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."
“The Advance”26 pages
RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen-powered aircraft (the CL-400). The committee examined two other Kelly Johnson designs at this meeting—a tailless subsonic aircraft with a very-low-radar cross sec- tion (the G2A) and a new supersonic design (the A-2)—and did not accept either one, the former because of its slow speed and the latter because of its dependence on exotic fuels for its ramjets and its over- all high cost. The committee approved the continuation of Convair's work on a ramjet-powered Mach 4.0 "parasite" aircraft that would be launched from a specially configured version of the B-58B bomber. The design was termed a parasite because it could not take off on its own but needed a larger aircraft to carry it aloft and accelerate it to the speed required to start the ramjet engine. The Convair design was called the FISH.' Two months later, after reviewing the Convair proposal and yet another Lockheed design for a high-speed reconnaissance aircraft (the A-3), the Land committee concluded in late November 1958 that it would indeed be feasible to build an aircraft whose speed and altitude would make radar tracking difficult or impossible. The committee, therefore, recommended that DCI Dulles ask President Eisenhower to approve further pursuit of the project and to provide funds for addi- tional studies and tests.6 On 17 December 1958, Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell briefed the President on the progress toward a successor to the U-2. Also present were Land and Purcell from the advisory committee, Presidential Science Adviser James Killian, and Air Force Secretary Donald Quarles. DCI Dulles reviewed the results of the U-2 missions to date and stated his belief that a successor to the U-2 could be used all over the world and "would have a much greater invulnerability to detection." Bissell then described the two competing projects by Lockheed and Convair, noting that the chief question at the moment was whether to use air launch or ground takeoff. The next phase, he add- ed, would be detailed engineering, at the end of which it was pro- posed that 12 aircraft be ordered at a cost of about $100 million. (01295111.6(dlill>111<25Yrs (Si OSA History, chap. 20, p. 8 (TS Codeword); September 1958. "OSA Chronology. p. 21 (TS Codeword) History, chap. 20, p. 8 (TS Cocleword); Jo "OXCART Story," p. 3 (S); OSA hangel log," 12 November 1958. ""SecztL 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.