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.
“US Navy”15 pages
## 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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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.