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.
“Hill”14 pages
project—the construction and testing of the aircraft—remained the exclusive province of Lockheed. $ ^{29} $
As a result of this agreement, CIA remained in control of the program, but the Air Force played a very important role as well. As Richard Bissell later remarked about the U-2 project, "The Air Force wasn't just in on this as a supporting element, and to a major degree it wasn't in on it just supplying about half the government personnel; but the Air Force held, if you want to be precise, 49 percent of the common stock." $ ^{30} $
One of the first Air Force officers assigned to Project OILSTONE was Col. Osmund J. Ritland. He began coordinating Air Force activities in the U-2 program with Richard Bissell in December 1954. On 27 June 1955, Ritland became Bissell's deputy, although Air Force Chief of Staff Twining did not officially approve this assignment until 4 August, the day after the signing of the CIA-Air Force agreement. In March 1956, Colonel Ritland returned to the Air Force and was followed as deputy project director by Col. Jack A. Gibbs.
Another Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Leo P. Geary, joined the program in June 1955 and remained with it until August 1966, longer than any of the other project managers. Using the Air Force Inspector General's office as cover with the title of Project Officer, AFCIG-5, Geary served as the focal point for all Defense Department support to the U-2 and OXCART programs. His 11 years with the overhead reconnaissance projects provided a high degree of Air Force continuity. $ ^{31} $
## TECHNICAL CHALLENGES TO HIGH-ALTITUDE FLIGHT
To get the U-2 aircraft ready to fly, Lockheed engineers had to solve problems never before encountered. Among these problems was the need for a fuel that would not boil off and evaporate at the very high altitudes for which the aircraft was designed. Gen. James H. Doolittle
Osmund J. Ritland 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.