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.
“Sputnik 2”5 pages
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 2
86
Photograph of Dodonovo Atomic Energy complex taken by a Project GENETRIX balloon
All of this publicity and protest led President Eisenhower to conclude that "the balloons gave more legitimate grounds for irritation than could be matched by the good obtained from them," and he ordered the project halted. On 7 February 1956 Secretary of State Dulles informed the Soviet Union that no more "weather research" balloons would be released, but he did not offer an apology for the overflights. $ ^{70} $
Despite the furor caused by GENETRIX, Air Force Chief of Staff Twining proposed yet another balloon project only five weeks later, in mid-March 1956. This project would employ even higher flying balloons than GENETRIX and would be ready in 18 months. President Eisenhower informed the Air Force, however, that he was "not interested in any more balloons." $ ^{71} $ 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.