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.
“RAF”18 pages
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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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.