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. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …with a boiling point of 300T at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting --soarer UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal…
  • p. 102 …working on a cover story for over- seas operations. It was important to have a plausible…
  • p. 120 …neanteagon • 724744 (8009071 4-92 Finland Baltic Sea ükranian Italy ROME IUMIS Tunisia Mediterranean Sea UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. 'I here were a total of nine DB…
  • p. 148 …space launch taciitty east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 215 …F"••• N. ' :\ ■ Caribbean Sea Ceyrnen Islands M FL) .r, Unttad ) ' ^ Gulf of Mexico NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN…
  • p. 216 …Isle of P,floo Caribbean Sea ••• Corn. Islands IWO Janss — 200 kilometers 100 200 Miles ".! SgsgalgOidaRte…
  • p. 217 SAM Sites in Cuba, August 1962 Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico NORTH A TLANTIC OCEAN 9…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
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The Eisenhower administration viewed the developments in the
eastern Mediterranean with great concern. To keep the President and
Secretary of State abreast of developments in the area, Deputy
Director for Intelligence Robert Amory established on 12 September
a multiagency group known as the PARAMOUNT Committee to
monitor the situation on a round-the-clock basis. The PARAMOUNT
Committee worked inside PID headquarters in the Steuart Building.
Composed of members from CIA, State, NSA, Army, Navy, and Air
Force, this committee met daily—frequently several times a day—to
produce reports based on information obtained from U-2 photogra-
phy, communications and electronic intelligence, and agents. The
photointerpreters working for the PARMOUNT committee also came
from several agencies: the CIA, the Army, and the Navy.46
Mission folders 1104 (29 August 1956) and 1105 (29 August 1956), OSA records,
TS Codeword).
Lundahl and Brugioni interview (TS Codeword): NPIC History, vol. I, pp. 56-58 (S).
NP1C History, vol. I. pp. 47-49, 54-56 (S).
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.