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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…
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
E0129581.6(dlill>10<25Yrs
ISI personnel divided among project headquarters, a US test-total
ing facility.andI
Chapter 2
42
The Matomic Building
he Air Force personne commit-
ment was larger, n the 1955 table of organization
(this total does mil incluae many other Air Force personnel, such as
SAC meteorologists, who supported the U-2 project in addition to
their other duties). The largest Project AQUATONE category was
contract employees, sositions in 1955. This category in-
cluded maintenance personnel from Lockheed (five per
aircraft), the pilots, and support personnel from other contractors for
items such as photographic equipment.6
The first project headquarters was in CIA's Administration (East)
Building at 2430 E Street, NW. Continued growth caused the
AQUATONE staff to move several times during its first two years.
On 1 May 1955, the project staff moved to the third floor of a small
red brick building (the Briggs School) at 2210 E Street, NW. Then on
3 October. the staff moved to Wings A and C of Quarters Eye, a
World War 11 "temporary" building on Ohio Drive, NW, in the West
Potomac Park area of Washington. On 25 February 1956, the project
staff moved again, this time to the fifth floor of the Matomic Building
" Project AQUATON1E Table of Organization. 28 April 1955 in OSA History. chap. 3, an-
nex 15 (TS Cocieword).
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.