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.
“The Advance”26 pages
Secre N Chapter 3 125 005653421 UNCLASSIFIED warnings to all pilots about the danger of opening the helmet face- plate at high altitudes, several pilots were known to do so. Some ate candy bars; favored lemon drops. On the morning of 10 December, was undergoing prebreathing, the Air Force en- listed man who oversaw lis preflight regimen placed an L-pill in the righthand knee pocket of ight suit, unaware that this pocket also contained supply of lemon drops. After he took off, began indulging in his habit of sucking lemon drops. About mi into the mission, he opened his faceplate and popped into his mouth what he thought was another lemon drop. After closing the faceplate, he began sucking on the object and thought it strange that it had no flavor and was much smoother than the previous lemon drops. Although tempted to bite down, pidecided instead to reopen his faceplate and see what it was he had in his mouth. Spitting the object into his hand, he saw that he had been sucking on the L-pill with its lethal contents of potassium cyanide. Just a thin layer of glass had stood between him and death. The loss of his aircraft over Bulgaria would have exposed the U-2 program to worldwide publicity and would probably have resulted in an early end to overflights.' __ Detachment A's security officer overheard relating the L-pill story to a fellow pilot several days later and prom tly reported the conversation to headquarters. When details of close call reached Washington, James Cunningham immediately or ered L-pills placed in boxes so that there would be no chance of mistaking them for anything else. The L-pill continued to be available for another three years. Then in January 1960, the commander of Detachment B, raised an important question that had never been considered: what would happen if an L-pill with its volatile con- tents accidentally broke inside the cockpit of a U-2? Realizing that such an accident would result in the death of the pilot, James Cunningham ordered the destruction of all L-pills and then turned to for a better idea. By this time the state of the art in lethal devices was a needle poisoned with algal, an extremely deadly shellfish toxin. The needle was hidden in a tiny hole in a silver dollar supplied by Cunningham. Only one poison-nee- dle coin was made because Cunningham decided that, if any pilot had to use it because of capture, there would probably not be any more overflights." (0 12958 1.8(dlifi>1010.425Yrs (012958 1.6181111>1011110<25Yrs 14 January 1960; MICable from Detachment B to Development cable from o Detachment B. 7 January 960. USA records, "Operation EDGE" (TS Codeword). S ret UNCLASSIFIED
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.