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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…
" 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.