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. 24 …Instead of a conventional landing gear, Johnson proposed using two skis and a reinforced belly rib…
  • p. 25 …a perceived shortcoming of the Lockheed design."' Another factor in the rejection of Kelly Johnson's…
  • p. 26 …interview by Donald E. Welzenbach, Corona del Mar. California. 20 May 1985 (S). Johnson, "Log for…
  • p. 27 …Gardner described Kelly Johnson's proposal and showed the drawings to Strong. After this meeting. Strong…
  • p. 30 …To make Kelly Johnson's revolutionary design a reality, one additional source of support was necessary…
  • p. 42 …When James Killian asked Land to head Project Three, Land had to make a major decision…
  • p. 48 …do the job in Johnson's airplane. And further, 1 overlaid a curve showing that with…
  • p. 57 …demanding, and Kelly Johnson agreed that such a move would save a lot of money. Lockheed…
  • p. 58 …a week after he had been authorized to begin the project, Kelly Johnson wrote a 23…
  • p. 69 …project staff) flew LIZ with Kelly Johnson in a small Beechcraft plane piloted by eed's…
  • p. 72 …This responsibility has placed a heavy burden on the Office of Security for establishing procedures to…
  • p. 79 …Batlin suggested the method used by Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, a thin glass ampule containing…
  • p. 81 …Kelly Johnson used a "wet-wing" design for the U-2, which meant that fuel was…
  • p. 89 …Airspeed was such a critical factor that Kelly Johnson added a vernier adjustment to the throttle…
  • p. 162 …By late 1957, Johnson agreed that something had to be done. After a series of tests…
  • p. 276 RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen…
  • p. 324 …OXCART did win a temporary reprieve in late November 1967. The Johnson administration decided to keep…
Equipment from a WS-461L
balloon on display in Moscow,
11 October 1958
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Streret-NerreallL.
Chapter 3
146
Goodpaster on 29 July 1958 to tell the Air Force that "the project is
to be discontinued at once and every cent that has been made avail-
able as part of any project involving crossing the Iron Curtain is to be
impounded and no further expenditures are to be made."
Two days later Eisenhower followed up this order with a formal
memorandum to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy telling him that
"there is disturbing evidence of a deterioration in the processes of
discipline and responsibility within the armed forces." He cited, in
particular, "unauthorized decisions which have apparently resulted in
certain balloons falling within the territory of the Communist Bloc"
and overflights over routes "that contravened my standing orders." 99
On 2 September 1958, there was another violation of Soviet air-
space when an unarmed Air Force EC-130 on an electronic intelligence
collection mission crossed from Turkey into Soviet Armenia and was
shot down by Soviet fighter aircraft. Six of the men on board were
killed and the remaining 11 were never heard from again, despite State
Department attempts to get the Soviet Union to reveal their fate.""
" Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record. 29 July 1958, WHOSS, Alpha,
DDEL (S); Goodpaster interview (S).
" Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, pp. 475-476.
"US Representations to the Soviet Government on C-130 Transport Shot Down by
Soviet Fighter Aircraft," US Department of State Bulletin, 23 February 1959, pp. 262-271;
Beschloss, Mayday. p. 159.
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.