Documents / FOIA release

/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…
Edwin H. Land
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
29
the task of investigating the nation's intelligence capabilities. Its
chairman was Edwin H. (Din) Land, the inventor of the polarizing fil-
ter and the instant camera. When James Killian asked Land to head
Project Three, Land had to make a major decision about his career. At
the time, the 45-year-old millionaire was on a leave of absence from
Polaroid and was living in Hollywood, advising Alfred Hitchcock on
the technological aspects of making three-dimensional movies. Land
decided to give up his interest in cinema's third dimension and return
east to Polaroid and the panel appointment.47
Land's Project Three was the smallest of the three Technological
Capabilities Panel projects, for he preferred what he called "taxicab
committees"—committees small enough to fit into a single taxicab.
The Project Three committee consisted of Land; James Baker and
Edward Purcell of Harvard; chemist Joseph W. Kennedy of
Washington University, St. Louis; mathematician John W. Tukey of
Princeton University and Bell Telephone Laboratories; and Allen
Latham, Jr., of Arthur D. Little, Inc., an engineer and former treasurer
of the Polaroid Corporation."
-
In mid-August 1954. Land and Baker went to Washington to ar-
range for the various intelligence organizations to brief the Project
Three study group. As the briefings progressed, the panel members
became more and more distressed at the poor state of the nation's in-
telligence resources. Land later noted, "We would go in and interview
generals and admirals in charge of intelligence and come away wor-
ried. Here we were, five or six young men, asking questions that these
high-ranking officers couldn't answer." Land added that the Project
Three members were also not overly impressed with the Central
Intelligence Agency.49
Land learned the details of Lockheed's proposed CL-282 aircraft
soon after he arrived in Washington. Philip Strong showed him Kelly
Johnson's conceptual drawing of the plane and told him that the Air
Force had rejected it. Although Land had heard Allen Donovan
James R. Killian, Jr., interview by Donald E. Welzenbach, tape recording. Cambridge.
Massachusetts, 2 November 1984 (S); Land interview (TS Codeword).
" TCP Report. p. 188 (S).
Land interview (TS Codeword).
UNCLASSIFIED

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

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.