Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, written in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and its two aircraft, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It follows their development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
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.N.Nlbtoc‹.%%, CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Chapter 2 88 E0129581.6(d1111>10<25Yrs IS] These positive results from Project GENETRIX did not outweigh the political liabilities of the international protests. CIA officials be- came concerned that the ill will generated by balloon overfli g hts could sour the Eisenhower administration on all overflights, including those by the U-2, which was just about ready for deployment. Therefore. DDCI CabeII wrote to Air Force Chief of Staff Twining in February 1956 to warn against further balloon flights because of the "additional political pressures being generated against all balloon operations and overflights, thus increasing the difficulties of policy decisions which would permit such operations in the future." 7' In addition to its concern for the future of the U-2 program, the A gency feared that President Eisenhower's anger at balloon over- flights might result in the curtailment of the balloon program that the Free Europe Committee—a covert Agency operation based in West Germany—used to release propaganda pamphlets over Eastern Europe. AQUATONE BRIEFINGS FOR SELECTED MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Although knowledge of the U-2 project was a closely g uarded se- cret within both the Agency and the Eisenhower administration, DCI Dulles decided that a few key members of Congress should be told about the project. On 24 February 1956, Dulles met with Senators Leverett Saltonstall and Richard B. Russell, the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and its subcom- mittee on the CIA. He shared with them the details of Project AQUATONE and then asked their opinion on whether some mem- bers of the House of Representatives should also be informed. As a result of the senators' recommendation that the senior members of the House Appropriations Committee should be briefed, Dulles later met with its ranking members, Representatives John Taber and Clarence Cannon. Official Congressional knowledge of the U-2 pro- ject remained confined to this small group for the next four years. The House Armed Services Committee and its CIA subcommittee did not receive a CIA briefin g on the U-2 project until after the loss of Francis Gary . Powers's U-2 over the Soviet Union in May 1960.'4 " Philip G. Strong, Attachment to Memorandum for DC1 Dulics. "Project GENETRIX Summary." 15 February 1956, OSI records (S). " John S. Warner. Legislative Counsel. Memorandum for the Record. — A UATONE Briefings," IS November 1957, Office of Congressional Affairs records. SI; Warner interview (SI. 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.