Documents / FOIA release

CIA/CSI/ History Staff Monograph, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 16 July 2002.

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, 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."

  • p. 24 …Advanced Development Projects Division, Burbank. California. ED 129581.131011>10<25Yrs IS1 UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 58 …Pedlow, Burbank, California, 26 August 1988. Sbc.et UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Iwithout arousing a great deal of curiosity. The…
  • p. 273 …SP-1362, "History of the OXCART Program," Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. 1 July 1968, p…
  • p. 287 …designed trailer truck that carried it from Burbank By 18 November 1959, the mockup was in…
  • p. 297 …Construction began in September 1960; a C-47 shuttle service ferried work crews from Burbank to…
  • p. 299 …The plane left Burbank on 26 February 1962 and arrived at two days later. After the…
  • p. 304 …into the engine nacelles during assembly at Burbank were sucked into the power plant during initial…
E0 12958 1.6(dll11>1010101045Yrs
(SI The first Agency U-2 detachment, consisting of ircraft and
pilots, was known publicly as the 1st Weather xeconnaissance
Squadron, Provisional (WRSP-1). The "provisional" designation
gave the U-2 detachments greater security because provisional Air
Force units did not have to report to higher headquarters. WRSP-1,
known within the Agency as Detachment A, began deploying
)n 29 April 1956. By 4 May. all of the detachment s
, personnel and equipment, including aircraft, had arrived at
Shortly after deployment, on 7 May, the National Advisory
Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) released an unclassified U-2
cover story stating that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown
by the USAF Air Weather Service to study such high-altitude phenom-
ena as the jet stream, convective clouds, temperature and wind struc-
tures at jet-stream levels, and cosmic-ray effects up to 55,000 feet.'
Ibid.. pp. 17-18 (TS Codeword).
Press Release of 7 May 1956 (U) in OSA History, chap. 7. annex 60 (TS Codeword).
UNCLASSIFIED

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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.