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."
“Edwards Air Force Base”5 pages
SNwizt sage read CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED "gerilT14415CLINS. Chapter 4 176 E0 12958 1.61d1111>10101045Yrs EO 12958 1.6181111>10<25Yrs 181 as they tuned from one prearranged fre- quency to me omen rnen -one of the perators decided to tune in the guard frequency where the MorSeTTaiSrniSSiOn was stron- gest. He was able to discern a break in the letters, making the mes- realized this itie cietacnment cnier, Col. William Shelton, wno naa oeen waning anxiously insidethe radio van for a "Go" or "No Go" message, leaped from the van and ran across the field to give the signal for takeoff to Powers, who was sitting in the U-2C at the end of the runway.' Powers started his takeoff roll at 0159Z on 1 May 1960. Once airborne, Powers guided his aircraft toward Afghanistan. Following standard operating procedure, Powers clicked his radio switch when he reached penetration altitude of 66,000 feet, which signaled the op- erations unit ati--Ithat everything aboard the aircraft was working and the mission would proceed as planned. Aside from this simple signal, Powers and all U-2 pilots maintained strict radio si- lence during penetration missions. Powers' first target was the Tyuratarn Missile Test Range after which he headed for Chelyabinsk, just south of Sverdlovsk. The planned route would take him over Kyshtym, Sverdlovsk, northwest to Kirov, north over Yur'ya and Plesetsk, then to Severodvinsk, north- west to Kandalaksha, north to Murmansk, and, finally, May Day turned out to be a bad time to overfly the Soviet Union. On this major holiday, there was much less Soviet military air traffic than usual, so Soviet radars could easily identify and track Powers' U-2. In addition, the Soviets responded to the intrusion by ordering a ban on civilian air traffic in a large portion of the Soviet Union. Soviet radar began tracking the U-2 when it was still 15 miles south of the Soviet-Afghan border and continued to do so as the air- craft flew across the Central Asian republics. When Powers reached the Tashkent area, as many as 13 Soviet interceptor aircraft scrambled in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept his plane. Powers never made it past Sverdlovsk. Four and a half hours into the mission, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile detonated close to and just behind his aircraft and disabled it 70,500 feet above the Sverdlovsk 'Message Received—Unfortunately. - Studies in Intelligence 27 ( inter 1963):2s, UNCLASSIFIED
Not linked to a story yet.
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.