detachment C Late in 1958, Lockheed began refitting the Agency's 13 remaining U…
  • p. 235 …STPOLLY added the more advanced Lockheed P3A in 1963. Between 1955 and 1967, when the CIA…
  • p. 236 …U-2 missions, and the Air Force, which had Lockheed P-2V7 and P3A reconnaissance aircraft
  • p. 238 …The planes were maintained by Lockheed mechanics under contract to the CIA. The Agency attempted to…
  • p. 255 …All Air Force and CIA U-2s were ordered back to Lockheed for ultrasonic inspection of…
  • p. 260 …The Agency dispatched several pilots to Taiwan under the cover of Lockheed employees working on a…
  • p. 264 …G in California-with three more at Lockheed undergoing repair. The Agency had originally ordered 20…
  • p. 265 …Francis Gary Powers was one of the Lockheed test pilots who checked out this new aircraft…
  • p. 266 …began coming off the production line at Lockheed in-the autumn of 1968, CIA and the…
  • p. 275 …Personnel at Lockheed's Skunk Works referred to these aircraft concepts as "Archangel-1," "Archangel-2…
  • p. 276 Secret NOFORN Chapter 6 Lockheed design for a hydrogen-powered aircraft (the CL-400). The committee…

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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 1

camera with tremendously improved resolution and film capacity, and the Eastman Kodak company was working on new thin, lightweight film. $ ^{55} $

By October 1954, the Project Three study group had drafted a complete program for an overhead reconnaissance effort based on the CL-282 aircraft. The one remaining question was who would conduct the overflights. The committee's members, particularly Land, were not in favor of the Air Force conducting such missions in peacetime. Firmly believing that military overflights in armed aircraft could provoke a war, they argued for civilian overflights in unarmed, unmarked aircraft. In their view, the organization most suited for this mission was the Central Intelligence Agency. $ ^{56} $

In late October 1954, the Project Three panel discussed the CL-282 system concept with DCI Allen Dulles and the Secretary of the Air Force's Special Assistant for Research and Development, Trevor Gardner. Dulles was reluctant to have the CIA undertake the project. He did not like to involve the CIA with military projects, even ones that the military had rejected, like the CL-282. Furthermore, the DCI strongly believed that the Agency's mission lay in the use of human operatives and secret communications, the classic forms of intelligence gathering. Land came away from this meeting with the impression that Dulles somehow thought overflights were not fair play. Project Three committee members were nevertheless convinced that technology, particularly in the form of the CL-282 and the new camera designs, would solve the nation's intelligence problems. $ ^{57} $

## A Meeting With the President

Allen Dulles's reluctance to involve the CIA in the CL-282 project did not stop the Project Three committee from pursuing its aims because it was able to go over Dulles's head and appeal directly to the President. Having participated in the BEACON HILL Study and the Intelligence Systems Panel, several Project Three members had definite ideas on how to improve intelligence collection, ideas that they were determined to present to the highest levels of government. They were able

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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.