Documents / FOIA release

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."

Open the PDF at page 184 Original source ↗

“Headquarters”18 pages

  • p. 22 …Bell was still being developed.'' Air Force headquarters soon approved Martin's proposal to mod- ify…
  • p. 55 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED E0129581.6(dlill>10<25Yrs ISI personnel divided among project headquarters, a US test…
  • p. 73 …On 3 August 1955, Dulles and Twining met at SAC headquarters in Omaha to sign the…
  • p. 74 …Speech given by Richard Bissell at CIA Headquarters, 12 October 1965 (TS Codeword). " Brig. Gen. Leo…
  • p. 102 …U-2 project officer, the Air Force Headquarters project officer, and NACA's top official, Dr…
  • p. 107 …did not have to report to higher headquarters. WRSP-1, known within the Agency as Detachment…
  • p. 117 …Late on the evening of 3 July, Bissell went to project headquarters in the Matomic Building…
  • p. 127 …The PARAMOUNT Committee worked inside PID headquarters in the Steuart Building. Composed of members from CIA…
  • p. 138 …and prom tly reported the conversation to headquarters. When details of close call reached Washington, James…
  • p. 153 …of Detachment A achieved excellent results, project headquarters had already decided that Western Europe was not…
  • p. 194 …Because the new government had not been briefed on the U-2, Project Headquarters refused to…
  • p. 205 …its own building to the new CIA Headquarters at Langley. Soon afterward, Col. Stanley W. Beerli…
  • p. 312 …that the performance of an A-12 with 175 engines (as suggested by project headquarters for…
  • p. 319 …12958 1.61111111>1010<25Yrs (Si Project Headquarters in Langley_planned and directed all operational BLACK…
  • p. 323 …Project headquarters informed Deputy Defense Secretary Vance on 10 January 1967 that the A- 12s would…
  • p. 324 …President Johnson con- firmed this decision on 21 May.'" - - Project headquarters selected 8 June 1968 as…
  • p. 334 …Air Force personnel served at all levels of the recon- naissance program, from project headquarters to…
  • p. 365 …Speech given by Richard Bissell at CIA Headquarters, 12 October 1965 (Top Secret Codeword). Interview with…
Chapter 4
171
SA-2 surface-to-air missile
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005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
strengthened when the Soviet Union did not protest the 9 April mis-
sion. As Presidential science adviser George Kistiakowsky later re-
marked about the lack of protest, "This was virtually inviting us to
repeat the sortie."2'
Although President Eisenhower had authorized another over-
flight for April, he left the designation of its targets up to the experts
at the CIA. Of the three missions that remained under consideration.
one—Operation SUN SPOT—would overfly southern targets,
Tyuratam and Vladimirovka, while the other two would cover rail-
road networks in the north-central portion of the Soviet Union. The
intelligence community had been interested in this area ever since late
1959, when there were indications that the Soviets were building an
SS-6 launch facility there. This was the first indication that SS-6s
might be located anywhere other than Tyuratam testing facility, where
the missiles were launched from a general purpose launching pad.
The intelligence community was anxious to obtain photography of a
George B. Kistiakowsky. A Scientist at the White House (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. 1976), p. 328.
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.