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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. 18 …Leghorn persuaded his superiors to submit his suggestion to the . Pentagon for funding. He had not…
  • p. 20 …Meanwhile Leghorn, frustrated by the rejection of his original concept, had transferred to the Pentagon in…
  • p. 22 …become the assistant director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Program, was in the Pentagon on business…
  • p. 24 …for the construction and maintenance of 30 aircraft to a group of senior Pentagon officials that…
  • p. 26 …He had been present at Kelly Johnson's presentation on the CL-282 at the Pentagon…
  • p. 27 …with Strong in the Pentagon on 12 May 1954. six days before the Wright Air Development…
  • p. 52 …Late on the morning of 2 December 1954, Dulles told Bissell to go to the Pentagon…
  • p. 91 …1-le then briefed a high-level Pentagon panel that included the Secretary of the Air…
  • p. 92 …After a half hour passed, the base commander called the Pentagon to ask where the crippled…
Chapter 4
167
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the Soviet Union.\
'the excellent pnotograpny Tram
this mission did not reveal a single missile site, but analysts did dis-. . -
cover a new Soviet bomber, dubbed the BACKFIN, at Kazan'.16
Despite the outcome of this mission, the missile-gap debate con-
tinued. The Air Force still insisted that the Soviets had deployed as
many as 100 missiles. The Army, Navy, and CIA, however, doubted
that any had been deployed, because none could be found. Additional
U-2 photography was needed to settle the debate. In mid-February,
President Eisenhower reviewed plans for four additional U-2 mis-
sions.
ma se t e rest ent more wi mg to coast e
and he agreed to allow one mission to be
flown aunng me momn 01 ivlarch. The President's continued restric-
tions upon the use of the U-2 disturbed DCI Dulles, who sent a memo-
randum to the National Security Council on 1 March 1960 asserting
that the cardinal objective of obtaining information on Soviet missile
deployment could be better achieved if the U-2 were given freer rein:7
" Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, p. 568; Beschloss, Mayday, p. 233.
Mission folder 8009 (5 February 1960), OSA records. TS
Codeword); OSA Chronology, p. 23 (TS Codeword).
OSA Chronology. p. 25 (TS Codeword)1 /-The President's Board:
1956-60. - Studies in Intelligence 13 (Summer 19691:118 (3).
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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.