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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. 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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Chapter 3
129
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Ferrite beads Fiberglass member
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absorption devices for the U-2. Once these devices were installed on " Trapeze " antiradar attachments
the operational U-2s, he explained, the "majority of incidents would to the U-2
be undetected.""
Work on methods of reducing the U-2's vulnerability to radar de-
tection had begun in the fall of 1956 as the result of President
Eisenhower's disenchantment with the overflight program following
Soviet detection and tracking of the first series of U-2 missions
as condu
this research under a project codenamed RAINBOW.
formerly of MIT, coiied the
theories of Harvard h sicist Edward Purcell into systems that could
be used on aircraft. radar-deception system consisted of a series
of attachments to t -2. First bamboo poles and later fiberglass
rods were attached to the wings, where they would not interfere with
the control surfaces. At the ends of these poles, completely circling
" Andrew J. Goodpaster. Memorandum of Conference with the President. 6 May 1957
(TS); "Record of Action—Meeting of May 6. 1957," WHOSS, Alpha, DDEL (TS).
ED 129581.6(dUll>111<25Yrs
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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.