Documents / FOIA release
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.
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED ;Zatt-iiKaig....31\1 Chapter 1 8 The Air Force Search for a New Reconnaissance Aircraft With interest in high-altitude reconnaissance growing, several Air Force agencies began to develop an aircraft to conduct such mis- sions. In September 1952, the Air Research and Development Command gave the Martin Aircraft Company a contract to examine the high-altitude potential of the B-57 by modifying a single aircraft to give it long, high-lift wings and the American version of the new Rolls-Royce Avon-109 engine. These were the modifications that Richard Leghorn had suggested during the previous year."' At about the same time, another Air Force office, the Wright Air Development Command (WADC) in Dayton, Ohio, was also examin- ing ways to achieve sustained flight at high altitudes. Working with two German aeronautical experts—Woldemar Voigt and Richard Vogt—who had come to the United States after World War II, Air Force Maj. John Seaberg advocated the development of a new aircraft that would combine the high-altitude performance of the latest turbo- jet engines with high-efficiency wings in order to reach ultrahigh alti- tudes. Seaberg, an aeronautical engineer for the Chance Vought Corporation until his recall to active duty during the Korean war, was serving as assistant chief of the New Developments Office of WADC's Bombardment Branch. By March 1953, Seaberg had expanded his ideas for a high-alti- tude aircraft into a complete request for proposal for "an aircraft weapon system having an operational radius of 1,500 nm [nautical miles] and capable of conducting pre- and post-strike reconnaissance missions during daylight, good visibility conditions." The require- ment stated that such an aircraft must have an optimum subsonic cruise speed at altitudes of 70,000 feet or higher over the target, carry a payload of 100 to 700 pounds of reconnaissance equipment, and have a crew of one." The Wright Air Development Command decided not to seek pro- posals from major airframe manufacturers on the grounds that a smaller company would give the new project a higher priority and Philip G. Strong. Chief, Operations Staff, OSI, Memorandum for the Record, "Recon- naissance Capabilities." 21 August 1953, OS1 records (S). " Jay Miller, Lockheed U-2, Aerograph 3 (Austin, Texas: Aerofax, 1983). p. 10. ret 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.