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. 18 …Leghorn persuaded his superiors to submit his suggestion to the . Pentagon for funding. He had not…
  • p. 20 …Meanwhile Leghorn, frustrated by the rejection of his original concept, had transferred to the Pentagon in…
  • p. 22 …become the assistant director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Program, was in the Pentagon on business…
  • p. 24 …for the construction and maintenance of 30 aircraft to a group of senior Pentagon officials that…
  • p. 26 …He had been present at Kelly Johnson's presentation on the CL-282 at the Pentagon…
  • p. 27 …with Strong in the Pentagon on 12 May 1954. six days before the Wright Air Development…
  • p. 52 …Late on the morning of 2 December 1954, Dulles told Bissell to go to the Pentagon…
  • p. 91 …1-le then briefed a high-level Pentagon panel that included the Secretary of the Air…
  • p. 92 …After a half hour passed, the base commander called the Pentagon to ask where the crippled…
"--ggettrt-NCIEQBa
Chapter 3
129
Chordwise wire I Spanwise wire
Ferrite beads Fiberglass member
Sbet
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
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
(Si
UNCLASSIFIED

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

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.