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.
“Canberra”8 pages
Bissell and his colleagues all agreed that would make an ideal site for testing the U-2 and traini re- turning to Washington, Bissell discovered that EO 129581.1M11111>1010<25Yrs 181 In addition to the camera systems, the U-2 carried one other im- portant item of optical equipment, a periscope. Designed by James Baker and built by Walter Baird of Baird Associates, the optical peri- scope helped pilots recognize targets beneath the aircraft and also proved to be a valuable navigational aid!'" PREPARATIONS FOR TESTING THE U-2 As work progressed in California on the airframe, in Connecticut on the engines, and in Boston on the camera system, the top officials of the Development Projects Staff flew to search for a site where the aircraft could be tested safely and secretly. On 12 April 1955 Richard Bissell and Col. Osmund Ritland the se- nior Air Force officer on the project staff) flew LIZ with Kelly Johnson in a small Beechcraft plane piloted by eed's chief test pilot, Tony LeVier. They spotted what appeared to be an air- strip' After debating about landing on the old airstrip, LeVier set the plane down and all four walked over to examine the strip. From the air the strip appeared to be paved, but on closer inspection it turned out to have originally been fashioned from compacted earth that had turned into ankle-deep dust after more than a decade of disuse. If LeVier had attempted to land on the airstrip, the plane would probably have nosed over when the wheels sank into the loose soil, killing or injuring all of the key fig- ures in the U-2 project."' Information supplied by James Baker to Donald E. Welzenbach. 12 May 1986 (U). OSA History, chap. 8, pp_ 1-2 (TS Codeword): Miller, Lockheed U-2. pp. 19-20. Sè'biet 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.