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."
“Sea”17 pages
Chapter 3 135 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED DETACHMENT B FLIGHTS The most important series of overflights in the summer of 1957 were those that Detachment B staged to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union's guided missile and nuclear programs. President Eisenhower had a roved these overflights at the meetin a on 6 Ma 1957 (0 12958 1.6(dli1l>10101010425Yrs (Si rouu t in eta t pi ots an ground crews to prepare or missions over the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 4 August (Operation SOFT TOUCH). During a 23-day period, these aircraft made nine flights: seven over the USSR and two over the PRC. Although one of the seven flights over the USSR was a failure because the camera malfunctioned after taking only 125 exposures, the remaining mis- sions over Central Asia were a complete success, producing a bo- nanza of information that kept scores of photointerpreters busy for more than a year.8- The 5 August flight, a dirty bird piloted by was the first to photograph the major Soviet space launch taciitty east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was certain just where the range was located, so the U-2 pilot followed the rail lines in the area. As a result, the plane did not pass directly over the rangehead and obtained only oblique photography. Although known in the West today as Tyuratam, this missile in- stallation had no name when it was first photographed in August 1957. In preparation for a briefing to President Eisenhower on the SOFT TOUCH photography, Dino Brugioni, an assistant to PID chief Arthur Lundahl, examined all the existing maps of the area to see if he could find a place name for the missile base. Only one map, made by the Germans during World War II, showed a community in the vi- cinity of the missile facility. The settlement's name was Tyuratam, which means "arrow burial ground" in the Kazakh language, and this OSA History, chap. 12, pp. 19-20 (TS Codeword); NPIC History, vol. I. pp. 159-161 (S). UNCLASSIFIED [012058 1.6(n111>10<25Yrs IS]
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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.