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."

  • p. 6 …Project OXCART, 1956-1968 The Evaluation of Designs for a Successor to the U-2 260…
  • p. 22 …retired from the Air Force to become the assistant director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Program…
  • p. 24 ORN Chapter 1 11 Kelly Johnson %.419r.,‹ 005653421 UNCLASSIFIED gravity (g's) instead of the military…
  • p. 27 …He later advanced to the rank of brigadier general in the reserve. For Strong's contacts…
  • p. 32 …lithium deuteride, a tech- nology more advanced than the heavy water method used by US BEACON…
  • p. 33 …between the developed and undeveloped nations. This aggressive Soviet foreign policy, combined with advances in nuclear…
  • p. 58 …secrecy in the new project, Kelly Johnson placed it in Lockheed's Advanced Development facility at…
  • p. 65 …His software algorithms made it possible to model lens designs and determine in advance the effects…
  • p. 76 …UNCLASSIFIED """"Igeret-ALQ Chapter 2 63 advanced gear for the U-2 pilots. David Clark expert…
  • p. 111 …of Soviet advances in long-range bombers and missiles. The initial sighting of the new Soviet…
  • p. 114 …Adenauer be informed in advance of US plans to overfly the Soviet Union from bases in…
  • p. 174 …concentrating on developing the more advanced solid-fueled missiles rather than increasing the num- ber of…
  • p. 191 …the cover story that had been prepared and distributed in advance of the mission. The first…
  • p. 250 …so urgent that the Defense Department finally re ente CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Advanced ECM Equipment for Demand…
  • p. 265 …the U-2R needed a camera that incorporated the many im- portant advances that had occurred…
  • p. 266 …This camera was actually a very advanced version of the original B camera with a new…
  • p. 282 …aircraft from the small inventory of its most advanced bomber. Even had the B-58B program…
  • p. 295 …In fact, it was an advanced version of the highly reliable B camera developed for the…
  • p. 307 …he an- nounced the successful development of an -advanced experimental jet aircraft, the A-11. which…
  • p. 310 …It was now time to find work for the most advanced aircraft ever conceived and built…
  • p. 321 …advanced aircraft ever built was to be put out to pasture. The aban- donment of the…
  • p. 325 …when the OXCART program ended in the summer of 1968, no more advanced successor was wait…
  • p. 326 …The most advanced aircraft of the 20th century had become an anachronism before it was ever…
  • p. 333 …ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY One very important byproduct of the CIA's manned reconnaissance program was the…
  • p. 334 …the end of the usefulness of the world's most advanced aircraft; its offspring, the SR…
  • p. 335 …Thus, the CIA sponsored the development of the world's most advanced aircraft—the OXCART—and…
" Killian interview (S); Land interview (TS Codeword); Richard M. Bissell to John A.
McCone. 7 February 1962. DC! records S).
ret
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
-9e•••44412Eaati„.
Chapter 4
192
months as the Deputy Director for Plans, Bissell found himself in-
volved in a major struggle with Killian and Land, who were serving
on President Kennedy's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (succes-
sor to the Eisenhower administration's President's Board of
Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities). These two influential
Presidential advisers strongly advocated removing the Agency's over-
head reconnaissance programs from the DDP and placing them in a
new, science-oriented directorate, but Bissell resisted this proposal.
With his position in the Agency becoming increasingly untenable.
Bissell resigned on 17 February 1962, after turning down an offer
from the new DCI, John A. McCone, to become the CIA's first
Deputy Director for Research:6
Two days after Bissell's departure, the new Directorate came
into existence, and it absorbed all of the Development Projects
Division's special reconnaissance projects. Only conventional air sup-
port for the Clandestine Services remained with the DDP in the new
Special Operations Division. The U-2 program was no longer con-
nected with covert operations.
EO 129581.61dll11>10<25Yrs
'Si
The first half of 1962 was a confusing period for the
Development Projects Division. After losing the individual who had
created and supervised it for seven years, the DPD also lost its feeling
of autonomy when it was transferred from its own building to the new
CIA Headquarters at Langley. Soon afterward, Col. Stanley W. Beerli,
who had headed the DPD since 1960, returned to the Air Force. Then
on 30 July 1962, the overhead reconnaissance projects underwent a
major reorganization with the formation of the new Office of Special
Activities (OSA) to replace the DPD. The original organization of
OSA with 10 division or staff heads reporting directly to the director
of the office (at that time known as the Assistant Director for Special
Activities) proved too cumbersome, and, on 30 September 1962, a re-
organization divided most of these offices between two major
subordinates, the Deputy for Technology and the Deputy for Field
Activities (see chart, page 193). The Office of Special Activities
(OSA) continued to control reconnaissance activities and related re-
search and development after the Directorate of Research was en-
larged and renamed the Deputy Directorate for Science and
Technology (DDS&T) on 5 August 1963 (along with the other
UNCLASSIFIED

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

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.