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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 …Scientists and Overhead Reconnaissance 17 The BEACON HILL Report 17 Concern About the Danger of a…
  • p. 14 …view of the "other side of the hill." With the advent of dry film, it became…
  • p. 30 …of this new advisory body." The BEACON HILL Report In 1951 the Air Force sought even…
  • p. 31 …Their head- quarters was located over a secretarial school on Beacon Hill, which soon became the…
  • p. 32 …to implement the ideas of the BEACON HILL Report until the summer of 1953. By this…
  • p. 34 …Created in July 1953, the Intelligence Systems Panel (ISP) included several experts from the BEACON HILL…
  • p. 37 …reconnais- sance needs expressed in the BEACON HILL Report. Theoretically, he explained to the panel, any…
  • p. 41 …H. T. Friis R. Mettler A. G. Hill E. Purcell W. H. Radford E. H. Plesset…
  • p. 44 …6(dli1i>10<25Yrs since the BEACON HILL and Intelligence Systems Panel meetings. (Si James Baker…
  • p. 45 …Having participated in the BEACON HILL Study and the Intelligence Systems Panel, several Project Three members…
  • p. 344 …He headed the Beacon Hill Panel in 1952 and later became director of Lincoln Laboratories. PARANGOSKY…
  • p. 345 …of several advisory panels, including the BEACON HILL project. He helped Baker decide what cameras to…
  • p. 364 …BEACON HILL Report: Problems of Air Force Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 June…
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research results were tested by another firm known as
Edgerton, Germeshausen & Grier (EG&G), which was also composed
of MIT faculty members. Under an Air Force contract to evaluate ra-
dars, EG&G operated a small testing facility
Although Kell))naa peen
closely involved with the radar deception project since its early days,
he cooperated reluctantly because he disliked adding attachments that
made his aircraft less airworthy. (Johnson's dislike of the antiradar at-
tachments was reflected in the unofficial nickname for aircraft that
had been so modified—"dirty birds.") After Lockheed mechanics
had mounted the various RAINBOW devices on the prototype U-2, a
Lockheed test pilot would fly the plane over EG&G's1
installation. This was little more than a series of rAuar sets ana a
trailer containing instrumentation. EG&G technicians could thus re-
cord and evaluate the U-2's radar returns as it traversed a specified
course over their facility!'
This method of testing radar-deceptive modifications proved
both time consuming and dangerous. During a test flight on 2 April
1957, the -wallpaper" modification acted as insulation around the
not far from
" References to EG&G programs for the U-2 are contained in the later Convair contracts
for Projects FISH and KINGFISH, OSA records 'TS Codeword).
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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.