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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. 24 …Instead of a conventional landing gear, Johnson proposed using two skis and a reinforced belly rib…
  • p. 25 …a perceived shortcoming of the Lockheed design."' Another factor in the rejection of Kelly Johnson's…
  • p. 26 …interview by Donald E. Welzenbach, Corona del Mar. California. 20 May 1985 (S). Johnson, "Log for…
  • p. 27 …Gardner described Kelly Johnson's proposal and showed the drawings to Strong. After this meeting. Strong…
  • p. 30 …To make Kelly Johnson's revolutionary design a reality, one additional source of support was necessary…
  • p. 42 …When James Killian asked Land to head Project Three, Land had to make a major decision…
  • p. 48 …do the job in Johnson's airplane. And further, 1 overlaid a curve showing that with…
  • p. 57 …demanding, and Kelly Johnson agreed that such a move would save a lot of money. Lockheed…
  • p. 58 …a week after he had been authorized to begin the project, Kelly Johnson wrote a 23…
  • p. 69 …project staff) flew LIZ with Kelly Johnson in a small Beechcraft plane piloted by eed's…
  • p. 72 …This responsibility has placed a heavy burden on the Office of Security for establishing procedures to…
  • p. 79 …Batlin suggested the method used by Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, a thin glass ampule containing…
  • p. 81 …Kelly Johnson used a "wet-wing" design for the U-2, which meant that fuel was…
  • p. 89 …Airspeed was such a critical factor that Kelly Johnson added a vernier adjustment to the throttle…
  • p. 162 …By late 1957, Johnson agreed that something had to be done. After a series of tests…
  • p. 276 RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen…
  • p. 324 …OXCART did win a temporary reprieve in late November 1967. The Johnson administration decided to keep…
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Chapter 4
181
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Eisenhower stated that overflights had been suspended and would not
be resumed, but he refused to make a formal apology. At that point
the summit ended, as did all hopes for a visit to the Soviet Union by
President Eisenhower.
THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE
OVERSEAS DETACHMENTS
The loss of Powers' U-2 ultimately resulted in the end of Detachment
B in Turkey. As soon as the Development Projects Division learned
that Powers was alive in Soviet hands, it immediately evacuated the
protect the secret of their involvement in
the project. Froject °mails hoped that flights might eventually re-
sume from Adana, but President Eisenhower's order ending over-
flights of the Soviet Union made this very unlikely. Less than four
weeks later, a coup ousted the government of Turkish Premier Acinan
Menderes on the night of 27 May 1960. Because the new government
had not been briefed on the U-2, Project Headquarters refused to al-
low any U-2 flights from Adana, even those necessary for maintain-
ing the aircraft's airworthiness. As a result, no more U-2s flew out of
Adana. Instead of being ferried home, three of the four remaining,
U-2s were disassembled and loaded aboard C-124 cargo planes for
the return trip to the United States.1n
The fourth U-2 remained inside a hangar at Incirlik airbase for
several years, looked after by a skeleton crew, in case the Adana in-
stallation needed to be reactivated. Finally the decision was made to
close down the Adana U-2 facility. During Detachment B's 44 months
of active existence, 21 pilots had flown its aircraft, includin
and three pilots transferred from the deacti
etachthëiifA. Fourteen Detachment B pilots were later assigned to
other U-2 detachments, but the closing down of Detachment B marked
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[SI
The loss of Powers' U-2, the resultant failure of the Paris
Summit, and the end of U-2 operations in Turkey were just the first in
a series of setbacks for the U-2 program. On 8 July 1960, the
OSA History. chap. 12. pp. 46-47 ITS Codeword).
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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.