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.
“Nevers”34 pages
over DCI Dulles, but a project of this magnitude also required the support of the Air Force. Some Air Force officials, however, feared that a decision to build the CL-282 might jeopardize the Air Force's own RB-57 and X-16 projects. Just one month earlier, in October 1954, the Wright Air Development Command had appealed to the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Development, Lt. Gen. Donald L. Putt, to oppose the adoption of the Lockheed design. The officials argued that the Bell X-16 was a better design because it was more airworthy than the CL-282 and could be used throughout the Air Force in different types of missions because it had two engines, wheels, and an armor-plated, pressurized pilot's compartment. If J57 engines were diverted to the CL-282, the appeal to General Putt warned, there would not be enough of these popular powerplants to meet the needs of the X-16 program. $ ^{62} $
Having heard of the Wright Air Development Command attack on the CL-282, Allen Donovan of the Intelligence Systems Panel met with General Putt on 19 October to argue in favor of the Lockheed design. This discussion led General Putt to meet with 15 scientists from the Technological Capabilities Panel on 18 November 1954 to discuss the merits of the four proposed reconnaissance aircraft. Also present as a briefer was Maj. John Seaberg from the Wright Air Development Command, who later recalled:
What I did was present the results of my comparative analysis of all four designs. I showed the relative high altitude performance capabilities of all four. I pointed out that aerodynamically the Bell, Fairchild, and Lockheed designs were close. Martin's B-57, being a modification, was not quite as capable. I stated that, in my opinion, the J73 [General Electric engine] would not be good enough to do the job in Johnson's airplane. And further, I overlaid a curve showing that with the J57 [Pratt & Whitney engine] installed, it would then be competitive with the Bell and Fairchild designs. $ ^{63} $
This meeting—along with the knowledge that President Eisenhower also supported the CL-282—helped win over the Air Force. To be on the safe side, however, the Air Force did not abandon the X-16 program until the Lockheed aircraft had begun flying. 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.