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."
“Headquarters”18 pages
Se OFORN Chapter 163 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED to gather intelligence on the Soviet missile program. Discussions con- tinued the following day with the addition of Secretary of State Herter, who stated in support of the CIA proposal that "the intelli- gence objective outweighs the danger of getting trapped." The strong backing of the proposed overflight by both CIA and the State Department finally convinced President Eisenhower to approve the mission." On 9 July 1959, more than 16 months after the previous over- flight of the Soviet Union, a U-2 equipped with a B camera flew over the Urals, and then crossed the missile test range at iyuratam. This mission, known as Operation TOUCHDOWN, produced excellent results. Its photography revealed that the Soviets were, expanding the launch facilities at Tyuratam. While this overflight was under way, another U-2 flew a diversionary mission along the Soviet-Iranian border.'° Despite its success, this overflight remained an isolated incident. President Eisenhower was unwilling to authorize additional over- flights of the Soviet Union, in part because he did not wish to increase tension before Premier Khrushchev's visit to the United States sched- uled for 15-27 September 1959. Nevertheless, the President still wanted as much intelligence on the Soviet missile program as possi- ble. Because the Soviets were conducting an extensive program of missile tests in mid-1959, Eisenhower authorized a steady stream of the less provocative electronic intelligence (ELINT)-gathering mis- sions (14 in all) along the Soviet border during the remainder of the year." Within the United States, concern about the Soviet missile pro- gram continued to grow. On 12 September 1959 the Soviets scored another space success when their Luna 2 rocket reached the moon, and Khrushchev stressed this success when he arrived in the United States three days later. He also boasted of Soviet missile progress in private conversations with President Eisenhower, while making no " Andrew J. Goodpaster, Memorandum for the Record. 7 July 1959 (TS): dem. Memorandum of Conference with the President. 8 July 1959, WHOSS, Alpha. DDEL (TS). Mission folder 4125 (9 July 1959). OSA records (TS Codeword). " USA History, chap. 19, annex 120. pp. 12-14 (TS Codeword). E0129511.6[Ell>10<25Yrs (S) UNCLASSIFIED
Not linked to a story yet.
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.