Documents / FOIA release

/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. 134 …By the end of the month, foreign troops began evacuating Egyptian terri- tory, and the pressure…
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Chapter 3
140
in the Far East were less risky than those conducted by Detachment
A. Finally, the main target of U-2 photography after the bomber issue
receded was Soviet missile and nuclear progress. The testing areas for
these weapons were located in the vast open spaces of the south-cen-
tral and eastern portions of the Soviet Union, which lay beyond the
range of Detachment A's aircraft.
(0129581.6Uffi1l>10101010<25Yrs
181
Although the final missions of Detachment A achieved excellent
results, project headquarters had already decided that Western Europe
was not a satisfactory location for overflights of the Soviet Union and
had notified Detachment A on 20 September 1957 that its operations
would cease in November. By 15 November 1957, all of the detach-
ment's personnel and aircraft had returned to the United States.
During Detachment A's 17-month period of operations, seven pilots
" OSA History, chap. 1 I. pp. 41-42 (TS Cocieword).
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.