Documents / FOIA release
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.
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CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED riTNQ.EQ N Chapter 3 105 the Soviet Union's submarine construction program. Mission 2013's route also overflew a number of major military airfields to make an inventory of the new Bison jet-engine heavy bomber.2' The second overflight, on the following day, continued the search for Bison bombers. Pilot route was similar but somewhat to the south of n a so ew farther east, more than 200 kilometers past oscow. t ough the Soviet capital was al- most completely hidden by clouds, the A-2 camera with haze filters took some usable photographs of the city. These turned out to be the only U-2 photographs of Moscow because no other mission was sent over the Soviet capital. Among the key targets photographed during mission 2014 were the Fili airframe plant, where the Bison was being built; the bomber arsenal at Ramenskoye, where the Bisons were test- ed; the Kaliningrad missile plant; and the Khimki rocket-engine plant:6 When Allen Dulles returned to work on Thursday, 5 July 1956, he asked Bissell if any overflights had taken place during the Independence Day holiday. One had been made on the fourth and an- other just that morning, Bissell replied. (Because of the six-hour time difference, the 5 July flight was safely back in Wiesbaden by the time Dulles spoke to Bissell.) When Dulles asked the routes of these missions, Bissell told him that they had overflown both Moscow and Leningrad. "Oh my Lord," Dulles exclaimed, "do you think that was wise the first time?" "Allen," Bissell replied, "the first is the safest." 27 President Eisenhower also wanted to know the results of the 4 and 5 July flights, but his principal concern was whether there had been any indication that either flight had been discovered or tracked by radar. Eisenhower told Colonel Goodpaster "to advise Mr. Allen alVational Photographic Interpretation Center: The Years of Project IYJ -1958. Directorate of Science and Technology Historical Series NPIC-3. December 1974, 6 vols. (hereafter cited as NPIC History). vol. 1, p. 20 (S); Mission folder 2013 (4 July 1956), OSA records,' TTS Codeword). Note on mission numbers: each proposed mission receivea a nurnuer. uui not all of these missions were flown. EO 129581.13(011>101010<25Yrs Is) NP1C History. vol. I. p. 21(5): Mission folder 2014 (5 July 1956), OSA records, TS Codeword). Bissell interview by Welzenbach (S). UNCLASSIFIED
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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.