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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. 11 …At great risk, US Air Force and Navy aircraft had been conducting peripheral reconnaissance and shallow…
  • p. 16 …As a result, in the late 1940s, the US Air Force and Navy began trying to…
  • p. 17 …Two months later, on 7 October 1952, Soviet fighter aircraft stalked and shot down a US…
  • p. 72 …agreement with the Air Force and the Navy (which at that time was also interested in…
  • p. 147 …turned to the Navy, which granted permission for Detachment C to use the Naval Air Station…
  • p. 180 …The Army, Navy, and CIA, however, doubted that any had been deployed, because none could be…
  • p. 223 …by Air Force and Navy reconnais- sance aircraft. President Kennedy used NPIC photographs to illustrate his…
  • p. 273 …Charyk, and his Navy counterpart, Garrison Norton. Designers from several air- craft manufacturers also attended some…
  • p. 283 …This engine had originally been developed for the Navy's large, jet-powered flying boat, the…
  • p. 297 …The need for additional buildings on the base was met by the Navy. Three surplus Navy…
  • p. 298 …After hearing Bissell and Holcomb's suggestion that the J58 might be used in future Navy…
Noronai
Chapter 3
139
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
nuclear device. These photographs also revealed evidence of a recent,
low-yield, above-ground nuclear test I
On its way to Semipalatinsk, the 21 August mission flew a
search pattern over the western end of Lake Balkash looking for an-
other Soviet missile-related installation and made the first photo-
graphs of what was later determined to be the new missile test center
at Saryshagan. This facility was used to test radars against incoming
missiles fired from Kapustin Yar, 1,400 miles to the west. Saryshagan
later became the center for the development of the Soviet Union's ad-
vanced antiballistic missile (ABM) weapon system.
On 23 August 1957, DDCI Cabe11, Richard Bissell, and Air
Force Chief of Staff Twining met with President Eisenhower to report
on the results of Operation SOFT TOUCH. They showed the
President some of the photographic results of the earlier missions and
reported on the effects of the antiradar measures. Although the
antiradar measures had not proved successful, the photographic yield
from the missions was extremely valuable. Bissell then informed the
President that the SOFT TOUCH operation was just about to con-
clude with the transfer of the aircraft back to Adana. He asked per-
mission for one of the U-2s to make another overflight of the Soviet
Union on this return trip, but the President denied the request, not
wishing to conduct any more overflights than were necessary:°
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" Mission folder 4045 (20 August 1957) and 4050 (21 August 1957), OSA records
TS Codeword).
Andrew .1. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record, 23 August 1957, WHOSS, Alpha,
DDEL (TS).
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.