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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. 12 …later, at press conferences in February and July 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson revealed the existence…
  • p. 40 …MIT Press. 1977), p. 68: Beschloss, Maplay, p. 74: TCP Report. pp. 185-186 (S). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 98 …The Soviet Union sent strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations from…
  • p. 102 …not only press releases and the public line to be taken, but also the suspension of…
  • p. 107 …The "provisional" designation gave the U-2 detachments greater security because provisional Air Force units did…
  • p. 112 …at a press conference that the Soviet Union might be ahead of the United States in…
  • p. 125 …Dial Press, 1982), pp. 45-47. Lundahl and Brugioni interview (TS Codeword). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 174 …McElroy stressed that the gap would be temporary and that at its end the United States…
  • p. 195 …in the press about the presence of "spyplanes" on Japanese territory, asked the United States to…
  • p. 198 …DCI records (S). " United States Congress, Senate. Foreign Relations Committee, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign…
  • p. 307 …By 1962 the United States had become aware of the effectiveness of a new Soviet radar…
  • p. 315 …To preserve the secrecy of the OXCART program, the Air Force informed the press that an…
  • p. 328 …at times when the press and Congress alleged that the United States was falling behind the…
  • p. 362 …MIT Press, 1977. Kistiakowsky. George B. A Scientist at the White House. Cambridge: Harvard University Press…
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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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.