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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. 11 …At great risk, US Air Force and Navy aircraft had been conducting peripheral reconnaissance and shallow…
  • p. 16 …As a result, in the late 1940s, the US Air Force and Navy began trying to…
  • p. 17 …Two months later, on 7 October 1952, Soviet fighter aircraft stalked and shot down a US…
  • p. 72 …agreement with the Air Force and the Navy (which at that time was also interested in…
  • p. 147 …turned to the Navy, which granted permission for Detachment C to use the Naval Air Station…
  • p. 180 …The Army, Navy, and CIA, however, doubted that any had been deployed, because none could be…
  • p. 223 …by Air Force and Navy reconnais- sance aircraft. President Kennedy used NPIC photographs to illustrate his…
  • p. 273 …Charyk, and his Navy counterpart, Garrison Norton. Designers from several air- craft manufacturers also attended some…
  • p. 283 …This engine had originally been developed for the Navy's large, jet-powered flying boat, the…
  • p. 297 …The need for additional buildings on the base was met by the Navy. Three surplus Navy…
  • p. 298 …After hearing Bissell and Holcomb's suggestion that the J58 might be used in future Navy…
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
SecNQQRN
Chapter 5
256
E0 12958 1.61111111>101010101010<25Yrs
(Si
In early August. Kissinger asked the Air Force to provide U-2s
to overfly the Canal, but the Air Force demurred, saying it would take
several weeks to move a U-2 detachment from Del Rio, Texas, to the
Middle East. At this point. DCI Helms told an NSC meeting that the
Agency's Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base could deploy air-
craft nd begin filming the Suez
area witnin me weex. anu it tnu. in tact. the first U-2 arrived in
1---2nly 71 hours after receiving notification to deploy. Between
T . and 10 November 1970. Agency U-2s flew 29 missions over
the cease-fire zone as part of Project EVEN STEVEN. Most flights
used the B camera, but 12 were equipped with the new, high-resolu-
tion H camera. The EVEN STEVEN U-2s also employed a dozen
electronic-intelligence-collection packages. from System-X to
System-XXIV. After 10 November 1970. Air Force SR-71s took over
the task of photographing the cease-fire zone.6
The Middle East was again the cause of a Detachment G deploy-
ment in October 1973, when another Arab-Israeli war broke out. Two
U-2s deployed on 7
and 8 October /i, to be ready tor possinie coverage or tne conflict.
Detachment G received no such tasking, however, and the last of the
aircraft returned to California on 13 November. The 1973 war did
.4 (hid. pp. 5-6. 10-11 ITS Codeword).
Ibid.. pp. 15-20 ITS Codeword).
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.