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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. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …with a boiling point of 300T at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting --soarer UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal…
  • p. 102 …working on a cover story for over- seas operations. It was important to have a plausible…
  • p. 120 …neanteagon • 724744 (8009071 4-92 Finland Baltic Sea ükranian Italy ROME IUMIS Tunisia Mediterranean Sea UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. 'I here were a total of nine DB…
  • p. 148 …space launch taciitty east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 215 …F"••• N. ' :\ ■ Caribbean Sea Ceyrnen Islands M FL) .r, Unttad ) ' ^ Gulf of Mexico NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN…
  • p. 216 …Isle of P,floo Caribbean Sea ••• Corn. Islands IWO Janss — 200 kilometers 100 200 Miles ".! SgsgalgOidaRte…
  • p. 217 SAM Sites in Cuba, August 1962 Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico NORTH A TLANTIC OCEAN 9…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
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 under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.