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."
“Nevers”24 pages
Secret Chapter 6 260 (0 12958 1.61O1l>10.425Yrs IS) 005653421 UNCLASSIFIED altitudes of 80,000 to 90,000 feet but only at subsonic speeds, just enough to keep it airborne.' The slow-flying Northrop design did not solve the problem of radar detection, and in 1957 the emphasis switched to supersonic de- signs. In August 1957, the Scientific Engineering Institute (SEI), firm that had been working on ways to reduce tie U-2 's vuineraDnity to radar, began to investigate the possibility of designing an aircraft with a very small radar cross section. SEI soon discovered that supersonic speed greatly reduced the chances of de- tection by radar." From this point on, the CIA's attention focused in- creasingly on the possibility of building an aircraft that could fly at both extremely high speeds and high altitudes while incorporating the best ideas in radar-absorbing or radar-deflecting techniques. (012958 1.6Idlill>10<25Yrs IS) THE EVALUATION OF DESIGNS FOR A SUCCESSOR TO THE U-2 By the autumn of 1957, Bissell and Gibbs had collected so many ideas for a successor to the U-2 that Bissell asked DCI Dulles for per- mission to establish an advisory committee to assist in the selection process. Bissell also felt that the support of a committee of prominent scientists and engineers would prove useful when it came time to ask for funding for such an expensive project. Edwin Land became the chairman of the new committee, which included some of the scien- tists and engineers who had served on previous advisory bodies for overhead reconnaissance: Edward Purcell, Allen F. Donovan, H. Guyford Stever, and Eugene P. Kiefer. The Air Force's chief scientist, Courtland D. Perkins, was also a member. The committee first met in November 1957 and held six more meetings between July 1958 and the late summer of 1959. The meetings usually took place in Land's Boston office and almost always included the Air Force's Assistant Secretary for Research and Development, Dr. Joseph V. Charyk, and his Navy counterpart, Garrison Norton. Designers from several air- craft manufacturers also attended some of the meetings.' Donovan interview (S). The OXCART Story," Studies in Intelligence 15 (Winter 1971):2 (S). 'Clarence L. Johnson, Report No. SP-1362, "History of the OXCART Program," Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. 1 July 1968, p. 1 (TS Codeword). 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.