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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. 195 …were consolidated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1Detachment G now comprised eight…
  • p. 222 …CIA's U-2 Detachment at Edwards Air Force Base on 11 October, and the CIA…
  • p. 234 …were incorporated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This detachment was now…
  • p. 269 …s Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base could deploy air- craft nd begin filming the…
  • p. 308 Chapter 6 295 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED these aircraft were hastily flown to Edwards Air Force Base. From…
Chapter 4
167
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the Soviet Union.\
'the excellent pnotograpny Tram
this mission did not reveal a single missile site, but analysts did dis-. . -
cover a new Soviet bomber, dubbed the BACKFIN, at Kazan'.16
Despite the outcome of this mission, the missile-gap debate con-
tinued. The Air Force still insisted that the Soviets had deployed as
many as 100 missiles. The Army, Navy, and CIA, however, doubted
that any had been deployed, because none could be found. Additional
U-2 photography was needed to settle the debate. In mid-February,
President Eisenhower reviewed plans for four additional U-2 mis-
sions.
ma se t e rest ent more wi mg to coast e
and he agreed to allow one mission to be
flown aunng me momn 01 ivlarch. The President's continued restric-
tions upon the use of the U-2 disturbed DCI Dulles, who sent a memo-
randum to the National Security Council on 1 March 1960 asserting
that the cardinal objective of obtaining information on Soviet missile
deployment could be better achieved if the U-2 were given freer rein:7
" Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, p. 568; Beschloss, Mayday, p. 233.
Mission folder 8009 (5 February 1960), OSA records. TS
Codeword); OSA Chronology, p. 23 (TS Codeword).
OSA Chronology. p. 25 (TS Codeword)1 /-The President's Board:
1956-60. - Studies in Intelligence 13 (Summer 19691:118 (3).
UNCLASSIFIED

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.