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.

Open the PDF at page 6 Original source ↗

“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.

Chapter 5

U-2 Operations After May 1960

U-2 Operations in Latin America...197

U-2 Support to the Bay of Pigs Invasion...197

Aerial Refueling Capability for the U-2...198

U-2 Coverage During the Cuban Missile Crisis...199

U-2s Over South America...211

U-2 Operations in Asia...211

Detachment C and the Indonesian Revolt of 1958...211

China Offshore Islands Dispute of 1958...215

U-2 Support for DDP Operations in Tibet...216

U-2Cs for Detachment C...217

U-2 Crash in Thailand...219

End of Detachment C Operations...219

Detachment G Missions Over Laos and North Vietnam...221

New Detachment on Taiwan...222

Use of Detachment H Aircraft by US Pilots...230

U-2s in India...231

Increasing Responsibilities, Inadequate Resources in Asia...233

Advanced ECM Equipment for Detachment H...237

Use of Infrared Scanner Over PRC Nuclear Plants...238

...240

The End of U-2 Overflights of Mainland China...242

Peripheral Missions by Detachment H...244

Operation SCOPE SHIELD Over North Vietnam...246

Improvements in U-2 Technology...247

Modification of U-2s for Aircraft Carrier Deployment...247

Use of Carrier-Based U-2 To Film a French Nuclear Test Site...249

A New Version of the U-2...251

Replacement of the Original U-2s With U-2Rs...253

The Final Years of the U-2...253

Support to Other Agencies...254

Overseas Deployment Exercises and Missions...255

The Phaseout of the Office of Special Activities...257

Chapter 6

The U-2's Intended Successor: Project OXCART, 1956-1968

The Evaluation of Designs for a Successor to the U-2 ... 260

Competition Between Lockheed and Convair... 267

The Selection of the Lockheed Design... 270

Efforts To Reduce the A-12's Radar Cross Section... 274

The OXCART Contract ... 277

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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.