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/specialCollection/MissileGap/1992/1992-04-01.pdf

Central Intelligence Agency · 406 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, published in Washington in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974, which developed and flew the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It traces the U-2's development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers on 1 May 1960, and later operations. One section is titled U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK.

  • p. 4 …Search for a New Reconnaissance Aircraft 8 Lockheed CL-282 Supporters and the CIA 13 Scientists…
  • p. 6 …260 Competition Between Lockheed and Convair 267 The Selection of the Lockheed Design 270 Efforts To…
  • p. 12 …excellent technical study of the U-2: Lockheed U-2 (1983). E0129581.131d111>10<25Yrs…
  • p. 21 …August 1953, OS1 records (S). " Jay Miller, Lockheed U-2, Aerograph 3 (Austin, Texas: Aerofax, 1983…
  • p. 22 …Immediately after returning to California, Carter proposed to Lockheed Vice President L. Eugene Root (previously the…
  • p. 23 …high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft Chapter 1 10 Lockheed also submit a design. Carter noted that the…
  • p. 24 …Miller, Lockheed U-2, p. 12. For more details on Kelly Johnson's original proposal. see…
  • p. 25 12 The Lockheed CL-282 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Chapter 1 Development Planning. According to Wienberg, General LeMay…
  • p. 26 …Despite the Air Force's selection of the X-16, Lockheed continued to work on the…
  • p. 27 …six days before the Wright Air Development Command began to evaluate the Lockheed proposal. Gardner described…
  • p. 28 …range are not as good as the Lockheed CL-282. Gardner's enthusiasm for the CL…
  • p. 29 …Few details about Dulles's precise attitude toward the proposed Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft are available, but…
  • p. 30 …At this point, the summer of 1954, Lockheed's CL-282 proposal still lacked official support…
  • p. 37 …ISP chairman Baker then urged Donovan to travel to southern California to evaluate the Lockheed design…
  • p. 39 …Thus, even though the Lockheed CL-282 had several important sources of support by September 1954…
  • p. 40 …Council.46 Project Three Support for the Lockheed CL-282 Even before the final Technological Capabilities…
  • p. 42 …Agency.49 Land learned the details of Lockheed's proposed CL-282 aircraft soon after he…
  • p. 43 …Chapter 1 30 briefly mention a Lockheed design for a high-flying aircraft at the 24…
  • p. 44 …During September and October the Project Three study group met frequently to discuss the Lockheed design…
  • p. 47 …The Lockheed super glider will fly at 70,000 feet, well out of the reach of…
  • p. 48 …Putt, to oppose the adoption of the Lockheed design. The officials ar- gued that the Bell…
  • p. 49 …He used Gardner's statement to convince Lockheed's senior management to approve the project, which…
  • p. 50 …small group of prominent scientists that the Lockheed design represented the best possible overhead reconnais- sance…
  • p. 52 …afternoon of 3 December, they Although the Lockheed CL-282 was not designated as the U…
  • p. 53 …Eventually Bissell asked who was going to pay for the airframes to be built by Lockheed…
  • p. 55 …This category in- cluded maintenance personnel from Lockheed (five per aircraft), the pilots, and support personnel…
  • p. 57 …Then on 22 December 1954, the Agency signed a letter contract with Lockheed, using the codename…
  • p. 58 …The U-2 would have a The Lockheed "Skunk Works" was named after the Kickapoo Joy…
  • p. 59 …Johnson, -A High-Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft, - 9 December 1954, Lockheed Contract Files, OSA Records (S). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 61 …Reconnaissance Aircraft, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation Report 10420. 28 January 1955. pp. 7-9, OSA Recordsi \ (5…
  • p. 63 …1954, even before the CIA adopted the Lockheed proposal. Baker quickly recognized, however, that he would…
  • p. 69 …Miller, Lockheed U-2. pp. 19-20. Sè'biet UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 74 …aircraft—remained the ex- clusive province of Lockheed:9 As a result of this agreement, CIA…
  • p. 77 …The first model of the pressure suit, used by Lockheed test pilots, made no provision for…
  • p. 79 …Geary told Culbertson that the Lockheed CL-282 was going to be known officially as the…
  • p. 81 …former director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, to Donald E. Welzenbach, 14 March 1986 (U): Miller…
  • p. 84 …7 (TS Codeword); Miller, Lockheed U-2, p. 22. OSA History, chap. 8, pp. 12-14…
