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.
“United Press”14 pages
SecNEQRN Chapter 5 247 Ibid.. pp. 48-51 (TS Cocleword). CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Vietnam in January 1973, US military flights in the area were forbid- den. The Nixon administration, therefore, tasked the CIA with moni- toring North Vietnam's compliance with the cease-fire accords. [Their highly sensitive missions had to remain at least 15 nautical miles away from the North Vietnamese coast, and they initially flew at low altitude in a deceptive direction in order to avoid PRC radars. These constraints made the missions diffic- ult because at low altitude the U-2 consumed more fuel and encoun- tered more turbulence and the pilots' pressure suits tended to overheat. The first mission on 30 March 1973 was only marginally suc- cessful because of cloud cover and haze, which prevented it from photographing most of its targets. A second mission on the following day had somewhat better luck with the weather, but problems with the film processing reduced the mission's coverage. Afterward, the mon- soon season prevented any further missions until 21 July 1973. This -Mission obtained usable photography of SAM sites and North Vietnamese supply operations, although the resolution was not as high as it should have been because the H camera lens had not been properly focused. The last SCOPE SHIELD mission, on 6 January 1974, finally succeeded in obtaining high-quality photography. The mission provided complete coverage of shipping in Haiphong Harbor, SAM defenses, and North Vietnamese naval order of battle." [012958 1.6(d1111>10111010<25Yrs (S1 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.