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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. 4 …Scientists and Overhead Reconnaissance 17 The BEACON HILL Report 17 Concern About the Danger of a…
  • p. 14 …view of the "other side of the hill." With the advent of dry film, it became…
  • p. 30 …of this new advisory body." The BEACON HILL Report In 1951 the Air Force sought even…
  • p. 31 …Their head- quarters was located over a secretarial school on Beacon Hill, which soon became the…
  • p. 32 …to implement the ideas of the BEACON HILL Report until the summer of 1953. By this…
  • p. 34 …Created in July 1953, the Intelligence Systems Panel (ISP) included several experts from the BEACON HILL…
  • p. 37 …reconnais- sance needs expressed in the BEACON HILL Report. Theoretically, he explained to the panel, any…
  • p. 41 …H. T. Friis R. Mettler A. G. Hill E. Purcell W. H. Radford E. H. Plesset…
  • p. 44 …6(dli1i>10<25Yrs since the BEACON HILL and Intelligence Systems Panel meetings. (Si James Baker…
  • p. 45 …Having participated in the BEACON HILL Study and the Intelligence Systems Panel, several Project Three members…
  • p. 344 …He headed the Beacon Hill Panel in 1952 and later became director of Lincoln Laboratories. PARANGOSKY…
  • p. 345 …of several advisory panels, including the BEACON HILL project. He helped Baker decide what cameras to…
  • p. 364 …BEACON HILL Report: Problems of Air Force Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 June…
Chapter 6
301
OSA History. chap. 20, pp. 90-91 (TS Codeword).
"OXCART Story," p. 21 (S).
E0 12958 1.6191111>1045Yrs
Is]
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
growing hazards confronting aerial reconnaissance of the
n three years
and the Air Force had lost numerous reconnaissance drones.
ree men agreed to go ahead with all the preparatory steps
needed for the OXCART to operate over o that it would be
ready in case the President decided to authorize such missions.
Project BLACK SHIELD, the plan for Far East operations.
called for OXCART aircraft to be based at Kadena airbase on
Okinawa. In the first phase, three planes would be flown to Okinawa
for 60-day periods, twice a year, an operation which would involve
about 225 personnel. Later there would be a permanent detachment at
Kadena. In preparation for the possibility of such operations, the
Defense Department spent $3.7 million to provide support facilities
and real-time secure communications on the island by early autumn
[0 12958 1.61M11>1045Yrs
[012950 1.6191161>101010<25Yrs
OXCART to Okinawa to overfly Southeast Asia and Although
develop-
Is)
the committee did not approve deployment, it ordeieu we
ment and maintenance of a quick-reaction capability, ready to deploy
to Okinawa within 21 days after notification.
There the matter remained for more than a year. During the first
half of 1966, DCI Raborn raised the issue of deploying the OXCART
to Okinawa at five separate 303 Committee meetings but failed to win
ret
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.