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."
“United Press”14 pages
- EO 129581.61[11111›1010<25Yrs IS] CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED ""t Chapter 3 100 long-range area." 17 Fears of Soviet missile progress increased when Nikita Khrushchev stated on 23 April 1956, "I am quite sure that we shall have very soon a guided missile with a hydrogen-bomb warhead which could hit any point in the world." 18 Faced with growing Congressional and public anxiety over Soviet offensive capabilties, President Eisenhower approved the pro- posed overflight program. Colonel Goodpaster relayed this decision to Bissell, Land, and Killian at a meeting on 21 June. The President nevertheless maintained tight control over the program and authorized only 10 days of overflights when operations over the Soviet Union were ready to start in early July (956." FIRST OVERFLIGHTS OF EASTERN EUROPE The CIA initiated U-2 flights over hostile territory even before the President granted final approval for overflights of the Soviet Union. After consulting with the Commander of US Air Force Europe, Richard Bissell used existing Presidential permission for Air Force overflights of the Soviet Union's East European satellites as his au- thority to plan a mission over Poland and East Germany. Bissell had informed the President of his intention to conduct such missions in the "AQUATONE Operational Plan" submitted on 31 May. The first operational use of a U-2 took place on Wednesday, 20 June 1956.flew a U-2 equipped with an A-2 camera over o an an ast ermany. At the end of the mis- sion, Detachment A immediately rushed the exposed film to the United States for processing. The developed film arrived at the Photo-Intelligence Division (RID) on 22 June 1956. RID personnel considered the pictures obtained by mission 2003 to be of good quality:2n " Robert Hotz, "Firing of 900-Mile Russian Missile Spurs US Changes, - Aviation Week, 20 February 1956, P. 27. "Is Russia Really Ahead in Missile Race?." US News and World Report, 4 May 1956. 34. OSA History, chap. II, pp. 27-29 (TS Codeword): A. J. Goodpaster. Memorandum for the Record, 21 June 1956. WHOSS, Alpha, DDEL (TS). OSA History, chap. II, p. 27 (TS Codeword); Mission folder 2003 (20 June 1956), OSA records .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.