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.
“Headquarters”25 pages
- p. 22 …Air Force headquarters soon approved Martin's proposal to modify the B-57 and was very…
- p. 31 …Their headquarters was located over a secretarial school on Beacon Hill, which soon became the codename…
- p. 55 Secret NOFORN
Chapter 2
42
The Matomic Building
total of 357 personnel divided among project headquarters…
- p. 56 …until it moved into the new CIA Headquarters building at Langley in March 1962. The final…
- p. 73 …On 3 August 1955, Dulles and Twining met at SAC headquarters in Omaha to sign the…
- p. 85 …Frequent flights were also necessary to bring in supplies and visitors from contractors and headquarters. Therefore…
- p. 102 …U-2 project officer, the Air Force Headquarters project officer, and NACA's top official, Dr…
- p. 107 …did not have to report to higher headquarters. WRSP-1, known within the Agency as Detachment…
- p. 117 …Late on the evening of 3 July, Bissell went to project headquarters in the Matomic Building…
- p. 127 …The PARAMOUNT Committee worked inside PID headquarters in the Steuart Building. Composed of members from CIA…
- p. 128 …Lundahl and Reber flew from the United Kingdom to US Air Force Europe headquarters in Wiesbaden…
- p. 138 …later and promptly reported the conversation to headquarters. When details of Vito's close call reached…
- p. 153 …of Detachment A achieved excellent results, project headquarters had already decided that Western Europe was not…
- p. 168 …The British missions would be operationally controlled by CIA project headquarters. Soon afterward four British pilots…
- p. 191 …commander at Adana, to Air Force Europe headquarters, to replace the cover story that had been…
- p. 194 …Because the new government had not been briefed on the U-2, Project Headquarters refused to…
- p. 205 …its own building to the new CIA Headquarters at Langley. Soon afterward, Col. Stanley W. Beerli…
- p. 233 …On 6 June 1960, project headquarters decided on a phased-out withdrawal of Detachment C between…
- p. 235 …Airport, the pilot reported the incident to Headquarters. The Office of Security immediately contacted the Pennsylvania…
- p. 312 …Project headquarters therefore began preparing contingency plans (Project SKYLARK) for the possible employment of OXCART over…
- p. 319 …To ensure secure communications between Headquarters and Kadena.
A typical mission over North Vietnam required refueling…
- p. 323 …Project headquarters informed Deputy Defense Secretary Vance on 10 January 1967 that the A-12s would…
- p. 324 …President Johnson confirmed this decision on 21 May. $ ^{69} $
Project headquarters selected 8 June 1968 as…
- p. 334 …Air Force personnel served at all levels of the reconnaissance program, from project headquarters to the…
- p. 365 …Speech given by Richard Bissell at CIA Headquarters, 12 October 1965 (Top Secret Codeword).
Interview with…
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## Secret NOFORN
Hiring U-2 Pilots ... 73
Pilot Training ... 75
Final Tests of the U-2 ... 76
Three Fatal Crashes in 1956 ... 79
Coordination of Collection Requirements ... 80
Preparations To Handle the Product of U-2 Missions ... 82
The Impact of the Air Force Project GENETRIX Balloons ... 84
AQUATONE Briefings for Selected Members of Congress ... 88
The U-2 Cover Story ... 89
Chapter 3
U-2 Operations in the Soviet Bloc and Middle East, 1956-1958
The Deployment of Detachment A to Lakenheath ... 94
The Move to Wiesbaden ... 95
President Eisenhower’s Attitude Toward Overflights ... 96
First Overflights of Eastern Europe ... 100
First U-2 Flights Over the Soviet Union ... 104
Soviet Protest Note ... 109
The End of the Bomber Gap ... 111
Tactical Intelligence From U-2s During the Suez Crisis ... 112
Renewed Overflights of the Soviet Union ... 122
Radar-Deceptive “Dirty Birds” ... 128
The New Detachment C ... 133
Detachment B Flights From Pakistan ... 135
The Decline of Detachment A ... 139
... 142
Declining Overflight Activity ... 143
Concerns About Soviet Countermeasures Against the U-2 ... 147
More Powerful Engines for the U-2 ... 149
Intervention in Lebanon, 1958 ... 152
British Participation in the U-2 Project ... 153
The U-2 Project at the Beginning of 1959 ... 157
# Chapter 4
The Final Overflights of the Soviet Union, 1959-1960
The U-2 and the “Missile-Gap” Debate... 159
The Last Overflight: Operation GRAND SLAM... 170
The Aftermath of the U-2 Downing... 177
The Withdrawal of the Overseas Detachments... 181
The Fate of Francis Gary Powers... 183
Changes in Overflight Procedures After May 1960... 187
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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.