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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. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …with a boiling point of 300T at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting --soarer UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal…
  • p. 102 …working on a cover story for over- seas operations. It was important to have a plausible…
  • p. 120 …neanteagon • 724744 (8009071 4-92 Finland Baltic Sea ükranian Italy ROME IUMIS Tunisia Mediterranean Sea UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. 'I here were a total of nine DB…
  • p. 148 …space launch taciitty east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 215 …F"••• N. ' :\ ■ Caribbean Sea Ceyrnen Islands M FL) .r, Unttad ) ' ^ Gulf of Mexico NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN…
  • p. 216 …Isle of P,floo Caribbean Sea ••• Corn. Islands IWO Janss — 200 kilometers 100 200 Miles ".! SgsgalgOidaRte…
  • p. 217 SAM Sites in Cuba, August 1962 Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico NORTH A TLANTIC OCEAN 9…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
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.