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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. 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…
" Mission folder 6011 (I March 1958), OSA records TS
Codeword).
[012958 1.6(0[11>1010.101010<25Yrs
IS)
On 5 March 1958, the Soviet Union delivered a vigorous protest
concerning this mission, prompting President Eisenhower to tell
Colonel Goodpaster on 7 March to inform the CIA that U-2 flights
were to be -discontinued, effective at once." 95 This standdown was
to last more than 16 months, until July 1959. The Soviets had not
been fooled by the antiradar devices carried by mission 6011, as was
demonstrated by the detailed information about the mission contained
in a Soviet aide-memoire delivered on 21 April 1958. It was clear that
dirty bird aircraft were not effective and that Soviet radar operators
had little difficulty in tracking them. At this point, the Agency aban-
doned the use of the antiradar devices on the U-2. As a substitute,
Lockheed began working to develop a paint with radar-suppressant
qualities, but this project also proved unsuccessful.
The U-2s were not the only cause for the Soviet protests that so
vexed the President.(
t\Ten days later the Air Force began launching balloons ae-
signed to y across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This new
balloon project (known as WS-461L) had been authorized by
President Eisenhower on 25 June after Deputy Secretary of Defense
Donald Quarles argued that a small number of balloons should be
Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record. 7 March 1958, WHOSS, Alpha,
DDEL (TS, declassified).
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.