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Iwithout arousing a great deal of curiosity. The…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Yancey was in charge of six SAL pilots who were to be trained by Lockheed…
  • p. 90 …CIA, which then placed an order with Lockheed for 29 U-2s in configurations to be…
  • p. 107 …U-2 cover story stating that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown by the USAF…
  • p. 143 …Lockheed mechanics had mounted the various RAINBOW devices on the prototype U-2, a Lockheed test…
  • p. 144 …Unable to restart the power plant, Lockheed test pilot Robert Sicker bailed out but was struck…
  • p. 145 …The loss of one of Lockheed's best test pilots, as well as the pro- totype…
  • p. 157 …As a substitute, Lockheed began working to develop a paint with radar-suppressant qualities, but this…
  • p. 162 …a series of tests over Edwards AFB. Lockheed began coating the 11-2s with a standard…
  • p. 188 …Although it haL refurbished by Lockheed and now had the more powerful 175 engine that would…
  • p. 200 …Beschloss claims that Powers was fired by Lockheed for criticizing the Agency in his memoirs (which…
  • p. 209 …Some poetic justice in this.' One week later Colonel Geary called to order Lockheed to up…
  • p. 211 …In May 1961, Lockheed began modifying Agency U-2s so that they could be refueled in…
  • p. 220 …story, which was that its pilots were Lockheed employees on a ferry flight to Puerto Rico…
  • p. 230 …CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Chapter 5 Late in 1958, Lockheed began refitting the Agency's 13 remaining U…
  • p. 264 …1966 decided to place an order with Lockheed for ei g ht more aircraft to be…
  • p. 265 …Francis Gary Powers was one of the Lockheed test pilots who checked out this new aircraft…
  • p. 266 …began coming off the production line at Lockheed in-the autumn of 1968, CIA and the…
  • p. 273 …SP-1362, "History of the OXCART Program," Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. 1 July 1968, p…
  • p. 275 …Personnel at Lockheed's Skunk Works referred to these aircraft concepts as "Archangel-1," "Archangel-2…
  • p. 276 RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen…
  • p. 280 …During the first half of 1959, both Lockheed and Convair worked to reduce the radar cross…
  • p. 281 …In early June, Lockheed submitted a design for a ground-launched aircraft known as the A…
Secret
CO5653421
PREFACE
When the Central Intelligence Agency came into existence in 1947,
no one foresaw that, in less than a decade, it would undertake a
major program of overhead reconnaissance, whose principal purpose
would be to fly over the Soviet Union. Traditionally, the military
services had been responsible for overhead reconnaissance, and
flights deep into unfriendly territory only took place during wartime.
By the early 1950s, however, the United States had an urgent and
growing need for strategic intelligence on the Soviet Union and its
satellite states. At great risk, US Air Force and Navy aircraft had
been conducting peripheral reconnaissance and shallow-penetration
overflights, but these missions were paying a high price in lives lost
and increased international tension. Furthermore, many important
areas of the Soviet Union lay beyond the range of existing reconnais-
sance aircraft. The Air Force had therefore begun to develop a
high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that would be able to conduct
deep-penetration reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his civilian scientific advisers
feared that the loss of such an aircraft deep in Soviet territory could
lead to war and therefore authorized the development of new non-
military aircraft, first the U-2 and later the A-12 OXCART, to be
manned by civilians and operated only under cover and in the
greatest secrecy. Primary responsibility for this new reconnaissance
program was assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency, but the Air
Force provided vital support.
The Agency's manned overhead reconnaissance program lasted
20 years. It began with President Eisenhower's authorization of the
U-2 project in late 1954 and ended with the transfer of the remaining
Agency U-2s to the Air Force in 1974. During this period the CIA
developed a successor to the U-2, the A-12 OXCART, but this ad-
vanced aircraft saw little operational use and the program was
canceled in 1968 after the Air Force deployed a fleet of similar air-
craft, a military variant of the A-12 called the SR-71.
Neither of these aircraft remains secret today. A great deal of in-
formation about the U-2 and its overflight program became known to
the public after 1 May 1960, when the Soviet Union shot down a CIA
U-2 and publicly tried its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Four years
et

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.